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Saturday, May 8, 2010

Posted by: Anthony Lim

Toyota said yesterday it now has 150 devices in North America that can read event data recorders to aid in crash investigations. Event data recorders are similar to black boxes on airplanes - they can record speed, braking, acceleration and other data to help determine the cause of crashes.

Earlier this year, the automaker had only one laptop with the software available to read the recorders in the US. The company was criticised during congressional hearings on its problems with unintended acceleration for not making more devices available.

An Associated Press investigation in Mar found that Toyota for years blocked access to data stored in event data recorders. The investigation found that Toyota has been inconsistent - and sometimes contradictory - in revealing exactly what the devices record and don't record, including critical data about whether the brake or accelerator pedals were depressed at the time of a crash.



Toyota said in a statement it has sent 10 devices to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the US and four to the Canadian government. Steve St. Angelo, Toyota's new chief quality officer for North America, said the remainder will be divided among 200 teams of engineers tasked with examining vehicles that are reported to have problems.

In the past three months since they were created, the teams have examined more than 500 cars with reported problems, St. Angelo said in an interview. In cases where unintended acceleration were reported, none of the examinations found electronics to be the cause, he said. The company also will make its black box data available to law enforcement, he said.

Toyota also said yesterday that it has fixed 3mil of its recalled vehicles to date. The fixes include repairs to fix sticky pedals, pedals that can become stuck under floor mats and faulty brakes with the Prius. - AP

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