U.S. and Japanese media gave widespread but contrasting coverage of the sudden-acceleration accidents involving Toyota Motor Co. vehicles, mainly in North America, with accounts by victims and allegations of safety flaws getting greater play on the other side of the Pacific compared with a muted approach here.
U.S. reports at times cast the strong impression that Toyota design flaws were behind many of the accidents, although recent preliminary findings by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration pointed to the possibility that driver error was the cause of most of the reported deadly accidents so far investigated.
Japanese coverage of the accidents, most of which occurred in the U.S., appeared more subdued, or in some cases intimated political motives behind some of the American coverage, even alleging "Toyota bashing" by the U.S. media and Congress.