Obama's NHTSA Appointee Defends Bush-era NHTSA's Performance on Runaway Toyotas

March 2, 2010 — -- After weeks of ducking the press, the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) finally spoke out in public today at a Senate hearing investigating the issue of runaway Toyotas.

NHTSA administrator David Strickland defended the agency's past investigations of sudden acceleration complaints in Toyotas, and strongly disputed assertions that Toyota was able to influence NHTSA to provide favorable terms on recalls, saying "claims Toyota has made about their influence is false."

Testifying before the Senate Commerce Committee, where he worked as an aide until January, Strickland downplayed reports of dramatic spikes in sudden acceleration complaints by Toyota Camry owners in previous years, calling them "unremarkable" because the complaints were comparable to other manufacturers on a "per-capita basis."

Strickland said that NHTSA did open investigations into the Camry complaints during the Bush administration, but was unable to find a vehicle defect. "The investigators did a full investigation top to bottom, regardless of any type of rationale or cause for sudden acceleration and they were not able to find a defect," said Strickland. "If we cannot find a defect, we cannot go forward, we will lose a case in court."

Strickland was originally scheduled to testify at last week's Toyota hearing by the House Oversight Committee, but was prevented from appearing by Dept. of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who said Strickland was unprepared to testify because he had only been on the job since early January.

Today's hearing was in front of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, where Strickland worked for eight years as a staffer and Senior Counsel and where he was "lead staff person for the oversight of NHTSA," according to the agency's web site. Despite his close ties to committee members, Strickland was sharply criticized over his defense of NHTSA's past performance on the Toyota sudden acceleration issue.

Committee chair Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D.-W.Va., called the previous investigations a "major letdown on NHTSA's part and the record clearly shows you stayed away." Rockefeller said the past investigations showed a reluctance by the agency to properly look into vehicle electronics. "They understand floor mats, they don't understand microchips," said Rockefeller.

Strickland was asked about an internal Toyota document that boasted of how the company saved $100 million dollars by successfully limiting a recall of 2007 vehicles tied to sudden acceleration complaints. "That document has absolutely no foundation," said Strickland. "The things they are claiming in that document -- is like me claiming I'm responsible for the sun rising this morning."