February 8, 2011 1:59PM # Told Ya Toyota By [Walter Olson](https://www.cato.org/people/walter-olson) --- SHARE Readers of Cato at Liberty knew all about this [last July](https://www.cato.org/u-s-dot-crash-data-suggest-driver-error-in-toyota-accidents/), and now the Obama Department of Transportation is [confirming it publicly](http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/02/08/business/AP-US-Toyota-Recalls.html): > The Obama administration’s investigation into Toyota safety problems has found no electronic flaws to account for reports of sudden, unintentional acceleration and other safety problems. … > “We enlisted the best and brightest engineers to study Toyota’s electronics systems and the verdict is in. There is no electronic-based cause for unintended acceleration in Toyotas,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. If, as retiring NHTSA official George Person [charged last July](https://www.cato.org/retiring-official-dot-is-sitting-on-pro-toyota-probe-results/), DoT officials dragged their heels in making public the exculpatory findings, there were very real costs to the economy. Not only did [lawsuits proliferate](http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2010/03/09/2010-03-09_toyota_owners_file_classaction_lawsuits_as_value_of_their_cars_plummets_could_co.html) which one hopes are now on their way to sputtering out, but Toyota (as [Reuters reports](http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/05/toyota-incentives-idUSN0410326920110205)) “was the only major automaker in the United States to report a drop in sales last year” even though the Japanese-owned automaker has ramped up costly dealer and sales incentives. Did it make a difference that the federal government has taken a proprietor’s interest in [major Toyota competitors GM and Chrysler](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11209), or that a [former trial lawyer lobbyist](http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/trial-lawyer-lobbyist-head-traffic-safety-obama) heads the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration? Those questions might be worth a hearing at the [newly reconstituted](https://www.cato.org/the-fall-of-the-house-of-waxman/) House Energy and Commerce Committee. ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Regulation](https://www.cato.org/regulatory-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).