While the entire mess concerning multiple recalls of what appears to be most of the Toyota Motor vehicles made over the last decade continues to play out, the reclusive chief executive of Japan's leading auto manufacturer finally came out of seclusion earlier today and apologized for the mess his company has caused.  In a statement made at a press conference in Negoya, Japan, Mr. Toyoda said, "I'd like to offer a heartfelt apology for causing so much trouble to many of our customers."   He said he decided to make the statement because he "thought many of our customers were worried." 

Will someone please tell him some of his customers are dead.

Perhaps Mr. Toyoda is the one that should be worried.  While the company's share price continues to tank, the S&P this morning said it is considering a downgrade of Toyota's stock, and if word of an exclusive report aired by ABC News is determined to be true, then Mr. Toyoda could, or at least should, be spending some time in the stockade with certain NHTSA (National Highway Transportation Safety Administration) officials and perhaps Ray LaHood, head of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

According to ABC's Brian Ross, federal safety investigators at the NHTSA agreed to exclude reports of the most serious cases of unintended acceleration following the intervention of a former NHTSA employee that was hired away from NHTSA by Toyota and employed as the Japanese automakers representative.  The ABC report highlights a 2004 investigation into unintended acceleration of Toyota vehicles equipped with drive-by-wire electronic accelerator technology.  The report states that Toyota influenced the NHTSA into eliminating investigations of unintended acceleration where the sudden acceleration lasted longer than one or two seconds, or in which the driver attempted to brake, which effectively ruled out high speed episodes.  In other words, the worst cases of crashes resulting from unintended acceleration were eliminated from all reports. 

Once again, according to ABC's Brian Ross, there have been five similar investigations since 2004, and the same limitation was applied to NHTSA's latest investigation in 2007, when complaints arose again from consumers about unintended acceleration in Toyota and Lexus models. 

Here is the most important aspect of these investigations.  By eliminating the higher speed - longer duration - instances of unintended acceleration, 26 of the 37 initial complaints of runaway Toyota vehicles were excluded from the federal investigation report in 2004 - this after negotiations between the NHTSA and Toyota representatives.  The 26 incidents that were excluded were never investigated and the entire probe was closed after four months because a "trend" wasn't found.

Note, a key negotiator in these talks was the former NHTSA employee who now worked for Toyota and broke protocol as former NHTSA employees are banned from representing any company with the federal government for at least two years.

Sean Kane of Safety and Research Strategies, a private auto research firm, told ABC News that "By keeping the narrow focus, NHTSA almost ensured they wouldn't have enough complaint data to take action." 

Based on this information, there appear to be serious problems at NHTSA and in the way it interfaces with auto manufacturers and their representatives.  As for Mr. Toyoda's apologies, perhaps he should apologize to the Toyota drivers that are no longer customers because his product failed.  And Mr. LaHood might consider lighting a fire under his own agency and its practices before he goes off setting fires somewhere else.