Toyota, Government 'Should Have Been More Diligent'

Toyota says dealers will begin fixing sticky gas pedals on more than 2 million U.S. vehicles later this week. But safety advocates say the company — and the government — should have addressed the problem earlier.

A sign for the parts and service department is shown at a new Toyota dealership in Oakland, Calif.

In the summer of 2005, Jordan Ziprin, a retired lawyer, was backing his Toyota Camry out of his driveway in Phoenix.
He says his foot was on the brake when suddenly the car accelerated.
"It all happened in a matter of seconds; it's a total loss of control," Ziprin says.
The Camry smashed into a utility box in his neighbor's driveway. Ziprin filed a complaint that year with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. He says the agency labeled the case "ambiguous" and declined to investigate further.
Ziprin says Toyota dismissed his concerns with talking points that explained nothing. "Toyota was totally arrogant," he adds.
Unwanted acceleration plagues many carmakers. But safety analysts say Toyota has racked up more cases than its fair share.
David Champion, who runs Consumer Reports' auto test division, says for the 2008 model year, Toyota had 41 percent of all complaints — but just 16 percent of the market.
"I think there was a lot of information out there even two or three years ago, that there was something not quite right with Toyota and the unintended acceleration," Champion says.
But it wasn't until after a crash in San Diego in August that Toyota took dramatic action.
A family was hurtling down a highway in a runaway Lexus, Toyota's luxury brand. A passenger called for help and said the accelerator was stuck:
Operator: "911 emergency, what are you reporting?"
Passenger: "We're in trouble; there's no brake!"
The Lexus crashed, killing all four occupants.
About a month later, Toyota issued a recall for nearly 4 million vehicles. The company was worried that floor mats might get stuck on accelerators.
Then, in late January, Toyota issued another recall, this time for more than 2 million vehicles, because it was worried the gas pedals might mechanically stick.
Champion of Consumer Reports says the car company and the government should have acted sooner.
"I think both Toyota and NHTSA should have been more diligent in looking at the complaints on their database," Champion says. "It's just a shame that it took what happened in San Diego to draw attention to a problem like this."
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration denies that it dropped the ball. The agency says safety is its top priority, and that it reads every complaint within one business day of arrival.
Jim Lentz, who runs Toyota in the U.S., said in a conference call Monday that he thinks Toyota dealt with the problem promptly.
"If you look at the whole issue of unintended acceleration," Lentz said, "it's really a very very broad issue. We've been investigating it for a long period of time. It's very complex, it's very rare and it's very intermittent."
Lentz said figuring out why a car suddenly accelerates is not as easy as one might think. Take the pedal problem: The company eventually determined that accelerators were sticking because of moisture and wear.
But Lentz said testing cars where that happened was difficult. "By the time that vehicle arrived at the dealership, the moisture had evaporated and the pedal was no longer having this sticky situation."
Lentz says he thinks Toyota has solved the acceleration problem with its recalls, but not everyone is convinced.
Jordan Ziprin says when his car went out of control, the pedal didn't stick. Nor did it get trapped in a floor mat.
"I don't expect this problem is going to go away," Ziprin adds.
Sean Kane, founder of the advocacy group Safety Research and Strategies — which has studied the Toyota situation closely — says some other electronic problem with Toyota vehicles also is causing unintended acceleration. But he acknowledges that he can't quite put his finger on it.
"We will continue to see incidents occur, and I anticipate that we'll see additional recalls as the year progresses," Kane says.
Toyota says parts to fix sticky accelerators are on their way to dealers. The company says some will stay open all night to meet customers' needs.

Making 'Nordic Combined' Skiing An American Sport

Bill Demong crosses the finish line to win a Men's Nordic combined of the Tour de Ski in Val di Fiemme, Italy, on Jan.10.

Armando Trovati/AP

Bill Demong crosses the finish line to win a Men's Nordic combined of the Tour de Ski in Val di Fiemme, Italy, on Jan.10.

