We bought a low-mileage Corolla this spring to replace our 1998 one. I had no reason to believe any of the hysteria about safety defects. There may be some actual problems, but the people who were peddling (heh) that story had a huge conflict of interest.
And I remembered one of the previous rounds of hysteria about spontaneous acceleration, back in the late 70s or early 80s. I wondered why they couldn’t come up with something a little more original this time.
Now arrives the vindication. It’s from an article in The Atlantic by Megan McArdle: “NHTSA: No, Toyotas Do Not Suddenly Accelerate Unless You Press the Accelerator“
I did an actual LOL on this paragraph:
Now the NHTSA, which is in charge of investigating this sort of thing, has released its report data on this round of SAIs. And while history may not repeat itself, it seems to stutter like hell:
And this was the best quote from the P.J. O’Rourke article that is reproduced in the article:
This was the most disheartening thing I ever heard in Washington. This was much worse than hearing about government malfeasance, incompetence and corruption. When it’s better for enthusiastic and ambitious professionals to go to work for a country’s government than it is for them to go to work, the country is in trouble . . .