Iowa Congressman Bruce Braley, a Democrat from Waterloo, says he is happy with some of the things he heard after questioning the president of Toyota in a hearing Tuesday. Braley says in general the recall by Toyota for braking and acceleration problems is not a lot different than recalls by other manufacturers.
Braley says it was unusual in the sense that Toyota has had a “great history for product safety in the past and has not been subjected to the same amount of recalls as some other manufacturers.” He says this recall drew attention and the hearing because of the large number of vehicles recalled.
Braley says one thing they’ve found is that U.S. safety officials were not prepared to deal with the problems because of the complex nature of today’s vehicles. He says they don’t have any electrical engineers, or computer engineers who are capable of addressing some the concerns about potential electrical interference that caused the acceleration problem.
Braley says they have to be sure they have enough qualified people in the federal safety administration to be able to address the oversight they need. Braley says he was happy to learn that the car company is being open about what they’re finding.
Braley says there were specific tests performed to try to create the interference problems, and Toyota and some independent experts did the testing, and they are going to try and share information and get to the root cause of the problem and try to take steps to try and eliminate it. Braley says the hearing was “very informative and productive” as the president of Toyota admitted that more needs to be done.