OK, so unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard countless stories about the massive global Toyota recall for problems with sudden uncontrolled acceleration. Millions of cars have been recalled in the US and Europe.
Now guess how many Toyota cars have been recalled in the company’s home country of Japan. Just try and guess.
If you guessed zero, it’s too bad there’s no prize for the right answer. Because you’d be spot on.
Why haven’t any Toyotas been recalled in Japan? Is it because Japanese Toyotas are somehow immune to the accelerator problems that have led to horrific car crashes elsewhere?
Nope, it’s because Japanese consumer protection and products liability laws are astoundingly weak. (The country only has one full-time auto recall investigator, who is augmented by about a dozen temp workers).
In the 1970s, Fumio Matsudo, sometimes referred to as the “Ralph Nader of Japan,” tried to blow the whistle on some unsafe Nissans. He was rewarded for his actions with his arrest and criminal blackmail charges.
Maybe the tort reform crowd from think tanks like the Manhattan Institute can move to Japan. It sounds sort of like their version of utopia. The rest of us can be glad that we live in Massachusetts, in the good old United States, where our legal system at least makes some effort to protect us from unsafe products.

If you or a family member or friend has been injured in a car accident that you suspect was caused by a defect in the car and require the services of a Boston personal injury attorney, call The Law Office of Alan H. Crede at (617)973-6434 to arrange a free consultation.