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The New York Times (7/14, B1, Bunkley) reports on the front page of its Business Day section, "Toyota said Wednesday that its investigation of about 2,000 vehicles reported to experience sudden acceleration found evidence that sticking accelerator pedals and interference by floor mats…did indeed cause some of the incidents." But a company spokesman noted that "none of the vehicles with a sticking pedal was involved in a crash, and he did not know how many of those identified as having problematic floor mats had crashed." According to the Times, "It is the first time since the recalls that Toyota has acknowledged that its internal review, which is continuing, found sudden-acceleration complaints to be valid."

NHTSA: No Conclusions Yet About Drivers’ Possible Mistakes. The Detroit Free Press (7/15, Hyde) reports the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration David Strickland said Wednesday that his agency has "drawn no conclusions about whether drivers are to blame for sudden acceleration complaints in Toyota vehicles." The NHTSA administrator "told the Detroit Free Press" that it had "several more months of work" left before it completed "its own probes into Toyota and those it’s working on with NASA." The NHTSA "also is cooperating with a National Academy of Sciences probe into the broader field of defects in vehicle electronic control, part of a review ordered by US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood after questions about how well NHTSA had handled some 3,000 complaints of sudden acceleration in Toyota models, including reports linked to about 90 deaths."

, with DJS Associates, Inc., can be reached via email at experts@forensicDJS.com or via phone at 215-659-2010.