Toyota to turn over data from fatal Bellingham crash
The parents of a man killed when his Toyota Tundra pickup truck crashed into a tree near Bellingham three years ago may finally get the answers they’ve been seeking since their son’s death.
Sen. Maria Cantwell announced Tuesday she has secured a commitment from Toyota executives to turn over ‘black box’ data that could provide answers to the cause of Chris Eves’ crash, which was originally attributed to driver error.
Toyota has resisted family requests for the data, but with recent revelations about problems with some Toyota vehicles experiencing unintended acceleration, the company has now agreed to release the information.
Eves, 29, was driving a three-month-old Tundra on Oct. 26, 2007 when the vehicle veered and crashed head-on into a tree on a rural road north of Bellingham.
The truck never swerved. There are no skid marks and no clear evidence as to why he hit the tree. There’s only a final ominous note in the police file: “It remains unknown why the collision occurred.”
As the Eves kept pushing for answers, the Washington State Patrol said fatigue and Chris’ blood alcohol level, which was at the legal limit of .08, were contributing factors to him falling asleep at the wheel.
But as part of our Problem Solver Investigation, KOMO News obtained crash photos showing extensive front-end damage. And nearly every accident report we examined indicates this crash was at a very high rate of speed.
And that left Chris Eves’ parents wondering: How does any of that data add up to falling asleep at the wheel?
“I don’t think Chris would have hit that stump so hard if he had been asleep,” Lori Eves said during our original investigation. “I think his foot would have went off the pedal.”
Two years later, the data kept in the vehicle’s event data recorder (EDR) is the only way to know how fast Chris Eves was going. According to Toyota’s Web site, the EDR could have recorded speed, pressure on the gas pedal and if he’d tried to brake.
“I know that the speed of my son’s vehicle is on there,” said Chris Eves’ father, Ron Eves said in February.
But car owners need a Toyota tool and software to download the information from the EDR. And for more than two years, Toyota, citing corporate policy, had refused to help.
Subsequently, the Eves learned that their son’s 2007 Toyota Tundra was among the millions of vehicles on Toyota’s October 2009 and January 2010 recall lists for problems with the driver-side floor mat and accelerator pedal, either of which could cause unwanted acceleration.
And on Tuesday, under pressure from the U.S. government and a specific request by Sen. Cantwell for Eves’ data, Toyota relented.
“We will be glad to do so,” said Yoshimi Inaba, President and Chief Executive Officer of Toyota Motor North America, Inc. “This is our desire also to find out what has happened. And very, very sorry about what has happened to this family.”
In addition to Eves’ case, Inaba said the automaker will start making available to U.S. safety regulators all EDRs on Toyotas involved in sudden acceleration episodes.
The company will be delivering three data readers to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Wednesday and hoped to make the data more accessible to other systems by the middle of 2011.
Rob Kornfeld is a Renton, Washington State personal injury attorney.