Last month, Toyota hastily settled an Unintended Acceleration lawsuit – hours after an Oklahoma jury determined that the automaker acted with “reckless disregard,” and delivered a $3 million verdict to the plaintiffs – but before the jury could determine punitive damages. What did the jury hear that constituted such a gross neglect of Toyota’s due care obligations? The testimony of two plaintiff’s experts in software design and the design process gives some eye-popping clues. After reviewing Toyota’s software engineering process and the source code for the 2005 Toyota Camry, both concluded that the system was defective and dangerous, riddled with bugs and gaps in its failsafes that led to the root cause of the crash.
There should be legislation to make it illegal for a car manufacturer to release software that has not had both its development process and the software itself independently audited with with an acceptable outcome.
There should be legislation to make it illegal for a car manufacturer to release software that has not had both its development process and the software itself independently audited with with an acceptable outcome.