certain levels of security architecture and have that in the products would delivercan e. that is another level of advice. we need that kind of standard. i would help lead that if we could. >> david dewalt, do you find that washington understands silicon valley and vice versa? >> sometimes. i am involved with a group. we meet with senators regularly. i am in bout with a business roundtable composed business- -- involved with a round table of

business. it can be better. certainly we have a good relationship. that relationship is getting better. i am encourage by the work that the silicon valley leadership group is doing to create education on both sides. again, like anything, things are dynamic. we need to keep the vaulting. washington can always be improving. i am incur rich. >> unfortunately, we are out of time. david dewalt is the ceo of mcafee. thank you for being on "washington journal." >> the government says a unintended acceleration in toyota vehicles were caused by mechanical problems. 20 million vehicles were

recalled. the secretary of transportation talks about the problem. prevent accidents our charge above all is to save lives. as long as president obama and i are on e job we will never take the american people's trust lightly. for their safety for granted. and i said over and over when it comes to safety we will not take

a back seat to anyone. in service of this commitment and that congress' request, we tudies into unintendedted acceleration in toyota automobiles, and in america's fleet of cars over all. we asked a straightforward question, can automotive electronic systems possibly cause unintended acceleration. one study, the national academy of sciences exploration of unintended acceleration across america's fleet continues. the other study, our partnership with masses, engineering and safety center has now come to a close. toy, we can say clearly and affirmatively that nhtsa,

america's traffic safety organization, was right all along. as we stated last year, there are only two real world causes of high-speed unintended acceleration in toyota's. first, some toyota formats and trap drivers gas pedal while their vehicles were in motion. second, so-called sticky petals made some toyota acceleration too slow to release. as a consequence, toyota has issued recalls and paid for repairs on nearly 8 million cars or trucks. and nhtsa has leveled record wrecking civil penalties on the company because it failed to respond to these critical safety

concerns in a sufficient, sufficiently timely manner. our conclusion that toyotas problems we mechanical, our conclusion is this. toyotas problems were mchanica mechanical, not electrical. and it comes after one of the most exhaustive, thorough, and intensive research effortsever taken. nhtsa's best and brightest engineers, our nation's leadin electronic specialists, men and women who work with the space program rigorously examined nine vehicles in which consumers reported unintended acceleration. they pored over more than 280,000 lines of software code looking for potential flaws that could initiate an unintended acceleration incident.

they bombarded vehicles with electromagnetic radiation to see whether it could make electronic systems cause the cars they control to gain speed. and they, along with nhtsa, worked meticulously day and night to get to the bottom of unintended acceleration. when we talk about nhtsa's safety first focus, this is what we mean. it's why we saw more voluntary automotive recalls during 2010 than in any previous year, a total of 20.3 million vehicles. it's why we receivd an all time high number of consumer complaints, closely reviewing each and every one and it's why we have worked the clock to keep american drivers and passengers safe. so let's be clear.

the jury is back. the verdict is in. there is no electronic-based cause for unintended high-speed acceleration in toyota's, period. and this morng -- excuse me, this afternoon with safety experts from nasa and nets are on hand to review the salient and supporting details with you. to address nasa's findings we have mike kirsch, principal engineer at nasa's engine and safety center who led this first of its kind study, to address the thousands of cmplaints that nhtsa received and the methodology with which nhtsa carried out the research we have ronald medford, the agency's deputy administrator. to explain nhtsa and the departments next step we have david strickland, nhtsa's

administrator. and, finally, we will be happy to take questions after their presentations. let me close b saying this. i am deeply, personally grateful to the dedicated safety professionals at nasa and nhtsa who conducted the study with extraordinary rigor, immense skill, and unwavering attention, d absolute integrity. it was an enormous task, but they have set the standard for thoroughness, and we are appreciative. so with that, mike, please present nasa's information. >> thank you, mr. secretary, and thank you for the opportunity to discuss our work is such a broad audience today. as the secretary said i'm a principal engineer in the nasa engineering and safety center. i work out of langley research center in hampton, virginia,

about four hours southeast of here. principle and jeers are multidisciplined engineers and providproject management for multidisciplined tasks in our organizations. it like to start the presentation with a summary of our outcome. the bottom line is that nasa analysis and testing did not find evidence that malfunctioned in the electronic throttle control costs large unintended acceleration's by described by consumer reports. and now i'd like to discuss how we arrived atur conclusions. deception i will provide a backup on a messaging and safety center. background and goals of the study. the approach of the study, our technical evaluation strategy. i'll give you a subset of finding and observations from our final report, and then wrap it up with an executive summary. the nasa enduring and safety

