The title of a recently released ABC News article is "Toyota Issues Huge Recall (3.8 million vehicles)Over Accelerator Risk". OK, before we start playing politics, let's look at the facts of this story (i.e. what and what people are saying.

Models Affected: Toyota Camry (2007-10), Toyota Avalon (2005-10), Toyota Prius (2004-09), Toyota Tacoma (2005-10), Toyota Tundra (2007-10), Lexus ES 350 (2007-10) and Lexus IS 250 & 350 (2006-10). That's 8 models covering 7 years, which is STAGGERING and certainly not a good sign.

According to Toyota spokesman Irv Miller, "A stuck open accelerator pedal MAY RESULT IN VERY HIGH VEHICLE SPEEDS AND MAKE IT VERY DIFFICULT TO STOP A VEHICLE, WHICH COULD CAUSE A CRASH, SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH" which is indeed serious.

Transport Secretary Ray LaHood was clearly concerned: "This is an urgent matter. For everyone's sake, we strongly urge owners of these vehicles to REMOVE MATS OR OTHER OBSTACLES THAT COULD LEAD TO UNINTENDED ACCELERATION". HOPEFULLY, everyone who has one of the aforementioned models is listening because this is a safety issue that could POTENTIALLY be the difference between surviving an accident and death. Folks with these models should heed Secretary LaHood's advice and take their vehicles in for an inspection ASAP to ensure, as much as possible, that there are no further safety issues.

So what does this mean? GM and Chrysler are indeed disasters, but they are certainly not the ONLY problems. The Japanese economy is in even worse shape and safety issues involving a major Japanese automaker only makes the situation worse and this in turn means that demand for Toyota should decrease significantly which means that Japan will take even longer to crawl out of its deepest recession since World War II.