The current Administration should be congratulated for the job they are doing with Toyota and their flawed automobiles, particularly Secretary of Transportation Ray La Hood.  He told The Associated Press "federal safety officials had to "wake them up" to the seriousness of the safety issues that eventually led Toyota to recall millions of popular brands like Camry and Corolla.  That included a visit to Toyota's office in Japan to convince them to take action."

LaHood told the AP, "They should have taken it seriously from the very beginning when we first started discussion it with them.  Maybe they were a little safety deaf."

It is a huge problem for Toyota.  Shinichi Sasaki, who oversees quality control at the world's No. 1 automaker said, "This is unprecedented in having caused this huge problem for customers.  He said it was too soon to put a number on the ultimate cost of the recall.  But Tatsuo Yoshida, an auto analyst at UBS in Tokyo, estimated the recalls are likely to cost about $900 million, and lost sales are already costing Toyota another $155 million a week."

The problem will apparently be costly.  According to the AP, LaHood "also said the government was considering civil penalties for Toyota over its handling of the recalls but declined to elaborate.”  The Detroit News first reported the potential fines.  The largest auto industry fine came in 2004, when General Motors paid $1 million for responding too slowly on a recall of nearly 600,000 vehicles over windshield wiper failure.

The AP reported that LaHood said the Toyota recalls “may be the most serious safety issue that we have faced here at DOT during his tenure.  This is a big deal, this is a big safety issue, LaHood said."   

The Secretary of Transportation also explained "there appeared to be a disconnect between Toyota's North American offices and the company's headquarters in Japan.  Toyota officials in North America took the problem seriously, but the Japan operation need to be prodded, he said.  LaHood said it took a trip by a top transportation official to Japan "to wake them up to the idea that this is a serious issue."

LaHood "confirmed that the government was investigating potential electronic problems in the Toyota vehicles but declined to discuss the ongoing investigation.  An official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation, said the U.S. government was taking a fresh look at the at the electronic throttle control system and potential electromagnetic interference."

The Secretary referred to the crash last August of a California Highway Patrol Officer and three of his family members in which the car accelerated at speeds over 120 miles an hour, crashing and killing the family and stated, "It's a serious safety issue and we are not going to sit by and let these kinds of crashes occur without them taking very, very quick actions."

Wouldn't it have been great if this had been the policy in the early 1990's when Nissan had minivans which caught fire while being driven, while sitting in the drive way.  The problem was that the doors and windows also locked.  There were 156 vans, which burned, and the dealers were busy picking up those vans from the salvage yards and trucking them in "the dark of night" to the closest airport and flying them back to Japan. 

The stories abounded of close calls.  One was a trucker who saw a young Maryland high school graduate driving home with the contents of her locker in the van.  He saw the smoke under her van, forced her off the road, reached in the van and jerked her out just in time to save her life as the van went up in flames.

When van owners in Florida protested over the problems with the vans one dealership was nice enough to turn the cars around on their lot, start the engines and blow the exhaust over the protestors.  Another time they turned water hoses on them.

A recently released from the hospital African-American heart transplant patient drove his van to pick up his son at Wesleyan University.  On the way home driving down Interstate 91, the son felt the heat in the car, stopped the van, grabbed his dad free of the van and the van went up in flames creating a crater in the road.    

What finally brought the burning minivans to a solution was a courageous American who invested in a dealership and happened to see one of the vans under a tarp waiting to be trucked to New York.  He was so outraged he went to Congress walking from door to door with a video stating, "There were children's things in this van."  He would not give up and by the end of 1994 Nissan had to remove their objections and the minivans were withdrawn off the road. 

At that time both NHTSA and The Department of Transportation were confused on their actions.  It was the push from an American and the response from Congress and others who brought a solution to the problem.  Lives would have been saved if we had the Obama Administration who is furious over this and Secretary LaHood and his team. People died in the minivans and the court records were sealed.

The minivans were brought in the U.S. around 1987 and it was 1994 before they were off the road because of one individual being concerned about children being in the vans.

