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Toyota apologises to Corolla owner

TOYOTA HAS apologised to the owner of a Corolla over comments it made in relation to her complaint that the car suffered from sudden acceleration.

In an article in The Irish Timeson Saturday, February 6th, Anne McEvoy from Co Limerick described the incidents when the throttle seemed to stick and the fear she had when using the car.

The company claimed the problem arose from an improper extra floating driver’s floor mat installed on top of the existing retained mat. However, in a letter to Ms McEvoy it states that it now accepts there was “no floating mat in the driver’s side of your car”.

The 2009 Corolla is not part of the recall for faulty accelerator pedals. Over 8.5 million cars have been recalled by the Japanese car firm in recent months over potential accelerator problems in several models and glitches in the braking software in the new Prius hybrid.

On Monday the firm sought to discredit an outside study critical of its electronic safety systems and said it had found no flaw with its throttle controls. The company’s findings dismiss claims made during US Congressional hearings last month that the recall issues may be linked to electronic throttle controls. The firm also said it will investigate a report that the California Highway Patrol was dispatched after a Prius driver in San Diego called 911 to report a stuck accelerator pedal.

A patrol car “slowed in front of the vehicle and acted as a brake to bring it to a stop”, the company said, citing the police report. The driver said on US television that his car reached speeds of 90mph (145km/h).

45% of women never asked for licence

TWO OUT OF every five motorists say they have never been asked to show their driver’s licence to gardaí, either at a checkpoint or in a Garda station, according to new research.

The survey of more than 11,000 AA Ireland members also showed women drivers were less likely than men to be asked for their licence with just 55 per cent saying they have been asked to produce their licence, compared to just under a third of men. One reason for this is that males tend to be higher mileage drivers. Just under 24 per cent of drivers reported they had been breathalysed.

More than 83 per cent said they have no penalty points, with 13 per cent saying they had either one or two points and 2.5 per cent with three or four points.

Women, at almost 87 per cent, were less likely to have penalty points than men, 81 per cent of whom had penalty points. AA director of policy Conor Faughnan says this suggests the penalty point system is working effectively with drivers with one or two penalty points more likely to moderate their behaviour.

According to the RSA, 162 drivers out of a 2.6 million licence holders are banned from driving having accumulated 12 or more points.

However, the survey also indicated that more than half of those believed the circumstances in which they received the points were unfair with unclear or inappropriate speed limits the most common cause of complaint. Fifty-five per cent of men believed the allocation of points was unfair, compared to 41 per cent of women.

Listen up

IN THIS week's Irish TimesMotors podcast we discuss whether modern cars are being over-engineered with too much gadgetry that's fun at the start, but will cause headaches and costly repairs as the cars get older. Plus we take you in-car for the latest in our podcast road tests: this time it's Kia's new Venga people carrier.

Listen in at irishtimes.com/ motors/podcast