If you happened to be listening in the car to NPR this morning you may have heard the harrowing tearful testimony by Rhonda Smith of Sevierville, Tenn. She described her personal acceleration incident in detail to a congressional hearing being conducted today.

She describes how she merged onto the interstate, changed into the middle lane, and set the car on cruise control. The car then began to accelerate. She took off the cruise control. Nothing. She tried all available gears including neutral. The car kept on accelerating past 100 mph. She threw the car into reverse where it remained. She then pulled the emergency brake and stamped both feet down on the brake. The car kept on accelerating. She concluded that she would have to drive her car into a guard rail, possibly killing herself, but avoiding killing others. She prayed. She then activated the convenient blue tooth hands free system standard on most Lexus models to hear her husband’s voice just one last time.

After six miles the car suddenly began to decelerate to 35 mph. Once the car hit 32 mph, she was able to shut off the engine, but all of the engine lights and radio remained on. When her husband arrived he could not find anything wrong with the floor mats (Toyota’s original explanation for acceleration problems).

Hold On, It Gets Weirder.

When the tow truck came, the tow truck driver asked that the car be put into neutral. Of course, none of them wanted to get near the car, but Rhonda’s husband agreed to. When he got into the car he didn’t have the key. Without the key, a person wasn’t supposed to be able to take the car out of park. Not only was he able to take the car out of park and shift it into neutral, but when he did, the engine started on its own and began revving.

The last fact was recorded in a sworn testimony by the tow truck driver.

When she contacted both Toyota and the federal highway safety administration she said that they were very rude to her and actually accused her of making it up. She got very stern in her testimony at this point. She said:

“Shame on you, Toyota,” Rhonda then added a second “shame on you” directed at federal highway safety regulators.

Toyota Also Scares Lawyers

The congressional panel has subpoenaed documents from a former Toyota corporate lawyer who has an even more damaging story to tell.

Dimitrios Biller headed a legal team defending Toyota in rollover-accident lawsuits. When he left Toyota in 2007 he took some 6,000 internal documents with him. He has since sued the automaker under U.S. racketeering laws, as well as for wrongful termination and emotional distress.

He has said that the documents supported his assertion that the company systematically hid or destroyed evidence of serious safety problems that would have led to costly trials in the United States.

“They think they are untouchable. They think our laws don’t apply for them,” Biller said of Toyota in an interview with Reuters earlier this month. “The documents I have prove that.”

In a classic dismissal attack, Toyota says that he has no knowledge of what happened at the company after 2007, so nobody should listen to him.

Biller’s lawyer, Jeffrey Allen said, “What his case deals with is the allegations that Toyota has withheld, concealed and destroyed evidence in products liability lawsuits and from the federal government. It doesn’t limit itself to rollover cases.”

Protecting Yourself From Injury or Death

If you or a loved one own a late model Toyota and have had brake, accelerator, rust, or other mechanical problems in any of these models:

• 2009-2010 RAV4
• 2009-2010 Corolla
• 2009-2010 Matrix
• 2005-2010 Avalon
• Certain 2007-2010 Camry
• 2010 Highlander
• 2007-2010 Tundra
• 2008-2010 Sequoia
• 2009-2010 Prius
• 1994-2010 Tacoma

Call Phillips Webster to review your legal options.