Idaho family sues after son dies in recalled Toyota

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.ktvb.com/news/localnews/stories/ktvbn-mar2509-toyota_recall_suit.6f1ed5ab.html

Idaho family sues after son dies in recalled Toyota

10:30 AM MDT on Thursday, March 26, 2009

Fairfield- When there's a potential problem with a vehicle -- especially one that affects the safety of your family -- do car makers do enough to alert consumers?

A small town idaho man is taking on a big time auto manufacturer over that very question.

The ultimate answer could impact drivers nationwide. snip

Levi Stewart died from his injuries. Three months after the fatal accident - Mike Stewart received a recall notice from Toyota, warning him that his 1991 truck may have a defect - involving the steering relay rod.

"At first I thought it was a mistake," Stewart said. snip

Kristensen says Toyota knew about steering relay rod problems since at least 1996 - problems they were obligated to report to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

“They either purposely misled NHTSA or they're completely incompetent of tracking their own vehicles,” Kristensen said. “It's one or the other.”

[atreides1]

1. link not working.

[NNN0LHI]

6. It just worked for me first click?

[TwilightGardener]

2. How do they know it wasn't just an inexperienced teen driver (with alcohol in his system)

who caused the accident?

[gratuitous]

4. Oh, well that should certainly absolve Toyota of any liability

They can manufacture vehicles to any standards they want as long as they can blame the dead victim of their faulty design. Your concern is touching.

[TwilightGardener]

10. Why get snotty? I just didn't see any confirmation in the article that

the recall problem was the primary cause. It has nothing to do with "emotion" or "concern". I like facts first.

[Tempest]

5. Did you even bother to read the story?

The steering rod broke which caused the truck to crash.

The recall was for *drum roll* the steering rod.

[Occam Bandage]

8. The article does not claim the steering rod broke.

The article claims the family's lawyer claims the steering rod broke. Those are very different things.

[merh]

9. Years ago I worked on a criminal case where the defendant was

charged with vehicular manslaughter because he had been drinking before the accident.

Our client was known to drink and drive, he had beers before he got behind the wheel. As he was driving his truck along a 4 lane bridge something happened - his truck struck the ford escort in front of him. The escort jumped the center barrier and was struck by cars traveling in the opposite direction. The escort driver was killed instantly and her passenger was thrown from the vehicle. The car traveling in the opposite direction that struck the escort struck other cars - it was a huge pile up with more injuries.

They arrested the pickup truck driver and charged him with vehicular manslaughter.

The defendant kept telling us that the car in front of him lost control and he couldn't help but hit it, that it began to spin before he struck it. Before I began to work on the case the defense had hired an accident reconstructionist who checked out the steering and the brakes of the escort but who could find nothing wrong with either, nothing that could have caused the escort driver to lose control. In addition to the defendant's version, the passenger that survived recalled that she was looking for something in her purse when the driver suddenly exclaimed "Oh my god" - the next thing she heard was a thud followed by a second collision.

Civil suits were filed by the family of the victim and by the injured, the criminal case was prolonged and continued (problems with the jury venire, extreme publicity (the deceased was a beloved high school teacher) discovery issues, etc.) By the time I became involved most of the civil cases had settled with the defendant's insurance company, a new D.A. took office and the matter was set for trial in a different venue. The new DA provided us with copies of their entire file and that file included the Highway Patrol's offense report/investigative report completed at the scene of the accident. On that report the HP had reflected that the right front tire of the escort had no air pressure or "0 air pressure" while the other three (3) tires had air in them. This struck me as odd as it was the left front tire that took the brunt of the collision with the center cement barrier, if any of the tires were flat it should have been the left front tire.

The car was held in a salvage yard as evidence and we obtained permission of the court to go inspect it. The salvage yard man removed the right front tire and inspected it and found that it had indeed had a blow out. It was that blow out that caused the accident. The escort driver lost control of the car when that tire blew out and said "oh my god" (not, "holy shit, he's gonna hit me") - the first "thud" was when the car hit the center barrier, the second was when the pickup truck driven by the defendant struck the escort as it lost control in front of him.

The defendant was acquitted of the vehicular manslaughter. The families of the deceased and injured had "settled" their claims and so much time had gone by the statute of limitations had run on any further claims. Had the DA and the victims' attorneys properly investigated the facts and not assumed that our guy was responsible, they could have sued the tire company/retailer (deep pocket) as the husband had just purchased "new" tires for the escort and not the retread that was on the car and that had the blow out.

Yes, drinking and driving is horrible, but not all accidents are caused by drivers that have been drinking. Like the accident I described above, the accident referenced in the OP was caused by an external force and the driver was a victim of that force or mechanical failure.

[sagetea]

3. Guess What?

I received the same notice 6 wks. after I was in an accident where I lost my unborn baby. I am not suing, but I can understand them. I would never have had the accident if I knew about or had the steering rod fixed. I probably should have done something...but the trauma was just overwhelming. My 4-runner was destroyed it rolled 5 times, luckily I survived my baby didn't.

[Occam Bandage]

7. Good luck with that lawsuit.

You've got a teenage boy who loves "trucks and mud" riding with friends on back roads with alcohol in his system (which the police have declared was a factor in the crash), and you have no evidence that the truck was affected by the defect. And you're going up against an enormous corporation with infinite pockets.