center was established in 2003 in response to the space shuttle columbia accident. the goal was to enable complex problem solving using experts anywhe in the world. this approach allows the best engineers and their respective disciplines to apply their expertise in tough technical problems. dna -- independent assessment since its inception. nasa begin discussions with nhtsa in march of 2010. the scope will determine if there were designed vulnerabilities in the toyota electronic throttle control that could possibly cause unintended acceleration that can be realistically expected to occur in consumers use of these vehicles. two critical components of that scope, vulnerabilities that lead to unintended acceleration and our realistically expected to occur in the consumers use.

nasa formed a team with indian experts and systems, avionics, software, electromagnetic interference and human factors. some of the bst engineers in their respective disciplines from across the country, experts from nine of 10 nasa centers where participating. we worked directly with ntsa's automotive experts and this made for a very powerful team. we have some guiding questions during our study. what specific conditions, both internal and external are necessary for the failure conditions to occur. are those conditions evident in reported cases. what physical or electronic evidence did the failure produce. what are the expected ranges in severity. and could defend have any effect on any other interfaces such as the braking system. the nasa team received and evaluated threesome outside nhtsa and outside nasa.

the nasa team evaluate consumer reports and warnke returned data while studying how the electronic throttl control works. we studied over 900 vehicle and questionnaires in detail and read many more. we were looking for clues that would help characterize the failure affects. the model year 2005 toyota camry was identified as a vehicle to study in depth. can have the highest production volume and high number of consumer reports in the malia 2005 was selected because it contained impose both from the earlier design and the later electronic throttle control system. from the nhtsa consumer reported a majority majority of the consumers described large throttle openings with degraded braking and did not leave a trace or a diagnostic rouble code. therefore, the nasa study focused on identifying failure modes that could result in large throttle openings may not generate dignostic trouble code or leave a physical trace.

the technical strategy was analyzed with the system to understand how it is supposed to work and then export how it might fail. we were given unrestricted access to all toyota proprietary design details, including engineering schematics, circuit board layouts and software for source code. we had ready access to toyota engineers both in the u.s. and in japan any time we had questions. the nasa team assembled and tested critical electronic throttle control components in the system include the accelerator pedal, the throttle body and electronic control module to understand how that system might fail. disallow the team to develop an empirical understanding of the system in the lab which coupled with design information enabled a detailed understanding of the entire system. the nasa software team modeled the code, ran the code on simulators andubjected the code to automate code checkers. the nasa team that access to vehiclespurchased by nhtsa from

consumers with a sentence of unintended acceleration, and these vehicles were examined for signs of failure and were also used to validate our understanding of the system and to characterize the effect of these failures that were induced in the system. the nasa team also perform electromagnetic iterference testing on these same vehicles obtained from consumers that have filed consumer reports with nhtsa. i will roll into the findings now our first finding, there are safety features designed into the system to guard against large unintended acceleration from failures. multiple independent safety features include detecting failures and initiating safe modes such as home modend to cut strategies. there were no electrical failures in the electronic throttle control that impacted the braking system era however pumping the brakes at full throttle will cause loss of vacuum assist. this effect wou be seen if you

had entrapped pedal. this mode is not unique to toyota vehicles. there were no failures found in the software tha would unilaterally cause unintended acceleration. there were no credible vulnerabilities identified from electromagnetic interference testing that would cause unintended acceleration. to create large unintended acceleration, two independent panel signls need to falsely indicate that the panel has been pressed. this requires two independent failures that the failure detection system would not detect. these days must be in precise ranges in the correct circuit in the correct time sequence. if you fail to meet any f these restrictive conditions, the vehicle will generate a diagnostic trouble code. we would expect to see signs of this failure in warranty claims if this type of failure were occurring.

our review of warranty data did not indicate an elevated occurrence of this diagnostic trouble code relive to the number of reports of unintended accelerations. the nasa team did perform destructive analysis from a failed pedal to the consumer vehicle. they had a vehicle that had the check engine light come on and we found an electrical short between the two pedal signals. this failure mode combined with driver input could cause the throttle to jump slightly your however in all cases releasing the accelerator pedal stop the effect and vehicle braking was not affected. and although the vehicle would operate, it was not cnsidered drivable. for cases of this failure mode were found in the review of the vehicle under questionnaires and warnke returned data, and in all cases the check enine light came on and the consumer had the vehicle prepared -- repair. more recent pedal design from 2000 later were found to guard against this type of failure.

