Vehicle Safety News

It's not just Congress, regulators or consumers who are taking aim at Toyota these days. Lawyers are joining the fray, with the number of lawsuits filed against the world's largest automaker climbing daily. Toyota has already recalled more than 8.5 million vehicles because of unintended acceleration and braking problems. Now, the company and the U.S. government are looking into steering complaints involving its popular Corolla compact.

Attorney Todd Walburg in the San Francisco office of Lieff Cabraser Heimann and Bernstein says lawyers have already filed actions in cases where Toyota vehicles accelerated unintentionally and couldn't be stopped. He says these are product liability suits.

"We have to prove there was a design defect or prove there was a failure to warn," Walburg says. "At this point, we are pursuing both theories." Walburg says lawyers intend to show that Toyota knew about the sudden acceleration problem for years, but didn't warn consumers. Walburg expects the automaker to blame the drivers, saying they hit the gas when they thought they had hit the brakes.

But Walburg says a "black box" on many of the vehicles could provide some answers. The event data recorder, he says, "stores various kinds of data about the crash speed, braking and so forth, and I think when we are able to see what happened just before the crash, I think Toyota will have a tough time explaining it wasn't caused by a defect in the vehicle."

Read the full article on the NPR website.

Lieff Cabraser represents persons nationwide injured in Toyota and Lexus sudden acceleration accidents. Learn more about the rights of victims of Toyota and Lexus sudden acceleration accidents.