NHTSA Considers Inquiry Into Runaway Honda Accord Hybrid Allegation
By John O'Dell November 23, 2010
It was just a matter of time - NHTSA says it has received and will consider a request from a woman whose then-new Honda Accord hybrid was involved in a fatal accident in July 2005, to investigate the model for signs of inadequate brake performance and unintended acceleration.
The unidentified woman told the safety agency - which was heavily criticized last year for waiting too long to begin probing reports of runaway Toyotas - that she was driving on the rough "rumble strips" while trying to stop her car on the side of a freeway but that instead of slowing it uncontrollably sped up and veered into oncoming traffic.
The woman was seriously injured, her passenger was killed and occupants of two other cars injured in the resulting collision.
In her NHTSA filing the woman listed 22 other complaints from Honda Accord and Civic hybrid drivers that she found in the agency's collision data base and believes show similar incidents of brake failure while driving on uneven surfaces.
Similar complaints by Toyota Prius drivers led to a redesign of the software progrtam that controls that model's ABS system. ABS systems often cause the brakes to pulse when a car is driven over rough, uneven surfaces, and drivers can experience what feels like a delay in the application of braking power. In hybrids, the braking delay can also occur in the brief interval when the regenerative braking system cycles off and the ABS system takes over.
Honda says its hybrids use the same brake system as all other Hondas and that all of its cars have back-up hydraulic braking systems in case the electronic system fails. The company said that it's too early to comment on the specific case NHTSA is examining but that overall it has one of the industry's lowest volume of unintended acceleration complaints.
The company sold about 17,000 Accord hybrids and 26,000 Civic hybrids in 2005.
NHTSA has not said it will launch a probe - merely that it will look into the woman's complaint, filed in May, almost 5 years after the accident and a few moths after the Toyota acceleration probe was launched.
----------
Read the NHTSA notice here (follow link and click on "search" tab next to "new investigations since...")
LEAVE A COMMENT
Oh great, here we go again...
ADD A COMMENT