The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has recently proposed a new requirement for brake override switches to be installed in all cars and light trucks that utilize an electronic throttle control system and are sold in the United States. This proposed regulation is in response to the Toyota sudden unintended acceleration (SUA) recalls in 2009 and 2010.
The brake override sensor and switch, which I have been advocating since the beginning of Toyota’s troubles, would prevent virtually all of the SUA incidents by ensuring that a runaway vehicle could be stopped, even if a driver inadvertently stepped on both the accelerator and the brake pedal.
Toyota began installing brake override switches on some of their new vehicles for 2011, although they were more than 15 years behind other auto manufacturers. In fact, NHTSA claims that this new requirement will cost manufacturers “close to zero” because the majority of car makers already meet the requirement.
Even though most manufacturers are including brake override mechanisms in their vehicles, this new standard is a good thing because it sets a minimum standard that requires an override switch and sets standards for its performance.
[More on Sudden Acceleration]
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(c) Copyright 2012 Brett A. Emison
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Brett Emison is currently a partner at Langdon & Emison, a firm dedicated to helping injured victims across the country from their primary office near Kansas City. Mainly focusing on catastrophic injury and death cases as well as complex mass tort and dangerous drug cases, Mr. Emison often deals with automotive defects, automobile crashes, railroad crossing accidents (train accidents), trucking accidents, dangerous and defective drugs, defective medical devices.
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