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A couple of months ago, ABC's Lisa Stark brought us the horrifying crash of an out-of-control Lexus, complete with a backseat passenger's desperate cellphone call to 911 in the last seconds of his life. His last words: "Hold on! Pray!" Now Nightline files a follow-up and Brian Ross led off World News with a preview. Toyota's explanation for the crash--and 2,000 or so similar runaways caused by a jammed accelerator--was that faulty floor mats could cause the gas pedal to be stuck. The automaker ordered a recall to change the mats.
ABC's Ross was skeptical. He quoted a Transportation Department statement that the floor mat recall "is simply an interim measure not a remedy to the underlying defect." He offered the stories of a pair of runaway motorists who had correct mats when their accelerator jammed. He showed statistics that indicated that runaways increased after 2002, when Toyota installed a new electronic throttle system. And he quoted reporting by the Los Angeles Times that there may be a problem in the design of the floor and the pedal itself.
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