Jeanne Bowen hails from the Midwest and plans to stay there since both the East Coast and West Coast look a little dicey to her. Her background is in the health care industry and management. She resides with her family and her ever shifting number of animals and friends.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/07/16/the-lexus-recall-a-harrowing-crash-and-suggestions-for-toyota/I see Toyota is back in the news, this time because the company is recalling the Lexus over three-year-old reports that these cars sometimes stop at random. Which is the opposite of what happened to me and my Lexus.
In November 2008, my car nearly killed me.
I was almost home when my almost-new Lexus hybrid SUV went off the road, as if it had a mind of its own. When I told my friends and others about what happened, no one believed me. Of course, that was before all the headlines about the recall of millions of Toyota and Lexus vehicles. Also before company president Akio Toyoda's contrite testimony to Congress, when he took "full responsibility" for the deadly defects in some of his company's cars.
I do know the accelerator from the brake pedal, and I have never mixed them up while driving. I also know I did not cause the crash that left me with broken bones and cuts. I'm not writing about what happened to prepare for a lawsuit, but rather to make some modest recommendations for Toyota and the federal regulators who oversee auto safety.
By way of introduction, I am a businesswoman, wife, and mother in the Midwest where I have been a community leader and activist on behalf of various causes over the years. I have driven all types of automobiles, in all types of weather, under all types of mental duress, including screaming children and visits to the ill and dying. Before my Lexus SUV went off the road and flipped, I had never had an accident. I had never had a ticket.
The day of the accident was overcast. There was no snow or ice on the road. I was driving home from the beauty salon in the town where I live when I felt my car pulling to the right. I stopped to check the front end, looking for a flat tire or something else amiss. There didn't appear to be anything wrong, and no warning lights were illuminated, so I continued on the last mile to my home.
In about one-half mile, however, my car left the road on the right and plowed over a boulder, mailbox, and utility pole before rolling several times. I screamed and shut my eyes and waited for the ride to be over. When the car came to a stop, I still had my feet on the brake pedal and my hands on the steering wheel.
FULL story at link.