The Olympic sport Nordic combined is not for the timid: It features long-distance ski jumping and a grueling cross-country ski race. But this year, the United States will arrive at the winter games with one of the best Nordic combined teams in the world.
One man leading the team is Bill Demong, who has gone ski tip to ski tip with the world's best.
Becoming A Contender
In March last year, Demong won the coveted King's Cup Nordic combined, the first American to claim that prize since 1968.
This sport, with soaring jumps and nail-biting cross-country races, is one of the trickiest in the Olympics. For Europeans, it's as popular as figure skating. Demong says his victory in Norway was a sign that he and the U.S. team have arrived.
"Definitely when we compete, I think the other countries take notice, and it's more exciting and more fun for us, because we do have that belief there," Demong says. "We're not trying to come out of the dregs and make something happen."
Demong's Beginnings
Demong first emerged on the world scene at the Nagano Olympics 12 years ago when he was still in high school. He didn't win a medal that year. But he slowly shouldered his way into the middle rank of Nordic combined skiers, testing himself against the dominant Europeans and Scandinavians.
"He has traveled all over the world, and he is still very much at heart a 'north country' boy," says Helen Demong, his mother.
Demong's parents raised him and his sister, Kate, in the backwoods of New York's Adirondack Mountains, where hard winter can last seven months of the year.
"I've always been a natural outdoorsman," says father Leo. "So it was always just a natural thing to take the kids with me, you know?"
Helen adds, "I have photographs of Bill and Kate in the dead of winter, putting on their bathing suits and diving off of our porch into the deep snow. Just this fearless quality."
Lake Placid was a 20-minute drive from home, close enough that Demong started training at age 7. Kris Seymour coached him as a kid and says it was clear early on that Demong was different.

Demong says a skull fracture in 2002 helped him find joy again in competing.

"He's really physiologically a little bit of an anomaly," Seymour says. "As far as endurance athletics go, he was given a set of genetics that have made him superior to most."
A Setback That Made Him Stronger
But Demong's steady progress came to a crashing halt in 2002, after the Olympics in Salt Lake City. Demong fractured his skull and was lucky to be alive. His doctors doubted he would ever compete again.
"That was when I kind of took the time to get away from the sport — clear my head a little bit — and make the decision to come back," Demong says.
Demong credits that year off with helping him find the joy again in competing. He relaxed, found his rhythm.
In 2009, he reached the podium 10 times in World Cup races, an astonishing record for any Nordic combined racer and unheard of for an American.
Last February, he grabbed the gold medal at the Nordic combined World Championships.
The Upcoming Games
Demong was born right after the 1980 Lake Placid winter games, and there's a photograph of a pregnant Helen standing in front of the blazing torch.
Thirty years later, the goal is to take all the pieces — the family, the winter days in the Adirondacks, the years of competition — and put them together in Vancouver.
"When you know that you're good enough, when you have that faith, it's about arriving at the Olympics on autopilot and ready to just do what you do best and enjoy that," Demong says.

Economic Problems Threaten Greece's Place In EU

A firefighter holds a flare as others chant slogans outside the Greek parliament during a protest in central Athens last month. About 2,000 firefighters demonstrated against planned spending cuts by the center-left government, which is struggling to reform Greece's debt-ridden economy and plug a vast budget deficit. Prime Minister George Papandreou has ruled out pay increases for most civil servants this year, citing the state of the public finances, and says public sector hirings will be limited.

