Toyota: How One Failure Begets Another

Amid the slow recovery of the global economy, we have in recent weeks witnessed the unlikely descent of one of the world's most admired companies: Toyota. A pattern of deadly accidents has caused the the slow-motion crash of its reputation.

It has been a long time coming. Toyota (TM) did virtually everything it could over the past decade to deny an acceleration problem in many of its models. When it could no longer treat each crash as an isolated incident, it blamed its troubles on floor mats (or driver incompetence). Later it conceded that the gas pedals should be replaced. At the same time, it continued to reject suggestions that onboard computer electronics had anything to do with the accidents, claiming that multiple backup systems made computer involvement impossible.