First Causes

I have not paid much attention to the Toyota accelerator kerfluffle, but I've been half expecting to see something like this come along:

(CNN) -- A preliminary report from a consulting firm hired to analyze Toyota and Lexus vehicles linked to unintended acceleration failed to find any problem with the carmaker's electronic throttle controls, Toyota announced Saturday.

Toyota said it had retained Exponent, an independent engineering and scientific consulting firm, to conduct the analysis of its vehicles that use the suspect Electronic Throttle Control System with intelligence.

"The interim report, dated February 4, 2010, notes that Exponent was unable to induce unintended acceleration in any of the ETCS-i equipped Toyota and Lexus vehicles it tested," the company said in a posting on its Web site. "In all cases, the vehicle either behaved normally or entered a fail-safe mode where engine power was significantly reduced or shut off."

Readers may remember the sudden acceleration problem that seemed to plague some Audi models back in the 80's. As Peej O'Rourke detailed in his Parliament of Whores, after a whoooooole lot of money was spent on recalls and lawsuits and guv'mint studies, in the end it seemed pretty plain that the actual cause of the problem was moron drivers.

I'm not saying there couldn't be something mechanically wrong with Toyota's cars now. I'm just saying that if I were a betting man, I'd plunk money on driver error as the more likely explanation of the incidents suddenly making the nooz.