mats were causing sudden acceleration problems on toyota cars. but went center for auto safety asked for details about the test in a freedom of information act request, they got few answers. nhtsa responded to that by saying they had they don t know how they did the test. they don t know what they measure and they had no test data. in other words, they had nothing other than a conclusion. reporter: the next question is why. claybrook says nhtsa has long been considered severely understaff and underfunded ant house committee report says nhtsa appears underqualified to investigate safety on cars that have electronics rivalling the cockpit of a fighter jet. but the agency and toyota have also been attacked for being too cozy with each other. for example, two toyota officials who have handled safety issues involving nhtsa actually used to work for nhtsa. the company s been defending them. whatever they have done is
couple of days, the longer you wait, the chances are they could come all this wait way to haiti with relief supplies to will never get to the people that need them t is really, really disappointing for a lot of people here trying to help and i think also for americans who sent all these supplies and thinking maybe they are not getting with where they needed to go. jessica? truly unbelievable. hopefully this policy will be reversed in the coming days. thanks for that amazing report, soledad. coming up tonight, toyota s president, testifying before congress but big questions remain about his company s commitment to safety. we are keeping them honest, next. years from now, how will we look back on today?
get back to the hearings today rk today, toyota came under heavy fire. toyota has been replacing gas pedals on millions of vehicles but what of the decision to replace pedals and not electronics is actually binds dollar-driven science. that was the suspicion in congress today and now ted rowlands is keeping them honest. reporter: toyota is apologizing on capitol hill but it is not admitting to anything specific. in fact, an initial report given to congress this month couldn t find anything wrong with toyota vehicles. that report was compiled by company called exponent, hired by, guess who toyota. we have asked people to evaluate exponent s analysis and they said it was not a very good analysis. reporter: ex-pon nent is an engineering firm with the nickname masters of disaster. when a big corporation gets in trouble, these are the guys they
employees and say when this is all said and done, they will find out exactly what happened with this accelerator problem in toyota vehicles. buts very jesica, you cannet beth that somebody else may just find out something different and they will end up battling it out in court. absolutely. thank you, ted, for that report. well, unlike mr. i do yesterday dark ray la hood is not a brand name. he is the secretary of transportation and today, he, too, was on the hot seat for what the safety watchdogs in his department did and perhaps did not do about the toyota problem. more on that angle from joe johns. reporter: toyota is on the hot seat this week in washington but it s nhtsa, the national highway traffic safety administration, the feds who were supposed to be looking out for motorists who are taking a real beating here, accused of missing multiple warning since and getting caught completely by surprise when the story blew up in their faces last year. joan claybrook used to run nht
disturbances to the system unintended acceleration, despite concerted efforts. leak trickal engineering consultant dr. anthony anderson told cnn that the report was seriously deficient a skepticism shared by some lawmakers. was the interim report produced by ex-pon nent inc., to justify toyota s pockets equivalent of junk science and how much credibility should it be give fwhin committee and american consumers? there was a comment made by one of the congressmen yesterday we want to look at this report to see if it is junk science and as an engineer, that we take offense to stuff like this. reporter: ex-poke nent vice president angela meyers sat down with us and fired back at critics. you are saying if a victim hired you, had the money to do so, in this exact case, would you runt exact same tests and do the exact same thing as if toyota was your client? that s correct. people would have a very difficult time believing that. well, we are engineers are much like doctors