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| Ср, Фев 3, 2010 07:30pm TOYOTA SPECIALIST - 5209 d back | ↑↓ |
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ЕСЛИ ВАША МАШИНА ПОДЛЕЖИТ РЕKOЛУ ВАС МОГУТ ЗАСУДИТь В СЛУЧАЕ АKЦИДЕНТА, БУДьТЕ ОСТОРОЖНИ
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Lawyers advise Toyota drivers of legal danger of driving after product recall
British Toyota owners warned to stop driving immediately as accelerator fault fears grow
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* Robert Booth and Andrew Clark
* guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 3 February 2010 23.54 GMT
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A Toyota showroom in Tokyo, Japan. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi) Photograph: Shizuo Kambayashi/AP
Toyota owners in the UK and US were today warned to stop driving their cars immediately amid growing concern about the consequences of a potentially lethal accelerator fault affecting 8m vehicles worldwide.
A leading traffic and criminal lawyer urged the owners of almost 181,000 vehicles recalled by Toyota in the UK to leave them at home or face being charged with dangerous driving if the fault caused an accident.
In the US, Barack Obama's transport secretary, Ray LaHood, urged the owners of affected cars to stop driving them and "exercise caution until repairs can be made".
LaHood's statement aggravated the controversy around Toyota's unprecedented recall, which has affected 2m cars in Europe alone.
He later claimed his remark was "a mis-statement" but, alongside growing concern about drivers' legal responsibilities, the warnings to keep cars parked created extra worry for owners of the seven affected Toyota models, which include the Yaris, Corolla and Avensis.
Many have spoken of their panic as the mechanical fault caused accelerators to become stuck during high speed overtaking and cars had to be driven on to verges to slow them down.
Yesterday, Toyota insisted the affected cars remained safe to drive and added that it had now identified every vehicle with a faulty throttle.
Six days after the recall was first announced, it said it was planning to write to 180,865 British owners and arrange for their cars to be repaired at dealerships with a fix, shipped in from Japan, which the company said would take only 30 minutes to fit.
The first repairs are scheduled to begin on 10 February, but drivers are being urged by lawyers not to use their cars in order to avoid the threat of criminal and civil prosecution until then.
"If you have one of the affected Toyota models, you should not drive the car until it has been checked out," Nick Freeman, a Manchester-based traffic lawyer who has made his name defending several famous footballers in speeding cases, said.
"The recall puts you on notice that there could be a fault, which means that you assume responsibility. You could be held criminally and civilly responsible for an accident and, in the case of a fatal accident, you could be charged with death by dangerous driving. If you have one of these cars, don't drive it."
The Association of Motor Offence Lawyers said that whether the recall put drivers on notice of a specific defect was "a grey area", adding that the manufacturer could be held liable "for failing to ensure the recall was administered sufficiently quickly and efficiently to place individual vehicle owners on notice of the need to stop driving their vehicles".
Miguel Fonseca, the managing director of Toyota GB plc, insisted that the affected Toyotas remained safe to drive but admitted the company needed to "rebuild trust" with its customers.
"This is not a problem that develops suddenly," he said. "There are warning signs that will indicate that your vehicle might have a problem, such as the accelerator pedal becoming harder to depress or slow to return to its normal position.
"In the rare event that Toyota drivers notice that the accelerator pedal is hard to depress, slow to return or is unsmooth during operation, they should contact their nearest Toyota dealership."
Catherine Block, a 28-year-old student in Kent, said abandoning her car would "turn a 35-minute drive to university into a logistical nightmare".
"You might have a low impact crash and you could possibly flip it on a corner, but you can use your foot to unstick the accelerator if you have the appropriate footwear," she added.
Evidence of a possible second problem with Toyota accelerators in the UK also emerged yesterday. The Guardian learned that a Toyota dealer last year told a driver whose accelerator had got stuck while overtaking at 65mph that the problem had been caused by the rubber floor mat.
Toyota GB plc's head office subsequently told him supply of the mats had been "frozen" and that it was looking to improve the quality of the accessory.
Toyota said the problem was limited to the US, where the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration believes five people have died in crashes caused by accelerator pedals stuck in mats.
The Japanese government has also ordered Toyota to investigate a possible defect in its new Prius hybrid model after receiving 14 reports of brake trouble at low speeds.
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