A U.S. safety agency is looking into a car owner's allegations that older Toyota Corollas can accelerate unexpectedly at low speeds and cause crashes.
The inquiry by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration covers approximately 1.69 million Corolla compact cars from the 2006 to 2010 model years, according to the Associated Press.
The agency said on Monday on its website that the inquiry will decide if a formal investigation is needed.
At least 141 complaints have been filed with NHTSA about unintended acceleration in Corollas. Toyota and its Lexus luxury brand vehicles were plagued by complaints of unwanted acceleration just a few years ago.
Back then, the automaker attributed the issues on drivers hitting the gas instead of the brake, floor mats that could trap the gas pedal, and sticky gas pedals that could cause unwanted acceleration, according to the Associated Press.
Electronics engineer Bob Ruginis of Bristol, Rhode Island, said in a petition on Monday that a 2010 Corolla driven by his wife, Kathy, surged at low speeds several times, and a dealer couldn't find the issue. The car already had previously been repaired under sticky-gas-pedal and floor-mat recalls, he said.
Bob Ruginis submitted a report from the car's event-data recorder proving that the gas pedal was in the idle position starting 4.8 seconds before the crash. It rose to s above idle at 2.8 seconds before impact, and then returned to idle a second later and stayed there until the crash.
The Corolla's speed was 3.7 mph until 0.8 seconds before the crash, when it rose to 5 mph. It was 7.5 mph at impact, according to the Associated Press.
Revolutions per minute stayed at 800 until doubling at the time of the impact, the report said. His wife's foot was off the brake until the moment of impact, which her husband says is consistent with a driver slowly entering a parking space and being caught off-guard.
"She told me she that the car started going, she hit the brake and it kept accelerating," he said,
A passenger in the car, whom he declined to identify, saw Kathy's foot on the brake at the time of the crash.
Ruginis says he's now stuck with a car that his wife won't drive and his conscience won't let him sell it to someone else.
"Maybe I can help prevent an accident, to get people to look at it, to get Toyota to invest the time and money to figure out what's wrong and make a change," he add.
Ed Lewis, a spokesman for the Toyota City, Japan-based manufacturer, said the automaker will "cooperate fully with any inquiry," according to AP.
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