i'm going t shift to observations. observations are conclusions that are sort outside the scope of the study or are unsubstantiated by evidence. my first observation it was absurd that failures of safety critical systems and electronic throttle control do not provide the same driver information as failures in safety critical braking syste this is also not unique to toyota vehicles. for example, falures in the brake system get a unique red warning light while a generic check engine light occurs for failed in the electronic control system. the same check engine light illuminates for a loose gas cap. diagnostic trouble codes we tended for a mission control and are not mandated for safety critical failures. it was also absurd to vehicles that are offered with the failure of susceptible to the effects of the second failure. no evidence was found that the failures occurred in vehicles with reported unintended acceleration.

to summarize, nasa detailed analysis and testing did not find evidence that malfunctions in electronic throttle controls caused large unintended accelerations as described i some consur reports. nasa found a way that electronic throttle could fit with combined driver input can cause the throttle to jump but the failure rate is very low and it leaves evidence reoccurrence. we also felt ways that electronic throttle control can fail in very small throttle openings up to five degrees. our detailed study can't say it's impossible, but they so the testing and analysis performed we find that malfunctions in electronics are an unlikely cause of large unintended acceleration. now i like to turn over to ron baker, deputy administrator for the national highway traffic safety administration. >> thanks, my. good afternoon, everyone. first lt me thank mike and the team at nasa for all the hard work that they have done for us

here at nhtsa on the issue of toyota elctronic throttle control system for vulnerabilities. our focus at the nation highway traffic safety administration have worked very closely with them over the last several months, and i have to say that we could not have had a more intelligent, dedicated or capable group of people working on this issue. and i think nasa's conclusion bears repeating. there is no electronic-based calls for unintended high-speed acceleration in toyota's. before we enlisted nasa's help, last year we already had to evaluate potential causes of reported unintended acceleration for several years. details are at work include the research and potential causes of unintended acceleration are in the report we are releasing today. we identified to vehicle-based meanical causes of unintended

acceleration in toyota vehicles. the first one, pedal entrapment, occurs when the accelerator pedal becomes trapped in a depressed position by an all weather format. the second, sticky accelerator pedal, can hold accelerated in a depressed position or caused to rern slowly after the driver takes their foot off the pedal. at our urging toyota recalls nearly 8 million vehicles that could potentially have been affected by these failures. to make sure the scope of the pedal entrapment, sticky pedal recalls was broad enough to address all the vehicle-based causes of unintended acceleration known to toyota, we analyze tens of thousands of toyota documents. we did not find any previously unknown potential causes of unintended acceleration in any of the data.

we turn to her own databases and scrutinize consumer complais and toyota warranty data in great detail. not surprisingly, we found that publicity surrounding our investigations, the recalls and congressional hearings on the subject played a major role in the volume of complaints received. you can see on the chart in back of me that our toyota complaint volume spike in march 2004 when we first opened a widely publicized investigation for the electronic throttle control. complaints ramped up again in september 2009 through the end of march 2010. that time period witnessed the fatal crash near san diego in late august 2009. at florette entrapment recall in early october 2009, an expasion

of the recall as well as the sticky pedal recall in january of last year. and, finally, the congressional hearings shortly thereafter. we receive the majority of the complaints after the recall and almost half of those came in favor and march of 2010. i want to draw your attention to some important numbers in our vehicle complaint database. of the 9698 unintended acceleration complaints, 1998-2010 model year vehicles, only 3054 were unintended acceleration complaints about toyota vehicles. in other words, about two-thirds of the unintended acceleration complaints to nhtsa spanned the entire automotive fleet. unintended acceleration i not exclusive to toyotas. the vast majority of the unintended acceleration

complaints of toyota vehicles involved incidents with the vehicle was stationary for traveling at very low speeds, and the driver claimed that the vehicles suddenly accelerated and the brakes didn't work. we found when the complaint alleged that the brakes didn't work, or that the incident began when the driver stepped on the break, what most likely happened was pedal misapplication. the driver stepped on the gas rather than the break or in addition to the break. field inspections of vehicles involved in unintended acceleration incidents during 2010 supports this analysis. we inspected 58 vehicles. 18 were excluded for various reasons, including the lack of event data recorders. but in the remaining 40? is no vehicle-based defect could be identified as the cause of those crashes from 39 of them. and for one crash the result

