Toyota offers concessions to congressional investigators

WASHINGTON — Toyota Motor Corp. offered concessions Friday to congressional investigators ahead of planned hearings later this month on the company's safety woes, saying it would re-examine some customer complaints and weigh new safety measures.

The automaker will consider expanding the installation of a braking system that can override a vehicle's throttle, a company attorney said in a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Toyota also plans to take another look at consumer complaints of unwanted acceleration in late-model versions of its Tacoma pickup trucks.

Toyota on Friday also recalled a small number of 2010 model year Tacomas to fix potential problems with their drive shaft that could cause the pickups to lose control. The recall only involves 8,000 trucks, but it is the latest safety concern at the automaker that has already recalled millions of vehicles in the past several months.

The oversight committee is expected to hold the first of three congressional hearings to take testimony from top Toyota executives on the company's safety recalls stemming from problems with acceleration on some of the automaker's most popular vehicle models.

Investigators are probing whether Toyota acted quickly enough to deal with safety issues and if federal regulators did enough to hold the company accountable.

Meantime, a Nebraska widow has sued Toyota in federal court in Los Angeles seeking compensation for the death of her husband on grounds he was killed when their Prius suddenly accelerated and crashed. Jacquelyn Donoghue of Holdrege, Neb., filed the complaint Friday. The automaker's North American headquarters is located in Torrance, an LA suburb.

Donoghue, a 67-year-old nurse, claims her 2006 Toyota Prius went out of control in December and slammed into another vehicle.

Her husband, John Donoghue, was killed and she was injured.

When Toyota announced in November a plan to fix gas pedals that could become stuck in the floor mat on about 4 million vehicles, the automaker said it would install a brake override system on some vehicles as a precaution. The system automatically allows the brake to override the throttle and safely bring the vehicle to a stop.

Toyota said in November it would install a brake override system onto the involved Toyota Camry, Avalon, Lexus ES350, IS350 and IS250 models. The letter Friday said the company is "actively identifying additional models that may be able to be reprogrammed."