A couple of years ago, the big news that was going around was the whole Toyota gas pedal issue where cars made by Toyota would not break. The thing that I remember the most about these accidents was a 911 call from a woman who was frantically screaming that she could not get her car to stop and ended up getting into an accident. As you can imagine, there was a class action suit by owners of Toyota's who claimed they suffered economic loss because of these issues. Just this past week Toyota settled this case by agreeing to pay a whooping $1.1 billion.
The settlement for this case is one of the largest ever paid and I'm surprised that it wasn't even more. With the settlement, Toyota agreed to add a brake override system in their cars to avoid acceleration pedals getting stuck in floor mats, leading them to accelerate unintentionally.
The company will also set up a fund of $250 million to be paid to former
Toyota owners who sold their cars between Sept. 1, 2009, and Dec. 31,
2010, to compensate the owners for the reduced value of the cars from
the negative publicity.
Until these problems surfaced, Toyota held the
top reputation for vehicle quality and safety. But since then, it has
been dogged by significant recall problems. It has already announced
recalls of more than 10 million vehicles worldwide for various problems
so far this year.
When these problems were made public, I remember hearing a lot of people saying that they will never buy a Toyota again but it seems like I'm seeing more Toyota's on the road today than ever before. I am glad that the owners of these cars are getting a settlement they deserve as companies need to be held liable for faulty products. Every year there are companies that bring new products to the market that are faulty and get away with selling a lot of units without having to compensate those who bought it.
If you have been injured due to faulty products, you should talk to a lawyer like Marc Whitehead who can help you.
