SUA 78 articles

Twelve members of a high school marching band were injured, including four critically, when a parade vehicle plowed into them at the start of a Mardi Gras parade route in Gulf Shores, Alabama, Tuesday morning. The band, from Gulf Shores High School, was rounding a corner about a block before the crowds lined the street when a vehicle behind them suddenly accelerated and hit the group from behind, the Associated Press reported. Witnesses said the SUV had an “MOAA” sign on its side. Gulf Shores public information officer Grant Brown said a 73-year-old man from Gulf Shores, Alabama, was at ... Read More

A new federal law mandating rental car agencies to fix all vehicles under safety recall in their inventories before renting them to consumers has taken effect. U.S Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) chief Dr. Mark Rosekind have pushed for regulations requiring rental cars to be safe and free of any open recalls. The bill to require the recall repairs was part of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act of 2015, which Congress recently passed. “When a family picks up a rental car on vacation, they should be able to expect it is free of ... Read More

The parents of a man killed in a horrific crash involving a Toyota Yaris that allegedly sped out of control are suing the automaker, claiming sudden unintended acceleration caused the crash, which killed five people in Ontario, Calif., New Year’s Eve. Donald and Maureen Pusateri filed the wrongful death / product liability complaint June 2 in Los Angeles Superior Court, seeking unspecified damages for the loss of their son, 29-year-old Matthew Pusateri of Mission Viejo. Mr. Pusateri was traveling in a Toyota Solara with three others when a Toyota Yaris sped down an I-10 exit ramp in San Bernardino County ... Read More

A wrongful-death lawsuit has been filed against Toyota, seeking damages for the young son of a man killed when a 2015 Toyota Yaris allegedly sped out of control on a California highway and struck the vehicle he was riding in on New Year’s Eve. The horrific crash occurred when a 51-year-old woman traveling east on I-10 in San Bernardino County in a rented 2015 Toyota Yaris accelerated to nearly 100 mph, exited at the Vineyard Avenue ramp, and crashed into a Toyota Solara, killing four people. The driver of the Yaris, which she had rented for a family road trip ... Read More

ONTARIO, Calif., — A deadly New Year’s Eve crash that claimed the lives of five people in Ontario, Calif., has attracted the attention of federal transportation safety investigators after reports emerged that the offending vehicle – a Toyota Yaris – started to speed out of control. The report could reignite concerns of sudden unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles, a defect that potentially affected millions of vehicles in the U.S. as early as 2007, causing unexpected high-power acceleration and crashes. A spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) told CBS News that it sent a special crash investigations team ... Read More

Less than two months after an Oklahoma jury found that Toyota had acted with ”reckless disregard” in its response to two women injured in a sudden, unintended acceleration crash, the Japanese auto maker has decided to enter an intensive settlement process. The decision to negotiate a settlement hasn’t surprised many following Toyota’s sudden-acceleration saga. Even though it appeared the carmaker had gained some momentum fighting earlier lawsuits brought by crash victims and their families — as well as vehicle owners suffering monetary losses — the jury’s verdict in Oklahoma likely derailed Toyota’s hopes for prevailing over some 300 additional lawsuits ... Read More

A lawyer representing the family of a woman who died when her 2009 Toyota Camry sped out of control and sank into a California River hopes the case will be tried as a bellwether case ahead of about a hundred other sudden unintended acceleration lawsuits against Toyota pending litigation in California state courts. The plaintiff’s lawyer believes his client’s case, filed April 18 in Los Angeles County Superior Court, closely parallels the high-profile case of Mark Saylor, a California Highway Patrol officer who was killed with his family in August 2009 after the Lexus he was driving suddenly sped out ... Read More

In what appears to be a move to keep potentially damaging cases from trial, Toyota Motor Corp. has agreed to settle a sudden-acceleration lawsuit filed by the families of two people killed in a 2010 crash in Utah. The case had been scheduled to go to trial February 19 as the first of three bellwether cases involving runaway Toyota vehicles. The cases were selected to represent the larger body of wrongful death and personal injury litigation the Japanese auto giant faces over allegations that its vehicles contain a defect that can cause them to accelerate suddenly and unexpectedly. Details of ... Read More

Toyota Motor Corp. has agreed to pay the federal government an additional $17.35 million in fines for botching another recall of vehicles with the potential to accelerate suddenly and unexpectedly. The latest fines stem from Toyota’s failure to properly recall more than 154,000 2010 Lexus RX 350 and RX 450h sport-utility vehicles, which the company found could speed out of control if the floor mat slid out of position and trapped the accelerator pedal. A series of driver complaints alerted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Office of Defects Investigation to a trend in floor mat entrapment in the Lexus ... Read More

Toyota Motor Co. announced another giant safety recall Wednesday, this time involving 7.43 million vehicles worldwide over the risk of driver’s-side window switches that could catch fire. The recall includes about 2.5 million model-year 2007-2009 vehicles sold in the U.S. under the Toyota and Scion brand. According to Toyota, pressing the driver’s-side power window master switch (PWMS) may create a “notchy” or sticky feel. If commercially available lubricants are used to treat the switch, the switch assembly could melt, potentially leading to vehicular smoke and/or fire. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has received more than 200 reports of ... Read More