A thread of lies.
It's a reminder why I have cyclowizard on my ignore list, but when I browse not logged in it shows me the posts.
From his link:
NASA engineers found no electronic flaws in Toyota vehicles capable of producing the large throttle openings required to create dangerous high-speed unintended acceleration incidents. The two mechanical safety defects identified by NHTSA more than a year ago sticking accelerator pedals and a design flaw that enabled accelerator pedals to become trapped by floor mats remain the only known causes for these kinds of unsafe unintended acceleration incidents. Toyota has recalled nearly 8 million vehicles in the United States for these two defects.
His conclusion: the fines were proven baseless and should be refunded.
From his link:
# April 5, 2010: NHTSA demands the maximum, $16.375 million, civil penalty on Toyota for its failure to notify the agency of the sticky pedal defect for more than four months after discovering it. Auto manufacturers are legally obligated to notify NHTSA within five business days of determining that a safety defect exists. Toyota pays the full fine on April 19.
# December 20, 2010: Toyota agrees to pay the maximum $16.375 million civil penalty as the result of another NHTSA investigation into whether their recall of 5.5 million vehicles for pedal entrapment was conducted in a timely manner.
So, he misinterprets the article which says there were two mechanical defects and no electrical defects as saying 'Toyota did nothing wrong'.
Then he fails to post the facts about the fines proving his opinion wrong on the fines:
That one was for a violation of the notification law about one of the mechanical failures, the other for the recall for a mechanical failure not being timely.
Neither of these fines is 'proven wrong' by his link at all about there not being any mechanical failures.
Rather, it's a mindless attack on the idea of government, democracy, public safety regulation, implying the agency is a dishonest 'thief' - based on lies.
The only actual story here beyond the fact all the issue was the two mechanical issues is that the US government has a 'cap' on fines of $16 million.
This is often a very bad idea - a political sellout that lets the agencies find fault, but protects wrongdoers from any meaningful deterrent, increasing wrongdoing.
There is the sometimes-effective, sometimes not, potential deterrent of 'bad PR', but this is greatly exaggerated for the public, and the fines have an important role.
If they're reasonable large for large wrongs, they're both a better deterrent - saving a lot by preventing wrongdoing - and help save taxpayers the cost of the agency.
It doesn't sound like a good idea that no matter how badly a car company breaks the law, how much harm is caused by wrongdoing, there is a cap for the fine at $16M.
Such fines, if paid, do potentially 'hurt the consumer' - but they help the consumer far more as a deterrent and tax reducer. Without them, companies often find that wrongdoing is more profitable than not doing the wrong - the Ford example of calculating the costs of lawsuits for leaving a known defect that would kill people versus the costs of fixing it is a classic example (and an example what 'tort reform' is really about).
Business is guided by profit over morality or the public interest. A functioning elected government is the voice for the people's interests.
By functioning, I mean one that has people trying to represent the public interest, rather than one serving the big donors like the car manufactures over the public.
But our challenged citizens who have frothing, ignorant ideology making them scream against all government, lead to threads like this, and to bad voting.
This is rather a story of government working (outside the fine cap), where its rules at least DID produce the public knowing about the mechanical defects, DID produce a product safety recall to fix defects, and DID result in a quality investigation into the safety of the electronic systems, which honestly reported there were none.
This is why driving is as safe as it is, rather than letting only 'market forces' determine the safety of vehicles, where secrecy, coverups and marketing can be profitable.
A nice ad campaign about safety can outweigh any pesky facts that go largely unpublicized without the government's regulations and investigation.