Japanese auto giant, Toyota, has been under fire in the last few months over recall woes for sticky brake pedals and mats that entrap the accelerator pedal. Twenty deaths have been blamed and linked to the faulty gas pedal and YouTube has videos and 911 recordings of people whose Toyota has sped out of control.

Our faith in a brand that for years has ensured safety and quality is now tarnished. The lack of importance Toyota initially put on the recalls and their quickness to repair these defects has consumers fuming. Toyota is also accused of taking far to long to recall the cars in the first place. Reports on sticky pedals in Toyota’s have been documented back to 2008. It has recently been acknowledged that Toyota has known about customers complaining about sticky accelerator pedals in the UK since late 2008.  Toyota only went public on these complaints after British government safety officials alerted US counterparts who were handling a massive deluge of complaints about the sticking accelerators. This exposure led to Toyota’s recall of 12 of its popular vehicles, with some 2004 models being involved in the recent recalls. Toyota has recalled nearly 8.5 million vehicles since November 2009 around the world.

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