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Honda Hit by the Unintended Acceleration Disease

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) received a report of a 2005MY Honda Accord Hybrid being involved in an accident due to brake power loss and unintended acceleration after crossing over rumble strips. The petitioner requested assistance from another consumer (due to her injuries) to file a complaint to the Office of Defects Investigation.

The report described the symptoms of the subject vehicle after braking on rumble pads along side of the highway. The chain of events led to the vehicle swerving out of control and eventually crossing over into traffic flowing in the opposite direction. The accident resulted in the death of one passenger. The driver and occupants of two other vehicles were severely injured. The crash had also rendered the petitioner incapacitated.

The NHTSA will analyze the report and decide whether to issue a recall for the Accord Hybrid, due to problems with antilock brake controls. About 25,000 vehicles would be affected by an investigation, NHTSA said.

After the incident on July 23, 2005, the petitioner did a search of the Office of Defects Investigation's complaint database and came across 22 other complaints of Honda Accord Hybrid or Honda Civic Hybrid vehicles with similar symptoms of braking performance decrease over uneven surfaces, although it remained unclear if the Civic Hybrid would be included in the NHTSA's inquiry.

Honda issued a statement late Monday saying that it's too early to comment on the complaint. The report is unspecific and hybrids have braking systems that exceed their necessities. Also, Honda has a relatively low number of unintended acceleration complaints, the statement said.

The report doesn't sound unfamiliar, as Toyota vehicles had a series of reports of unintended acceleration and recently filed a motion to dismiss lawsuits concerning that particular matter.

Hopefully this won't bring a cloud of doubtfulness over electronically controlled accelerator pedals, as car manufacturers around the world have implemented these systems for quite some time now with great success.
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