The Trouble with Toyotas: Should Canada adopt new U.S. Toyota recall crisis laws?

For you glass-half-full crowd out there, at least some good is coming from the ongoing Toyota recall crisis.

This week, U.S. government officials passed new auto-safety regulations in direct response to the Toyota’s troubles with its cars accelerating unintentionally. The installation of brake-override systems and event-data recorders, or black boxes, as well as standards for foot-pedal placement, electronic systems, push-button ignition systems and transmission configuration will now be regulated.

In case you didn’t know, the new laws follow Toyota's worldwide recalls of 10.6 million cars for sudden acceleration. And now, U.S. regulators are investigating reports of 89 deaths in the United States linked to the problem. And Toyota already has paid a record fine of $16.4 million USD.

As of now, we’ve heard boo from Transport Canada if they intend to adopt any of these new U.S. safety regs.

And it may seem like a no-brainer, but do you think Canadians deserve the same level of protection as U.S. new car buyers?

Or do you think that the U.S. government is overreacting to Toyota’s troubles?

[Source: Automotive News]

Comments

[Houndhauler]

My take is regardless of what Transport Canada does...we'll get some benefit ie. the std for push-start, override systems, tranny control & pedal placement will likely take place in Cdn market as well since treated as one anyway by most auto-makers...hence the lack of hatchback choices.
The only issue I'm dubious on is the black box issue....do we need that much longer recording/tracking than there is today for analysis purposes & given the costs of changes. What we do need is legal rights to the data in all cases - which seemed to escape Toyota (& Honda apparently) reasoning & helped make them look more guilty in covering up this 6 yr-old acceleration issue.