occurred because of pedal entrapment. does vehicle inspections which included objective evidence from event data recorders indicated drivers were applying the accelerator and not applying the brake, are not applying it until the last second or so before the crash. above and beyond field inspections we obtained 20 toyota vehicles for extensive sting and examination of factors that can contribute to unintended acceleration. we chose 11 vehicles that had not been involved in unintended acceleration incidents, and nine complaint vehicles that had been involved in recorded unintended acceleration incidents. we could not find any previously unknown defects in these 20 vehicles and we determined the braking system for capable of overcoming all levels of acceleration, including wide open for model. with this report we have a tremendous body of work analyzed and verified and compiled all

potential unintended acceleration in toyota vehicles. separately we've enlisted the national academy of sciences to examine the broad subjct of unintended acceleration across the entire automotive indust. and the safety implications of electronic control systems that are increasingly common in motor vehicles. we expect recent -- to receive recommendations from the national academy of sciences later this year on how we might use their research in making authority to address any such implications identified either pedal. -- identified by a pedal. spent by other like to turn out to the transport minister who report on the potential future work, david strickland expecting to so much, and thank everyone for being here. good afternoon. as you've already heard, nasa's report on the unintended acceleration of toyota vehicles represents onths of precise and exhaustive work by both nasa and

national highway traffic safety administration engineers. nasa has delivered outstanding work and like the secretary, i want to personally thank mike kirsch and his team for their dedication and passion for tis project. in addition, i'd like to thank dan smith, our senior associate administrator for vehicle safety and our tranfourteen for his leadership and their tireless efforts. the nasa findings, obervations and recommendations, coupled with nhtsa's own work, point to several actions that we at the national highway traffic safety administration can take now, to lessen the risk of unintended acceleration in the entire automotive fleet. it also suggests longer-term areas where we can strengthen the agency's ability to address the safety of electronic cotrol systems. short term we will consider initiating at least three rule makings. first, to require break overwrite systems.

second, to standardize the operation of key ignition systems. and third, to require the installation of event data recorders in all passenger vehicles. first, break overwrite systems help prevent or lessen unintended acceleration incidents by assigning priority to the braking system over the throttle. as noted in hisreport break overwrite systems, and i quote, provide a broad overarching defense against unintended engine power from a wide range of probls, not just unintended acceleration. second, jesus ignition systems can't exacerbate unintended acceleration incidents if, for example, the driver cannot quickly shut off the engine. and third, crash investigators can mind the event data recorders for information relevant to unintended acceleration incidents that result in crashes.

for the longer-term, and national highway traffic safety administration will also beg broadresearch on the reliability of electronic controsystems so that we can continue to ensure future generations of vehicles are safe. with vehicles becoming increasingly reliant on electronic controlled systems. our knowledge in this area is critical. we will also continue to make sure our staff continues to be well-informed about emerging technologies and that we hire staff wth the needed expertise. we will give full consideration to nasa's findings and observations, including their suggestion that we improve dashboard warnings for safety critical vehicle issues, and that we evaluate vulnerabilities and software designs. and on nasa's recommendation we wil look to other industries for best practices in managing safety critical functions.

we -- work already done by the railroad, aerospace, military and medical sectors can provi technical guidance for our own industry that we regulate the automobile industry. and as mentioned in national academy of sciences pedal starting unintended acceleration and electronic controsystems across the fleet will offer recommendations on these subjects. we look forward to their analysis and we wish t enhance our own understanding of the subject area. today, i am also announcing that the national highway traffic safety administration would begin research on the placement and design of accelator and brake pals, as was human factors research such as out drivers use the throttle and brake pedals. pedal misapplication occurs in vehicles across the fleet and we want to know whether these types of incidents can be reduced to better pedal placement and design.