Greece is experiencing a budget crisis so severe that the country may lose its footing in the European Union. Athens is reporting a deficit that is four times the EU limit, which means that Greece could be in danger of losing the euro as its national currency.
The government has promised tough austerity measures, but many Greeks say they are in no mood for sacrifice.
Farmers are blocking border crossings, highways and major ports to demonstrate their frustration. They say they're desperate. Cheap imports and middlemen's charges are apparently pushing Greek produce out of major markets.
Pavlos Issaris grows potatoes, wheat and corn. He says the cost of doing business is putting him out of business. He and other farmers want the government to provide subsidies to reduce the price of diesel and other necessities. And Issaris says he also wants the government to more aggressively control imports.
But the new government of Socialist Prime Minister George Papandreou is resisting subsidies. Athens is trying to reassure its EU partners with a plan that includes tax hikes and sharp cutbacks in the country's enormous public sector.
Nearly 1 in 10 Greeks is employed by the government as a civil servant; that's almost 1 million people. But Papandreou's pledge to trim that number has already triggered protests. Civil servants are planning nationwide strikes this month.
The government also has drawn criticism from university students who now doubt that there will be enough jobs for them. Angry posters fill the walls of the entry hall at Athens University's economics department. Students there are skeptical that the government will be able to jump-start Greece's economy.
Valia Floridis, 21, is looking for work abroad. She says many young Greeks feel they have no future here.
"It depends on their dreams. If they just want to have a job and salary to eat and sleep and live without prospects, it's OK. But if you want more, if you want something great, if you have big dreams, no. It's not good here," Floridis says.
Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou says one of the biggest challenges facing the government's austerity plan is that few Greeks believe it will ever be implemented. This is the ninth such effort in 10 years. Previous plans were abandoned after protests from angry workers.
"People have a hard time believing that we're actually going to do what we say we are going to do. We are battling against perceptions, and perceptions change only when people see you are implementing your agenda," Papaconstantinou says.
There are other challenges, too. Athens must find a way to curb rampant tax evasion in the country. It's estimated that one-third of Greek taxpayers do not declare their income.
Widespread corruption also is a drain on both the government and the Greek people. Each year, nearly every Greek family spends about $2,500 in bribes. People call them fakelaki, which is the Greek word for "envelopes." And fakelaki help secure just about anything in the public sector — from a vehicle inspection to a building license.
Papaconstantinou says Greeks pay huge bribes in the health sector, too.
"They have to pay for a doctor, for a hospital operation, which in theory is free," he says. "What has been lost is this bond of trust between the state and the citizen, and this is what we need to put back together."
Many European analysts are skeptical that Greece can put its house back in order on its own. They believe there is a risk of Greece defaulting on its debt payments — endangering the stability of the entire zone of countries in Europe that use the euro as currency. At present, 16 countries are in the eurozone.
Greece is not alone in its economic woes. Spiraling debt also has pushed Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy to the brink.
Economic analyst Babis Papadimitriou says the Greek financial crisis has put a spotlight on the inherent weakness of the single currency union.
"It is very hard, and it's very dangerous to create a monetary zone with a unique currency without a common and well-coordinated finance policy and public finance policy," Papadimitriou says.
If the prime minister's austerity measures aren't enough to stabilize Greece's economy, then Athens must rely on help from its EU partners. And reluctantly, EU officials are beginning to discuss a bailout.

Saudi Arabia wants Taliban to expel bin Laden

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Saudi Arabia will not get involved in peacemaking in Afghanistan unless the Taliban stops providing shelter and severs all ties with Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida movement, officials said Tuesday.Afghan President Hamid Karzai is visiting Saudi Arabia hoping for an active Saudi role in his plan to persuade Taliban militants to switch sides.
Saudi Arabia has a unique relationship with Taliban since it was one of the few countries to recognize the regime before it was ousted in 2001 and has acted as an intermediary before.
The Saudi conditions for participating in the talks with Taliban, especially expelling former Saudi citizen bin Laden, are not new, but Riyadh is restating them amid a new international push to work with the Afghan militants.
Riyadh "holds to its position which rejects entering any negotiations with Taliban before the group announces very clearly it is severing its connections with extremists and expelling the head of al-Qaida Osama bin Laden from its territories," a Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Bin Laden is a member of a wealthy Saudi family but fell out with the government in the early 1990s over the presence of U.S. troops there. He was stripped of his citizenship in 1994.
The Saudi official was reiterating statements of the foreign minister last week at the Afghanistan conference in London. Prince Saud al-Faisal said he appreciated Karzai's call for a Saudi role in peacemaking, but stressed Taliban had to first declare it is no longer sheltering bin Laden.
Saud also said an official mediation request is needed.
In London, Karzai stressed he plans to reconcile with Taliban leaders as much as they are willing, but he made clear his offer of reconciliation did not extend to anyone in al-Qaida, saying there was no room in Afghanistan for terrorists.
Karzai has said previously he is willing to talk to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and welcome back any militants who are willing to recognize the Afghan constitution. However, the Taliban has always set the withdrawal of international troops as a precondition for any negotiations.
Karzai called that unrealistic, saying the NATO coalition should be expected to stay until they achieve their goal of removing al-Qaida and other terrorist threats.
At the conference, Saudi Arabia pledged an addition $150 million in aid to the war-ravaged country.
Karzai has said he is looking forward to a key Saudi role, not only in reconstruction, but a broader role for peace-building and talks with Taliban.
His spokesman Waheed Omar told the privately owned Saudi daily Asharq al-Awsat Tuesday that Karzai is expected to officially asked Saudi Arabia for mediation. He added that Afghans highly value the kingdom, which is viewed as the center of the Islamic world, and its leaders as the only ones able to convince Taliban leaders to discuss peace.