Acceleration

You look fat in that. Of course I'll be late. Your baby reminds me of Gollum's uncle. This is what the 2013 Subaru BRZ might say if it could talk. The all-new, rear-wheel-drive sports car starts at $26,265, and boy is it honest - perhaps more so than any other car on the market today, save for its mechanical twin, the Scion FR-S. The two were jointly developed by Subaru and Scion's parent company, Toyota, with both assembled by Subaru in Japan. The question about the BRZ is, can you handle the honesty?

Tim Sae Koo had an idea for a tech start-up, but the first-time entrepreneur had no idea what to do next. In January, at the advice of a friend he joined the inaugural class of tech accelerator StartEngine, hoping to turn his vision for Hypemarks - a website at which users create collections of their favorite links - into a bona fide business. Within three months Koo launched the website, and is now talking to a local investor about a substantial investment in the company.

Toyota documents compiled in connection with a court case show the automaker's travails with the 2002-2006 model years of the Lexus ES 300, 330 and 350 sedans. Oct. 1999: Four engineers identify "shift shock" and "weak feeling" in the transmission of the early prototype. Aug. 2000: Eight engineers rate the ES prototype unacceptable in 20 of 41 performance categories. Feb. 2001: A driveability test notes that "some customers may equate delayed [gear] engagement with engine acceleration hesitation."

The Transportation Security Administration reached what seems like a lofty milestone last week when it announced it had screened 1 million passengers through a new accelerated security program at airports across the country. But the TSA acknowledges that the new security program, dubbed PreCheck, has served only a small fraction of the nation's air travelers. The TSA screens an estimated 1.8 million passengers a day at 450 commercial airports. That means that in the same time that the PreCheck program screened 1 million passengers since it launched in October, the TSA has processed nearly 335 million passengers.

Amid its widening recall crisis, Toyota Motor Corp. said it had moved closer to adopting changes to its push-button ignition system to give drivers an added margin of safety if their vehicles accelerate out of control. Executives at the company's headquarters in Japan are considering redesigning the keyless ignition system, known as Smart Key, to allow drivers to shut off the engine by tapping the button three times in a row, company spokesman Brian Lyons said. Currently, Toyota and Lexus vehicles with a push-button starter can be shut off when in motion only by depressing and holding the button for 3 full seconds, a procedure that safety experts have suggested is counterintuitive and can prolong runaway acceleration incidents.

At least 56 people have died in U.S. traffic accidents in which sudden unintended acceleration of Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles has been alleged, according to complaints filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, lawsuits and police and state highway patrol reports. Some of the victims' names are unknown because NHTSA did not disclose them and they could not be confirmed through other sources. A Toyota spokesman declined to comment, saying the company does not discuss cases in which litigation has been, or could be, filed.

Toyota has been dogged for years by reports of vehicles that suddenly and unexpectedly accelerated, but it took a tragic accident involving an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer in August to focus the public's attention on the problem -- and the company's. Now, the problem's impact on Toyota is accelerating too. Having already recalled about 4.3 million cars and trucks, the automaker announced two new recallstragic accident this month and halted sales of some of its most popular models in the U.S., Europe and China.

Toyota did the right thing when it recalled more than 4 million cars and trucks in response to mounting reports of unexpected and uncontrolled acceleration. But rather than sticking to its argument that the malfunctions stem from poorly designed pedals that get entangled with floor mats, the automaker should consider what happened to Eric Weiss. Otherwise, it may never get to the root of a problem that has claimed 19 lives in recent years. As The Times' Ken Bensinger and Ralph Vartabedian have reported, Weiss says he had stopped his 2008 Tacoma pickup at an intersection in Long Beach in October when the truck, on its own, suddenly accelerated toward oncoming traffic.

Two Los Angeles County residents have sued Toyota Motor Corp., alleging that the majority of Toyota and Lexus vehicles made since 2001 contain defective components that can cause unintended acceleration. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Riverside County Superior Court, is the latest in a growing string of suits against the automaker over concerns of runaway acceleration. The plaintiffs, Seong Bae Choi and Chris Chan Park, seek statewide and national class-action status, arguing that "hundreds of thousands" of individuals could be affected by sudden acceleration caused by defective electronic throttle systems.

