journal of human reproduction. pretty disappointing news about children and their teeth. an estimated 17 million children go without dental care. the report says americans are expected to spend $106 billion on dental care in the coming year, and those costs could be avoided if people get adequate treatment early in life. you think uncle sam might bear some blame in this whole toyota fiasco? some folks feel the government, the broken government and the automaker were way too cozy. [ man ] you all right?
anything? well, i m not going to hold my breath. but what i want to hear him say is that toyota is going to swallow the bitter pill and spend whatever it takes, and it could be as much as $100 billion, to install this safety feature on all the vehicles that are out on the road. that s what needs to happen. and i want him to understand that the reason he s testifying today is because his staff chose to ignore my warnings. over three and a half years ago, i made ten customer experience phone calls where i pleaded with the employees to try to go around the legal department and let executives higher up in the company know that their efforts were being sabotaged, that people were going to die and that the reputation of toyota was going to be ruined. three and a half years ago i predicted what is unfolding today. and in fact on november 12th, i
the hot seat with akio toyoda will be. we ll talk about the type of questions he s going to get. reporter: and i m kyung lah live in tokyo where this testimony is being right here as a make-or-break moment for the automaker but also for the made in japan brand. i m rob marciano. if you re driving a toyota today across the northeast, a 4-runner might do you well. another snowstorm headed that way. plus next hour president obama s first appointee to get hounded of his job over appearances garners an image award, no joke.
yesterday who represents toyota in the united states, he didn t know the answers to any questions. when he was asked how come he didn t know the answers to any questions, he said i m in charge of the sales operation, but all. decisions are made in japan. so now we re going to have the ceo, who is in japan, and i m sure that there are going to be some translation problems, although he did go to school in the united states and does speak english. but, you know you bring up an interesting point. you re saying all the decisions are made in japan, yet a number of people have been saying, no, these cars are made in the states. we should be hearing from jim lentz, the head of toyota. you re saying he didn t even have answers yesterday. so really does the information that we need to hear, does that truly come from akio toyoda? it has to because this is their largest market in the world. and they have a huge problem here, although people do love their cars, their toyota cars. many people,
that they can work for toyota but they cannot come back and talk about issues they worked on. they can t do that. they can talk to people in other modes, faa or some other mode, but they cannot come back and talk to our folks about issues that they well, the one thing i would suggest is that the appearance is one of the things that right now i think the public is very concerned about and a couple of people that worked at nhtsa go to work and they re in a public relations position, they can talk to people at nhtsa and the appearance may be that they re influencing some decision making that s going on. look, i agree with you on this, mr. burton, and i think this law probably should be tightened up. i really do. i agree with you. perception is reality. anybody that s been in politics knows that. and i take your point on this. well, thank you very much, and i still love you, ray. thank you.