Real Story

March 10, 2010 at 7:32 am | 2 Comments »

There’s a lot of hoopla in the mainstream media right now about the San Diego man who claims his Prius accelerated out of control on Tuesday. Too much about this story seems off in my opinon. The driver is now claiming that after the car kept accelerating on its own, he reached down and tried to pull the accelerator pedal back but it wasn’t stuck. How do you manage that trick? Is he a contortionist? More puzzling, he goes on to claim that he didn’t put the car in neutral because he was afraid to do anything that wasn’t normal. Huh? Diving down to the footwell while going 94 mph is normal but shifting the transmission to neutral, as it’s designed to do, isn’t? Something is fishy here.

I wouldn’t be surprised to find out the entire incident was staged. The AP has a story–almost no outlets have picked it up–pointing out that 89 class actions lawsuits already have been filed on behalf of Toyota owners claiming the resale value of their vehicles has declined due to the recalls. The story estimates Toyota faces a conservative $3 billion in damages. Here’s where coincidences start coming together.

On March 25, there will be a hearing by a panel of Federal judges to consider consolidating all the individual cases into one massive case. The stakes are enormous. In the 2008 settlement over Ford Explorers, plaintiff attorneys collected $25 million in cash while the owners they represented each got a $500 voucher towards the purchase of another Ford. These plaintiff attorneys who currently are making up evidence against Toyota will probably see a similar windfall.

Oh and one more item of interest. Where will this March 25 hearing take place? San Diego.

Convenient, huh?

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