My contacts at NASA continue to be unequivocal that whiskers were found to be a cause of at least one incident and will likely be the cause of many more. A few weeks ago I had a long talk with NASA. I'm out in CA and don't have access to my notes so my comments will be based on my best recollection of that discussion. I'll be back in NH next week and will append these comments with my notes.
First, as to the study that NASA performed, scientists are not at all happy with how the investigation was portrayed by NHSTA in the press and in the report. What's not clear in the report is the extremely small sample size they had to deal with. There are millions of Toyotas on the road today but NASA was able to look at only a handful. Despite the small sample size, they found whiskers. The Law of Errors tells you what about this fact? That whiskers are a significant finding.
Second, how did they find whiskers in the pedal assembly of 2002-2006 Camrys? They were found because a woman who had an incident of SA (sudden acceleration) had to have her car towed to the dealer where they replaced her pedal assembly and (this is the critical part) they GAVE HER THE DEFECTIVE ASSEMBLY. She learned of the DOT investigation and gave them the assembly and it found its way to NASA where they found whiskers shorting the leads of the potentiometer (pictures in the report). As the professor at Southern Indiana University found, shorting the leads causes SA.
Third, NASA then went to junkyards and found other similar pedal assemblies and they too contained whiskers. What does the Law of Errors tell you about this fact? Do you throw out these data points as outliers or do you then conclude you have found a smoking gun? My vote is for the smoking gun. Something is rotten in this report, it seems to me and SRS found it, thank goodness for they have managed to get the story into the press, something I've thus far been unable to do (and not for a lack of trying).
The NASA scientists are VERY concerned for the safety of the public as Toyotas are very likely to remain on the road for many years to come. A Camry with a defective whisker prone assembly is a ticking time bomb. The NASA report skirts the problem. Did it It call for the recall of ALL those 2002-2006 pedal assemblies, that they should be replaced by Hall effect assemblies that are potted in epoxy (as the more expensive Lexus pedal) so less likely to sprout whiskers? No, it did not. It should have. It cost the lady ~$850 to replace her pedal assembly (not covered by warranty). Is that right? No, it is not.
As I recall, no fault was found with the software in the engine control module yet its clear that stepping on the pedal once SA is initiated has NO EFFECT.
NASA demonstrated a dangerous braking problem in a test track SA simulation. A NASA driver was strapped in, a NASA passenger had two switches, one to cause SA at 45 mph and the other to safely turn off the SA so the vehicle could be brought to a stop. What happened? When SA was initiated, the throttle was at 100% so there was no vacuum assist braking and the driver, using both feet on the brake pedal, could not stop the vehicle! It was found that it would take 600 pounds of brake force on the pedal to cause the brake to slow down the vehicle. Only the Terminator could have the strength to stop the car! Clearly, the software does not allow the brake to over-ride the pedal. This is a defective design.
Why was the above not mentioned in the Executive Summary? Why was the above not mentioned in the press briefings by DOT Secretary LaHood?
It seems quite clear to me a classic coverup is a significant possibility. The AEC colluded with the nuclear industry (and the NRC isn't that much of an improvement). So is the FAA (and the NTSB) which minimizes safety problems in aviation (regarding, for example, faulty kapton wiring in the L1011, its reluctance to inert fuel cells (which, had it been done, would have saved TWA), etc... Former NTSB head, Jim Hall is not happy with the FAA. Neither am I. It will be found that AF447 failed due to pilot inattention to fly the plane, and instead to deal with too many computer generated alarms. Pitot tubes were known to be freezing yet they were not replaced with better tubes – why? 228 lives were lost. Why hasn't the telemetry of every plane been radioed in real time to satellites and instead we remain dependent on finding black boxes at the bottom of the ocean? Much time has been lost to find the cause of AF447's crash (and other crashes). Why do autos not have black box recorders that all have the same open protocol so that the NTSB can read them (Toyota had to loan NASA their secret playback device)?
I've been a transportation commissioner in the state of NH and I've got stick time in aviation and have been in a locomotive cab (my company manufactures equipment for train control and turbine blade inspection). I'm not impressed with the DOT (and its safety arm NHSTA). It's a booster of the auto industry. Billions are at stake. Look at what happened with seatbelts and airbags – do you doubt there's a problem with the DOT's oversight of the auto industry? Ralph Nader did more for auto safety than the government agencies, IMHO.
Exponent is a paid for shill for Toyota; when they declared that shorting the pedal assembly could not cause SA, they proved their inherent bias beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Bob Landman
North Hampton, NH
On May 24, 2011, at 12:20 PM, Blair Hogg <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I came to the same conclusion. There are three sides to every story (or more), what one party says happened, what the other party says happened, and what really happened. And in all likelihood both parties truly believe that their version is correct, based upon their own observations and prejudices born out of their respective initial positions and frames of reference.
>
> It does seem like SRS had the goal to find evidence that tin whiskers are the cause of UA, and may indeed have. I didn't read thoroughly the entire report, but I got the impression that they didn't do any actual investigation, just looked at everyone else's data and reports and came to the conclusion they desired. It may be the correct conclusion, or may not.
>
> One point in the report stated that there are two independant pedal position sensors that have different behavior patterns. It would seem that the control system could detect that one was not behaving properly and trigger a fault and fail-safe condition. It would be unlikely but not impossible for both units to develop faults that would fool the contorl system. They seem to sugest that the control system did not detect the mismatch.
>
> Interesting report, but I'm a confirmed skeptic of virtually everything nowadays.
>
> Blair
>
> On Tue, 24 May 2011 08:41:44 -0500, Pete <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> There were a lot of people that found the original report quizzical. But to be fair, SRS does have their own prejudice in the matter. Which means the truth lies somewhere in between. But either way, the fact that they found so many whiskers in an acceleration control of an automobile leads to a scary "what else" question that should have been raised even from the NASA and NHTSA reports. Thanks to SRS for keeping on this!
>>
>
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