I had been skeptical for some time regarding the claims being made against Toyota in recent months.  Now that Washington and the UAW essentially own General Motors, the ferocity of the government's assault on one of GM's leading nonunion competitors seemed strangely suspicious.  It appears that there were acceleration problems with the Prius that the company is now trying to fix.  However, the story isn't being allowed to die so quickly, and the media has been all over an alleged incident involving one James Sikes.  Michael Fumento has reason to believe that Sikes is lying.  For one thing, there are some significant holes in his story.  At one point Sikes claimed that he was afraid to try putting the car into neutral or hitting the ignition button--even when the 911 dispatcher pleaded him to do so--explaining that he was too frightened to let go of the steering wheel.  But apparently he wasn't afraid to reach down and try to pull up the accelerator with his hand (which, he claims, didn't work).

But what would be his motive to lie?  Well, this site reveals that Sikes is over $700,000 in debt, and among his creditors is Toyota.  He also has a history of filing false insurance claims.  These are tidbits that have yet to come up in the network coverage of the case.  Let's hope that they do soon.