Thoughts on the Toyota Recalls
Let me start by saying that I truly believe that the Toyota recalls were necessary and that the parts in question really were failing like they were reported to be. I do feel that the coverage was overmuch and that it was blown out of proportion. The recall for the gas pedal wasn’t really as dangerous as everyone made it seem. If your gas pedal gets stuck and you find yourself driving a car that is accelerating uncontrollably, all you have to do is put the car into neutral. That’s it. The brakes is another story.
All of that aside, there is a little conspiracy theorist deep down that is wondering if all the hullabaloo isn’t a construct of the unions. You see, Toyota is not a unionized company. They don’t have contracts with the unions in their factories. And Toyota has been consistently gaining market share over the big three in Detroit. And the big three are unionized. So, the theory goes that the unions are putting political pressure on the government to put a lot more pressure on Toyota than they would on Ford, GM, and Chevy.
Just a conspiracy theory, but all too plausible.