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KEL598

DAVID AUSTEN-SMITH, DANIEL DIERMEIER, AND EITAN ZEMEL

Unintended Acceleration:
Toyota’s Recall Crisis

The Crisis Begins
On August 28, 2009, Mark Saylor, an off-duty police officer, was driving a 2009 Lexus
ES350 sedan on loan from his Toyota dealer near San Diego, California, when suddenly the car
accelerated to more than 120 miles per hour. Saylor’s brother-in-law, ChrisLastrella, desperately
called an emergency 911 operator for help, a chilling recording of which was later released on the
Internet.1
“We’re in a Lexus . . . and our accelerator is stuck . . . we’re in trouble . . . there’s no
brakes . . . we’re approaching the intersection . . . hold on . . . hold on and pray . . .
pray.”

Unable to stop, Saylor’s vehicle sped into the intersection, struck avehicle, went through a
fence, over an embankment, and into the bed of the San Diego River. Saylor; his wife, Cleofe;
their thirteen-year-old daughter, Mahala; and Lastrella died instantly.2

Friction with Regulators
The car Saylor was driving was included in a September 2007 Toyota recall of all-weather
floor mats that had the potential to shift forward and cause the accelerator pedal tostick in a
depressed position if improperly installed. Although the report on Saylor’s accident by the U.S.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)3 mentioned improperly installed floor
mats, however, the mats in the car were from a Lexus RX400h sports utility vehicle, which had

1
A recording of the 911 call can be heard at Ben Popken, “Toyota: 911 Call of Family’s Fatal LexusCrash Due To Gas Pedal Stuck
on Floormats,” The Consumerist (blog), October 7, 2009, http://consumerist.com/2009/10/toyota-911-call-of-familys-fatal-lexuscrash-due-to-gas-pedal-stuck-on-floormats.html (accessed July 27, 2011).
2
Debbi Baker and Craig Gustafson, “Fatal Crash Continues to Raise Questions,” San Diego Union-Tribune, August 31, 2009.
3
The NHTSA is part of the U.S. Department ofTransportation and is responsible for writing and enforcing safety standards for motor
vehicles.

©2011 by the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. This case was prepared by Professor David Austen-Smith,
Professor Daniel Diermeier, and Professor Eitan Zemel (NYU Stern). Many thanks to Michael Sara for his superb research assistance.
Cases are developed solely as the basis forclass discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data,
or illustrations of effective or ineffective management. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 800-5457685 (or 617-783-7600 outside the United States or Canada) or e-mail custserv@hbsp.harvard.edu. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of the Kellogg School of Management.

Purchased by Melissa Crowe (mcrowe@amresorts.com) on August 17, 2012

TOYOTA’S RECALL CRISIS

KEL598

more driver foot space than the sedan. The report did not draw conclusions about the cause of theaccident, but it noted that the accelerator pedal’s lower edge had “bonded” to the floor mat.4
Just over a month later, on September 29, 2009, Toyota announced it would soon launch a
voluntary recall of 4.2 million vehicles and urged customers to remove their floor mats
immediately, regardless of make and model, while possible design changes were evaluated.5
NHTSA simultaneously issued a safetyalert that cited continued reports of unintended
acceleration (or UA, also known as unwanted, sudden, or runaway acceleration) incidents in
Toyota vehicles; these problems were related to the use of unsecured mats, the configuration of
pedals in the affected vehicles, and the processes necessary to turn off the engines in vehicles
with keyless ignition.6
From the beginning, however, it was...