along with nasa w plan to breathe a national academy of sciences panel soon after these findings by our two agencies. finally, i want to remind the american public that we are dedicated to their safety. we want to serve you. we want to hear from you. and we want to keep you informed. i strongly encourage everyone to visit our website, safer car.gov where you can n only report problems in finding information about recalls, but you can sign-up to be notified about safety vehicles that affect your car, tires and child safety. the national highway traffic safety administration has the most active investigators program on the planet. and at last had an unusually large number of recalls due to nhtsa's willingness to work with manufacturers to identify problems early as the law requires. as the secretary said, highway

and traffic safety is more than the name of our agency. or the object of our mission. it is a serious responsibility with which the american people have entrusted us. thank you very much. >> all right. i will try and organize the questions here. if you have a question, please. [inaudible] > we have received a arge number of complaints, especially as i noted since a lot of the publicity surrounding this. and a lot of those new complaints involving fatalities of unintended acceleration came in after is. we have looke into as many of

those as we get concrete data on, and we don't see a cause related to unintended acceleration other than the ones we've already addressed. >> can i ask about -- you said the main reason that you don't think these two rare incidents happened in the real world is because of the war decline data. is there anything else that led you to believe that? was there a complaint that could potentially be affected by this rare circumstances because the foundation of the theory was that it takes the precise resistance value for the failure to occur here if ything other than those precise values occurs and will thow a code. so if that type of failure were occurring you would expct there to be signed in the war decline data. we didn't see the signs so we don't expect that just those perfect resisters were occurring

everywhere, and the non-perfect resisters were occurring. you expect t see kind of a premade. many more close calls in our vernacular would call it before the real ones hit. >> what did you -- you mention human factor. [inaudible] >> the main reason we had our human factors focus engage was the one, help interpret the vehicle owner questionnaire data, and also if we found a vulnerability was kind of human dependent, like this vulnerability will occur if the accelerator pedal is stepped on at this rate, it was for them to guide us in what is reasonably possible. [inaudible] >> we didn'find any vulnerabilities of the human factor depended.

[inaudible] >> repeat the question. >> the question is of the pedal misapplication complaints, how big is that problem compared to the other problem that we identified as part of the defects your we think that much of the complaints, and they are detailed in the report our acts in the vast majority are related to that type of a problem, based on our analysis of the 50 cases th electronic data recorders and a full review of all the data with respect to the cases look at in detail. >> anybody over your? yes, angela. [inaudible] >> i'm sorry, i didn't hear you. [inaudible]

>> i'll give you an illustrati illustration. last year my youngest daughter who lives in peoria called and said she was thinking about buying a 2011 toyota sienna. she wanted an ironclad guaraee from me that her vehicle was going to be safe. so i checked with david and ron, and i told my daughter that she should buy the toyota sienna, which she did. so i think that illustrates that e feel that toyota vehicles are safe to drive. yes? >> it seems there's a bit of a difference between what nasa is saying -- you are saying they're no causes. excels like you are on different sides. >> i think we are on the exact

same page. now seeking data from an injury perspective and we are trying to prove negative and it's v difficult to prove a negative. so basically we found no evidence that this is causing large unintended acceleration. that's an objective statement. we are certainly -- certainly nasa scientist, could never happen. >> and from nhtsa's perspective, safety is our number one priority so our goal is to find a real-world incident and where it in electronic data can cause unintended acceleration they can't be controlled by the breaker from our safety analysis and our automotive experts paired with nasa's findings, we are incredibly coident that the only cause of unintended acceleration in toyota vehicles are the two mechanical causes, floor mat entrapment and sticky pel. but we'll always continue to monitor not only toyota but the rest of the fleet or any trend if this issue for us to investigate an then go forward with possible action.

>> what's the status of your investigation for the toyota technicians who were apparently able to duplicate sudden acceleration of vehicles speakers i think you are alluding to the document where they looked at ron dismisses toyota -- sorry, lexus. toyota provided the full report and it is very clear from the report that toyota was not able, was not able to repeat that condition. in terms of the verbiage of the report and the details why we would strongly recommend that you contact toyota on that, but we are very confident that report was very thorough and they were not able to replicate that condition. >> just to follow up. did a nhtsa have any ongoing investigation where toyota was able to replicate the unintended acceleration? >> i'll have to refer to ron, but my understanding was and was no cases like that. >> we have no ongoing investigations related to that.

>> we do have opened still the recall query. we were looking for whether or not tre's any additional issues related to unintended acceleration cases that we've are ahead of recalls for, but that's it. [inaudible] >> know. i told -- the last time i spoke to mr. smith was last week and she wanted to know specific results of the study which were not able to provide at the time and we told her we were still looking at her vehicle. the nhtsa step in the nasa staff did extensive testing of that lexus including electromagnetic interference testing, full throttle testing of all the safety systems, and there was no other vulnerabilities done on that vehicle other than what nhtsa originally found, that thisituation that ms. smith encounred was floor mat entrapment.

