Toyota to provide black box readers to regulators
The Associated PressToyota executives are telling Congress that the automaker will give U.S. safety regulators special Japanese electronic data readers that will enable them to read the "black boxes" from Toyotas involved in sudden acceleration accidents.
Yoshimi Inaba, the president of Toyota Motor North America, told the Senate Commerce Committee on Tuesday that the company would be delivering three data readers to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Wednesday. And he said the company hoped to make the data more accessible to other systems by the middle of 2011.
He said Toyota is also dispatching its engineers to the United States to train U.S. technicians on how to use the devices. Such "black box" recording devices are common safety features on modern automobiles. But the ones on Toyotas can be read only by Toyota technicians with specialized readers.