plus 3, Toyota Prepares To Dispute Electronics Claim - CBS 4 South Florida

Toyota Prepares To Dispute Electronics Claim - CBS 4 South Florida
Toyota aims to refute critic who blames electronics, not gas pedals ... - Minneapolis Star Tribune
Top parking scofflaws owe big fines - Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Cartel victims, security risks add troubles to hospitals - AZCentral.com

Toyota Prepares To Dispute Electronics Claim - CBS 4 South Florida

Posted: 07 Mar 2010 09:59 AM PST

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Toyota Prepares To Dispute Electronics Claim

Troubled Automaker Plans To Dispel University Professor's Theory On Faulty Gas Pedals Being Electronics Issue

Internal Toyota Documents Related To Recall

NEW YORK (AP) ―

Click to enlarge: A row of brand new Toyota Prius hybrids sit on the sales lot at City Toyota on Feb. 3, 2010, in Daly City, Calif.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Toyota Motor Corp. plans Monday to try to undercut suggestions that its electronics systems caused the sudden acceleration problems that led to the recall of more than 8 million vehicles.

The automaker plans an event in which it will seek to debunk a critic who claims faulty gas pedals did not cause the sudden acceleration.

Toyota will aim to duplicate the scenario created by David W. Gilbert, a professor at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Gilbert told Congress on Feb. 23 that he was able to recreate sudden acceleration in a Toyota vehicle by manipulating its electronics.

The company is calling in the director of Stanford University's Center for Automotive Research to try to refute the claims. Toyota said Stanford professor Chris Gerdes will show that the malfunctions Gilbert produced "are completely unrealistic under real-world conditions and can easily be reproduced on a wide range of vehicles made by other manufacturers."

Stanford's Center for Automotive Research is funded by a group of auto companies, including Toyota.

Toyota also has hired a consulting firm to study whether electronic problems could cause unintended acceleration. The firm, Exponent Inc., released an interim report that has found no link between the two.

The event planned Monday is part of a broad campaign by the world's biggest automaker to discredit critics, repair its damaged reputation and begin restoring trust in its vehicles.

On Friday, a congressional committee questioned Toyota's efforts to find the causes of the problems. It also questioned whether the company had sufficiently investigated the issue of electronic defects.

Toyota executives will also address recall issues at its annual suppliers meeting in Kentucky on Tuesday.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Toyota aims to refute critic who blames electronics, not gas pedals ... - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Posted: 07 Mar 2010 08:05 AM PST

NEW YORK - Toyota Motor Corp. plans Monday to try to undercut suggestions that its electronics systems caused the sudden acceleration problems that led to the recall of more than 8 million vehicles.

The automaker plans an event in which it will seek to debunk a critic who claims faulty gas pedals did not cause the sudden acceleration.

Stanford's Center for Automotive Research is funded by a group of auto companies, including Toyota.

The event planned Monday is part of a broad campaign by the world's biggest automaker to discredit critics, repair its damaged reputation and begin restoring trust in its vehicles.

Toyota executives will also address recall issues at its annual suppliers meeting in Kentucky on Tuesday.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Top parking scofflaws owe big fines - Worcester Telegram & Gazette

Posted: 07 Mar 2010 07:58 AM PST

WORCESTER — From late May to early October last year, city parking enforcement officers ticketed a red Cadillac six times at expired meters, three times for tow zone infractions and twice for $200 handicap parking violations.

Parking enforcement officers ticketed the car three more times for various other no-nos, such as parking more than a foot from the curb, during the same period.

The registered owner of the car, Alexa Lopez, blew off the $705 in accumulated tickets, leading to another $600 in penalties.

The $1,305 in unpaid fines and penalties owed by Ms. Lopez puts her atop the list of city parking scofflaws, according to a Telegram & Gazette review of city records.

Ms. Lopez, who could not be located for this story, and six other people at the top of the list each owe more than $1,000 in parking tickets and penalties. The 20 worst parking offenders in the city as a whole owe an eye-popping $18,600.

The white Chevrolet owned by Silvio F. Pinto, who is a close second on the list of parking scofflaws, racked up more than two dozen meter violations totaling $260 in fines in one month in the summer of 2008. Left unpaid, the tickets have ballooned to $1,300 with penalties. Mr. Pinto also couldn't be located for this story.

But Richard A. Oehling of Willard Avenue said he was surprised to learn from a reporter that his name is on the list with $755 in outstanding fines and penalties.

"The car was not in our hands at the time. Somebody stole it from a repair shop and, apparently, it sat somewhere collecting tickets," Mr. Oehling said.

In September, notices of unpaid parking tickets began arriving in the mail at his house.

Mr. Oehling said he reported the purple Geo stolen in August. The car was missing for about three weeks before police found it stripped. His insurance company considered the sedan totaled and sent him a check, he said.

