[wallace_f]

I don't agree with the fact you are being downvoted.

Toyota and Honda have paid the largest safety-related fines in history: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-toyota-billion-doll...

http://www.edmunds.com/car-news/honda-will-pay-largest-auto-...

Compare Toyota's fine for it's failure to report safety defects to GM's in the GM ignition scandal. I think reasonable minds can conclude that they are both serious, but it is possible to make an argument GM's was more serious, and they paid a lesser fine. Also compare timelines, and the fact that US regulators were pressured by public discourse in the GM case. It's not crazy to come to the conclusion regulators show bias towards US automakers.

It's actually no conspiracy at all that the US government has bias and favors US auto makers in public policy. Afterall, it was not long ago we gave GM a huge welfare check / bail out package. Ford to a lesser extent.

[Aoyagi]

Sudden acceleration is less serious than "if you put a lot of heavy stuff on your car keys, it may turn the key when it's in the ignition box"?

[wallace_f]

OK, let's play ball:

Here's the arguments I can make in 5 minutes of Google searching. My point is just that there's room for debate here (in other words, I'm not saying I am right and you are wrong, what I am saying is that reasonable people can agree there is reasonable debate on this issue).

Argument 1: Toyota paid 1.2 billion dollars for failure to disclose safety defects linked to 5 deaths. Floor mats in Toyota cars may be linked to up to 34 more deaths. GM had to pay only 900 million for safety defects leading to at minimum 124 deaths, but the real death toll may be much, much higher than that, because as many as 90% of claims are not included in that figure as they are part of an ongoing civil dispute.

Sources: 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch... 2. http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2014/03/19/toyota-in-us-...)

Argument 2 (an argument similar to yours that oversimplifies): Complete loss of control of your car (not even airbags functioning) is less serious than having floor mats in your car?

Argument 3: Toyota paid 1.2 billion dollars for "having floor mats in their cars" and an extremely rare accelerator sticking issue that was linked to only 5 deaths. GM got off easy on an issue that caused complete loss of control of the car as ignition cut off, and not even the airbags would be deployed in this scenario. GM also internally was aware and discussed this defect for about a decade and did not disclose it.

Argument 4: Most of the deaths in Toyota's case were linked to floor mats, but how much blame can we reasonable put on floor mats for causing accidents? Is it more or less than putting items on your key chain? Maybe it's not reasonable to assume items on your keychain a safety risk, but manipulating and kicking the floor mats out of their socket holders obviously could interfere with the accelerator pedal.

Edit: I think no matter how you spin it, GM paid probably an order of magnitude less $$/human life than Toyota in these two cases.

[Aoyagi]

My comment was unrelated to how much did each have to pay though.

And it's not "complete loss of control", not to mention airbags are not part of "control of a car". It's "less control" and unlike in Toyota's case, the car doesn't actively do something.

I mean, sure, it's debatable and GM were despicable for not fixing it when they knew about it, but every time I hear about "IgnitionGate", it feels like most people are making out of it a bigger problem than it was.

[wallace_f]

>My comment was unrelated to how much did each have to pay though.

The topic of my post is about unequal punishment b/w GM/Toyota. If your comment isn't about that then I don't see what the point is in changing the topic and going into a microscopic debate about which safety fault was worse?

If you want to go into these tangential arguments about safety defects, car control, etc. ...my arguments were for illustrative purposes in the first place, but second... you know when the ignition is cut off in modern cars, that would usually mean you can not steer the car, right? That is pretty dangerous.