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NHTSA reviews unintended acceleration claims on Honda hybrids

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has launched an investigation around unintended acceleration claims on a variety of Honda hybrids from the mid-2000s. This investigation currently only pertains to the Honda Accord and Civic hybrids and this decision comes based on a fatal accident in July of 2005. This is only a preliminary investigation and for the time being, the NHTSA will only examine the individual reports rather than the automaker as a whole.

In that case, a 2005 Honda Accord Hybrid reportedly accelerated out of control after running over a set of rumble strips causing the car to pick up speed to the point where the driver lost control – sending the Accord hybrid head-first into traffic and causing an accident that took the life of the passenger and severely injured the driver. After the accident, the driver of that 2005 Honda Accord Hybrid did some research and found 22 other cases of similar unintended acceleration reports, all of which seemed to involved hybrid Accords and Civics.

Based on Toyota’s unintended acceleration troubles, the NHTSA is likely to act quickly

Over the past year, Toyota has seen their reputation for quality and safety plummet as more and more unintended acceleration accidents, injuries and deaths are reported around the world. The most recent report came last week when a Toyota Camry accelerated out of control, slamming the car into a rock wall; killing the driver and one passenger. Although Toyota has insisted that it was driver error, the most recent accident came with a police report of long tire marks where the front wheels dragged the brake-locked rear wheels up to the point of impact…showing that the driver was attempting to stop before the accident.

Now that the NHTSA has launched this investigation, we can expect Honda to take the proactive approach to avoid giving the appearance that they’ve done nothing about this problem, even though the accidents in question are wide spread over the past 5 years.

Image courtesy of HighHorsepowerPhotography.com.

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