[inaudible] >> yes. >> repeat the question. >> the question is how do we explain owners who have had repairs done to the vehicles and then they complain again that they have already, they continue to have a problem recur. we have looked at a variety of those specific complaints, and each and every incidents we have not found any data to support the conclusion that it's anything other than the two types of defects that we've already determined exist and have recaled. [inaudible] >> look, thereason we did a study that we did is because if you went to the heangs that i testified at an house of representatives and the senate, just about every member of

congress didn't believe that we have found the problem, which was floor mat, sticky pedal. and just about every member of congress that question me said it's got to be the electronics. so to try and prove the case that it was at the electronics we hired the experts. and they said it wasn't the electronics. so i think what this says to me is, we have some of the best safety people in the world working at d.o.t. that know what they are doing, they did a thorough investigation. but look him as a former member of congress i thought we should listen to these members. we have, and i hope they get the message tody. >> david, why are you considering maybe a break override after 10 months of looking at this?

why not either -- >> let me answer that. answer is this. again, if you go back to the testimony and the questions that we heard from a number of committees in congress. many members of congress suggested that a brake override system might be helpful. so we need to look into that, and we need to make sure that if that is a solution we do it the right way, and that it is -- is the kind of solution. and so we're going to look into it. we're going to decide. we haven't decided, but we are going to look into it and investigate it and do our research. rememberhis, the reason that we have credibility, the reason our safety people have credibility, the reason that nhtsa has credibility is because everything is databased. it's not made up. is not based on a motion.

it's not based on some story that somebody told us. we do our investigations and come up with our solutions based on good data. which is why we hired nasa. so we are going to check out the brake override. [inaudible] >> first of all, i don't agree with what you just said. nobody up here has even insinuated the term that you use, driver air. but i'm going t let at 11 and to this. but the way you characterize this was not characterized that way by anybody up here. go ahead, ron spent one of the things, we described -- we have described as consumers -- as the administrator indicate we want to look across the fleet to see if there are things, are ways to

redesign of -- both the design of the battle and thespacing of the pedal that can minimize this kind of misapplication from returning. in fact, there may be something that can be done to minimize this from happening without blaming the people that perhaps the way it is currently designed to be improved. >> my question is the -- >> i will follow-up, john. it was a 10 month investigation where we had no predisposed conclusion. we were looking at the facts and we took this investigation from the ground floor of looking at any possible situation which would lead to wide open unintended acceleration. this is a safety investigation, period, making sure every toyota was actually safe to drive in this particular situation. ..

>> if you looked at what i said in the hearing on capitol and how i characterize toyota and the way that they go about managing their company, mr. toyota came here to dot, and we visited. vive been to -- i've been to japan. i spent a whole day with mr.

toyota. he introduced me to the safety people and a lot of their initiatives. the proof it in the pudding here. i give toyota a great deal of credit for investing $50 million in a safety program in michigan. that's extraordinary. that shows that they really care about safety, that tey want to set shop, a shop of safety in ourountry, and so i think they've, you know, they've understood what we do here is serious business, that what we do here is promote safety, and we take a backseat to nobody, and that's what i've always explained to every car manufacturer, and i think that message has gotten outhere. yes, sir?

>> [inaudible] >> repeat that, mike. >> the question is could five degree throttle opening be factor in some of the low speed events. did i get that right? yeah, what we found with with the opening is similar to feeling your air conditioner kick on when at a stoplight. it's a marginal increase in break pressure is 8.5 pounds and bumps up to 9 pounds. if you are going down the road and it jumped up to five degrees, you won't know it happened. we don't think it would affect it in any eve. >> yes, sir?

>> [inaudible] [inaudible] >> i got your point. give me your question. >> [inaudible] >> i think toyota has been very cooperative and responsive. i think they understand that at the departme of transportation, safety is the number one priority. we treat all car manufacturers the same. we didn't single out my car manufacturer. we never have and never will. our concern is that anybody who buys the car is it's the safest possible car when they drive it out of the showroom, and it continues to be that way, and if it's not, they need to report that to us and we take complaints seriously whether

it's against any car manufacturer, and i think toyota understands that now. anybody else? thank you very much -- okay? >> [inaudible] >> well, when toyota announced their $50 million investment in a safety program i michigan, i spoke to mr. toyota. we spoke only about that. he explained what they wanted to do. i thanked them for their investment. i thanked them for the idea that they realliment to in-- really want to invest in safety, and that was the extent of our discussion. thank you, all, very much. anything else, jill, or is that it? >> [inaudible]