Case closed. Or so he thought.

"They sent me all the tickets, and I collected them. But I must admit that once the car had been totaled by the insurance company, I forgot all about it. I have all the tickets, and I need to go down there and get that taken care of," Mr. Oehling conceded.

Until he does, he is on the hook for $235 in fines and $520 in penalties, according to the city.

Mr. Oehling, and anybody else with outstanding parking fines, cannot renew a driver's license or car registration until they pay up, noted city Parking Administrator Elvira Guardiola.

"A good chunk of the people know that they took a chance and that they parked illegally, and they come in and pay the fine. Others have issues, so they appeal it. Some just don't pay," said Ms. Guardiola, who has heard every excuse in the book in her more than three years running the city's Parking Administration Office.

Ms. Guardiola recalled one woman who showed up at her office furious over parking tickets. Ms. Guardiola informed the young woman that she would have to pay the fines and penalties on the spot or the city would slap a boot on her car.

"She started yelling and screaming, and she walks out. By the time she got down to her car, there was a boot on it already," Ms. Guardiola recalled. "She came running back and was so mad, trying to jump over the counter to get to me. We had to call the police."

The city's nine parking enforcement officers write roughly 70,000 parking tickets a year. At last check, the city was owed $4.7 million in overdue fines and penalties, she said.

Parking at an expired meter will get you a $15 ticket. If the owner of the car hasn't paid in 21 days, a $5 penalty gets tacked on. After another 21 days, the city adds a $15 penalty to the tally.

If the owner still hasn't paid up, the city informs the state Registry of Motor Vehicles not to renew the driver's license or vehicle registration, which adds another $20 to the penalties.

Parking enforcement officers can immobilize a car with a boot clamped over a wheel when the owner has five or more parking tickets that are more than 21 days overdue without an appeal pending.

If all the accumulated fines and penalties aren't paid within 24 hours of the booting, the city has the car towed and holds it until the fines are paid. The vendor for the city's parking administration software also is a collection agency that seeks to recover overdue fines and penalties.

The block on renewing a license or registration usually gets parking scofflaws to break out their checkbooks eventually.

R&G Auto Sales and Rentals owner Ron Favacchia doesn't want to have any registration problems with his fleet of 30 rental cars, so he tries to keep up with the penalty notices that trickle into his office at a rate of about one a month, he said.

"Normally, the customer pays them, and we never see the tickets. We only see them when they don't get paid," Mr. Favacchia said. "You do get some people who think, 'Oh, I'm not going to worry about it.' "

Mr. Favacchia said his rental contract states that any parking tickets are the responsibility of the customer.

"Normally, they'll come in and either pay me or go and pay the city. But some people try to get away with it," he said. "We get FastLane violations where they go through the FastLane twice a day for three weeks, then all the sudden we have $900 in tickets."

R&G Auto Sales ended up on the list of parking scofflaws at No. 18 with $755 in unpaid fines and penalties. Parking enforcement officers tagged a green Buick, one of the company's rentals, more than a dozen times, including once for a $200 handicap parking violation, two years ago.

Mr. Favacchia said it was his understanding that the city was pursuing the customer for those fines. He said he would follow up with the Parking Administration Office to straighten out the situation.

Ms. Guardiola said people sometimes erroneously assume that if they lend a car to a friend and that person gets a parking ticket, it's the friend's responsibility. Actually, the owner of the car is on the hook. If the person who borrowed the car doesn't pay, the owner must, she said.

Some delivery truck drivers also apparently think they're immune from parking tickets.

"Not too long ago, we booted a UPS truck downtown. It stopped all their business for the day, and it was early in the morning. They had to have another truck come in to take all the packages," she said.

The incident was not lost on the other shipping companies. Ms. Guardiola said it's not unusual now for managers from FedEx, UPS and other shipping companies to call periodically to make sure they don't have any outstanding fines.

Ms. Guardiola said she knows that nobody likes to get a parking ticket. She knows because it happens to her too. She got one in Worcester not long before she took over as city parking administrator. She filed a written appeal, which got shot down. She paid the fine.

In her more than three years as the city's parking czar, Ms. Guardiola has taken her share of verbal abuse from irate drivers.

"Once this gentleman walked in and was extremely upset because he had gotten tickets. He pointed at me and he says, 'You got me all these parking tickets,' " she recalled.

"I looked up at him and said, 'Oh, I'm so sorry. Did I park your vehicle in the wrong place again?' He started laughing, and I said, 'OK, let's start over again.' "

Contact Thomas Caywood by e-mail at tcaywood@telegram.com.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Cartel victims, security risks add troubles to hospitals - AZCentral.com

Posted: 07 Mar 2010 12:05 AM PST

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