NHTSA Complaint #11576503 — 2021 TOYOTA VENZA

The crash occurred at 2:50 PM on January 10, 2024 while pulling our 2021 Toyota Venza into a diagonal parking space on a slight upgrade. The vehicle surged over the curb, across the sidewalk and into a brick wall with gas pipelines attached to it. As this was happening, the driver yelled, “I don’t know what’s happening.” The car then rebounded onto the sidewalk and was turned off quickly because of a gas smell. We exited the vehicle and tried to keep people away from the scene because of the smell. The passenger had great difficulty getting out of the car because the passenger side door was blocked by a tree in the median. The Fire Department cleared the area, the police interviewed both the driver and the passenger and the gas company arrived to repair the meters and pipes. No citation was issued. During a call on January 12, 2024 to cancel a pre-paid service agreement, we were referred to the Toyota Brand Engagement Center who interviewed us before forwarding information on to the Toyota Liability Team. Toyota sent a contractual employee to download the information from the vehicle’s computer modules for further analysis by Toyota. On February 20, 2024, Toyota issued a report that stated the vehicle had no defects related to the accident and that the accelerator pedal had been fully depressed prior to impact. The report did not address other information that was provided to individuals investigating the incident, including information about the incident itself, information about a delayed acceleration event several days prior to the incident and notification from the local Toyota dealer the next day that a check engine light had come on around 2:50 the day of the incident followed a minute later by alarms indicating “airbag failure to deploy” and “hybrid system failure.” The report also did not address the possibility of a problem with the throttle system, specifically the accelerator sensor.