>> next a look at the conservative political action conference, cpac for short. they announced the stroke -- announced the straw poll results for presidential candidates. republican ron paul came in first. >> this year, i have to tell you -- i have been doing this straw poll since there has been a straw polls. this year really shattered every single cpac record in history. [applause] there were, on average, four straw polls committed -- four

straw polls committed every minute the ballots were open at cpac. that is phenomenal. 3742 people participated in the straw poll this year. that is more than twice the amount of people who participated in 2007, which we will show you. let's go to the next slide. the way the straw poll is conducted is, we start the straw poll on monday when the conference opens and go to mid afternoon on friday. the ballots have to be an input ed into the computers. you can imagine the groans i heard from my employees who had to stay late last night until early this morning to tabulate the results. it was worth it. as the next slide shows, 3740 to

participate. in 2007, the year before the 2008 election, 1700 participated. a 56% increase from last year alone. when you see that, applause yourselves that you participated. when you see that, you will say, so many more people participated this year than last year. what is the difference? are there different people who are coming? [yelling and booing] well, i am not getting into the middle of that one. if you look at the registrants we have, you can see that the

type of registrant remained the same. there was no major changes there. when you look at it by age, it was basically the same by age from last year to this year. when you look at it by gender, it was basically the same by gender. i am interested in the 6 percent of people who refuse on the gender question. i am always interested by that. when we do it by telephone, we can guess what the gender is. we also have another series of questions. the headline is, who does everyone prefer today for president. there are other questions about what the at this -- the activists think is important. this resonates with what most boaters -- with what most

voters care about and what resonates in your life. [applause] that does not mean there are not other important issues. it means that these activists are focused on that now and that is what is important to you now. as you see in the next slide, we ask what is the most important issue to you. as you will see, the top four issue concerns all have to do with the size of government and economic concerns. the top one is reducing the size of the federal government. [applause] reducing government spending, lowering taxes, creating jobs. [applause] every one of those top three mentions all have the same impact. that is getting government out of people's lives and letting

people derive -- people thrive. as you can see, last year the results were almost identical. this group was ahead of the curve last year before heading into the elections. this is what voters voted on in 2010. it is the reason why we took that the house of representatives, picked up so many governorships and picked up so many senate seats. this is what the democrats do not understand. [applause] we asked the question, which of the thought we should be done to reduce the thought we debt. the 1% who said raise taxes, raise your hand. you are at the wrong conference. [laughter] as you can clearly see, overwhelmingly, you want to see

government's hand taken out of your pocket and reduce the size of the deficit. the republicans in congress need to take that to heart. we asked a series of questions about whether or not you thought the republicans in congress would be able to accomplish several things. i was shocked by the response. you are not convinced they are going to do what you send them there to do. they should heed that warning. only 51% of you thought they would rein in federal spending. only 50% of you thought they would rein in federal regulations. less than half thought they would cut taxes. less than a plurality thought they would be able to repeal

obamacare or pay down the federal debt. if i were a republican in congress, i would pay attention to this because my base does not think they can do it all. [applause] now for the moment you all have been waiting for. i know you have the results on your iphone or blackberry. it is the result of the presidential straw poll. this year, we had one of the longer lists we have had. we also had write-in candidates. we asked as a first choice and as a second choice. i will show the combination of both. the winner of the straw poll this year -- [shouting]

[chanting ron paul] okay. ok. congrressmen ron paul gets 30%. former massachusetts governor mitt romney gets 23%.

and, as you can see, there are a number of candidates who got 6%, 5%, 3%, several of them prominent. you see that there is by% listed as other. we had a number of write-in candidates. donald trump got 5%. for those of you who are big youtube fans, dale peterson got some votes. when we come by with the first and second choice, it is 37% ron paul and 31% mitt romney. [catcall calls]

by the way, these numbers are almost exactly the same as they were in last year's straw poll. finally, we ask you all, are you satisfied with the republican field? we wanted to make short work of it. 56% of you said you were satisfied with the field. 43% said you were not. this is slightly higher than it was last year. the republicans in congress -- the word that needs to be taken away from here is that your base is watching. they are hopeful you will do the things you say. they are not convinced you will do the things you say. next year, who knows who the next year, who knows who the winn