   What is interesting is Nissan at that time also acquired a fleet of over 50 cars and took the titles back to California where the Manufacturer Statement of Origin (MSO) was reissued as a brand new automobile with no history on it and the odometers were clocked back to 5 or 10 miles from over 50 or 100 miles thus committing both title and odometer fraud.  The cars had been with NEMAC (the financial arm of the company) because they were at a dealership and had been titled to an individual in return for a loan.  At this time the cars were then sent into sixteen states as brand new (which they were not) committing  securities fraud, interstate fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud and ending up with a Rico fraud.

What makes this important is the company ignored the law and the internal attorney for the company wrote on letterhead "that is was standard practice at the time".  Fraud has never been a standard practice of transportation law and of U.S. law.  The team of investigators on the issue stated told the investor "there has never been an American auto company do this."  Recent inquiries within the industry have confirmed this.

The reason for not committing this kind of breach of law is the U.S. today, according to Detroit News, has one quarter billion vehicles registered in the U.S.  The automobile industry helped create "Mainstreet U.S.A." and the middle class of America.  The automobile industry is known as our "National Defense Industry" because of what the industry can do for the country in times of war and how they can help supply our military now. 

Our states have a major investment in the roads and our cars are necessary to be properly license for the commerce of the country.  We take a dim view of foreign carmakers who come from small countries thinking they can ignore American law as the Japanese car companies have.

The Japanese car companies rely on a significant portion of their profits coming from the United States.  Koji Endo, an analyst at Credit Suisse reported that Toyota "earns about 60 percent of its operating profit, or sales minus expenses and the costs of goods sold in North America.  Two-thirds of that is from the United States.  Nissan relies on 74 percent and Honda 70 percent of their profits.

Fugio Cho, Chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association also reported that "each Japanese automaker has staff in the U.S. following government and the media so they will be aware of any anti-Japanese sentiment".  This makes it difficult for the truth to be reached very quickly when there are serious problems with a foreign automobile.  If it is an American automobile we expect to hear about the problems immediately.  There is more openness in doing business in the U.S.

In addition, the Japanese automobile dealers are also helped by the Japanese government with weakened yen checks.  Those checks range from $4,000 to $14,000 per car or vehicle, depending on which story you see.  It is an aid in subsidizing the industry in addition to the lavish tax abatements from the American taxpayers which helps them to be profitable.

The Japanese car companies have also been dipping into federal funds to help them.  During the Cash for Clunkers Toyota profited very greatly as did Nissan.  With the TALF funds from the Federal Reserve Nissan was first in line for $1.5 billion.  It also used two of our Federal labs in helping them with the design of parts for their clean car.  Nissan also took $1.5 billion in Clean Fuel Funds from the U.S. Department of Energy for the new LEAF car they expect to have on the road in competition with our American manufacturers, General Motors and Ford Motor Company.  Chrysler is in that category but has FIAT managing their efforts.

What makes this a problem for the states and the federal government is Nissan must sign an agreement in a contract with a state to obey all Federal, State, County and City laws and regulations.  That also means federal environmental and hazardous laws, which they signed with the State of Mississippi that Nissan is "held harmless" from all Federal environmental and hazardous laws.  They also had an exemption on the CAFE standards which they pushed two years ago which were raised against the U.S. automobile industry.  Nissan had an exemption because of the vehicles made in Mexico.

It is time for the government to insist that the foreign carmakers can no longer play by their own rules but must obey all U.S. laws including the titling of cars and the odometers laws. Their financial arms of the company must be held accountable and not illegally title a car back to the parent company thus breaking the separation between the company and the financial arm which is required by law.  The American attorneys for the foreign car companies should be held accountable for not pursuing obeying American laws instead of condoning breaking title laws.  Our economy depends on it.  They did take an oath of office to uphold American laws. 

We should all applaud the efforts of the Secretary of Transportation and his staff.  They are standing tall for the safety of Americans and our visitors from other nations, and they are also upholding the law.  As we say in conversation to a friend when they do something good, 10 GOLD STARS to you.  We are proud of you for the job you are doing!!

Mike Biras

mbiras64862@mypacks.net

Feb. 3, 2010