Two days ago, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood made a startling and ridiculous statement when asked what Toyota vehicle owners should do about Toyota’s sticking pedal recall:
“stop driving it. Take it to a Toyota dealer because they believe they have a fix for it.”
A few hours after making this statement, LaHood was quick to retract saying “What I said in there was obviously a misstatement. What I meant to say or what I thought to say was if you own one of these cars or if you’re in doubt, take it to the dealer and they’re going to fix it.” Unfortunately, much of the damage from LaHood’s statement had already been done by the time he took it back. The Wall Street Journal reports that Toyota’s stock price fell 5.2% as a direct result of LaHood’s “stop driving” comment. In real money, that’s about $4 billion dollars in market value lost in the span of a few hours…
But LaHood’s comments didn’t just hurt Toyota’s stock price – what rational person wouldn’t be a little concerned after hearing that the government said “stop driving” Toyotas and then quickly retracted? Whatever side of the fence you’re on, we should expect more from the person in charge of NHTSA.

Ray LaHood's comments have tainted the public's perception of NHTSA
The question is, how can we rely upon government officials to be objective about vehicle safety when our government owns a substantial percentage of two major automakers? …click here to read more →
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