The National Academy of Sciences will lead a broad investigation into unintended acceleration and electronic vehicle controls under a 15-month study expected to be announced by federal regulators Tuesday. In addition, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will conduct a separate inquiry into sudden acceleration by Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles. Toyota has issued nearly 10 million recall notices worldwide to correct floor mat and gas pedal defects that it says can lead to runaway vehicles.

WASHINGTON — More than 21/2 years after the fatal crash of a Lexus in suburban San Diego led to the recall of millions of Toyota vehicles, federal regulators are taking their most significant step to prevent future vehicles from accelerating out of control. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration formally proposed a requirement Thursday that automakers include a brake-throttle override system in all their passenger cars and light trucks to help drivers regain control when a vehicle accelerates suddenly.

Squids can fly? If you are a member of the relatively small community of squid aficionados you've known this for a while. But if you are a normal person with just a passing interest in cephalopods and all their many diverse abilities, the fact that these underwater creatures also occasionally get from point A to point B by flying above the water for distances of up to 164 feet at a time might just blow your mind. Ron O'Dor, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, and co-author of a poster called "Squid Rocket Science" presented at the American Geophysical Union's Ocean Sciences Meeting in Salt Lake City, said squids have good reason to fly. It is not to avoid predators, as was previously thought, but rather to save the animal energy as it migrates across vast expanses of ocean, O'Dor said.

After France, the deluge? The announcement by French President Nicolas Sarkozy that his troops would sharply accelerate their departure from Afghanistan cast a harsh light on potential cracks in the U.S.-led military coalition in the country. Although the Obama administration and the NATO force sought to portray Friday's declaration in Paris as neither surprising nor unilateral, it marked not only an effective end to France's combat role in Afghanistan, but a breaking of Western ranks as an unpopular war drags into a second decade.

The nation's top auto safety regulator is ill-equipped to detect problems with high-tech electronics commonplace in today's cars, a new government study has concluded. Calling such shortcomings “troubling,” the study called on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to review its technical capabilities and appoint an advisory panel to help it handle potentially serious risks associated with systems such as adaptive cruise control and GPS navigation. In addition, the agency should require automakers to install electronic data recorders, often referred to as black boxes, in all new cars, and consider significant changes in the design of pedals and certain ignition systems.

Reporting from Wilmington, Del. -- The Dodgers can sell their television rights along with the team, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross ruled Thursday. The ruling could send Fox Sports scrambling on two fronts — to appeal in the hope of stopping the sale, and to negotiate in the hope of reaching a new deal in the next five weeks. However, the Dodgers would have the right to talk with other potential broadcast partners thereafter, with Time Warner Cable, DirecTV, AT&T and Verizon among the possibilities.

Add automobiles to the watches, video games, cashmere sweaters and the rest on the list of goods selling briskly in the days following Thanksgiving. It seems car buyers caught Black Friday fever this year. Galpin Ford, the nation's largest Ford dealership, sold 140 new vehicles on the Friday after Thanksgiving, a single-day sales record for the San Fernando Valley franchise. "It was surprising for all of us," said Beau Boeckmann, Galpin's vice president. "I don't think we expected that November would be the biggest car month since 'cash for clunkers' two years ago. Our November sales will be 50% above last year.

At least 34 people have died in accidents involving Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles that allegedly accelerated out of control in the past decade, federal safety regulators said Monday, reflecting a sharp jump in the number of motorist complaints being filed in the three weeks since the automaker announced its latest recalls. The new count from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration includes 13 fatalities reported since Jan. 27, the day after Toyota ordered a sales and production halt of eight models in the U.S. to fix gas pedals that it said can stick and cause unintended acceleration.

Toyota Motor Corp. was informed of sudden acceleration incidents verified by its own technicians and dealers at least six times dating back to 2003, according to documents filed Monday in two lawsuits against the automaker. In one case, a Toyota technician reported taking a vehicle on a test drive after a customer complained of unwanted acceleration. The car "began to accelerate on its own," as engine speed increased to 5,500 rpm from 1,500 rpm, reported the technician, who was able to stop the vehicle by applying the brakes, according to the filings.

For years General Motors Co. has wanted to be more like Toyota Motor Corp. It wanted to sell more passenger cars like Toyota. It wanted Toyota's reputation for reliability. But in one area, GM is doing everything it can to not be like Toyota. As federal safety officials began investigating the cause of fires that followed test crashes of its Chevrolet Volt electric vehicles, GM shifted into communications overdrive, trotting out senior executives and engineers to talk about the issue and launching a customer-care initiative.