de autos cars

It's been almost two weeks since 76-year old Myrna Marsellie said her 2009 Toyota Camry accelerated on its own, crashing into the Sheboygan Falls YMCA.

So what happened? We don't know yet.

Sheboygan Falls Police Chief Steven Riffel tells me the car is still in his department's custody and there will be a joint NHTSA/Wisconsin State Patrol inspection of the vehicle and search of the car's databases sometime this week.

The department is also in the process of enhancing surveillance video (the police station is across the parking lot from the YMCA and its cameras are thought to have captured the crash).

What about Toyota, which usually gets inspectors on these things quickly (given that most cases of unintended acceleration upon investigation are proven to be driver error...standing on the gas instead of the brake)?

Well, the chief says Toyota's asking, but he's got a search warrant...and he doesn't want too many folks inside the vehicle. NHTSA and the state patrol get first dibs. And he tells me he'll be looking for NHTSA's input as to whether to release the vehicle to Toyota for its inspection, or back to Myrna.

NHTSA, of course, is the agency alleging that Toyota hid dangerous defects and should pay record fines.

This is not Toyota's week for catching a break, it seems.