Steering Failures

Here is something that you might find interesting..... Why is it that Toyota, after having only two dozen complaints across 8 different vehicles types (2.4 Million total vehicles - that is a failure rate of .001% - 1 in 100,000) about sticking accelerator pedals is being forced to recall 2.4 million vehicles (one was fatal but based on the time line it was partial driver error for not putting the car in Neutral and continuing to try to drive while the car accelerated) - BUT - The NHTSA has lodged 1,200 complaints of STEERING FAILURE in just 900,000 of General Motors (Government Motors) Chevy Cobalt's (.13%) - the Cobalt uses the same steering assembly as EVERY other Delta 1 vehicle GM made (Saturn Ion, Opel Astor, Pontiac G5) and the same steering contols as most of the other Saturn Models made the last 5 years...and possibly MANY other GM models but not disclosed). These other vehicles are NOT included in the total figures above since sales/complaint figures are unavailable. The steering failure makes it impossible to steer the vehicles at slow speeds and has resulted in 11 accidents - a higher percentage than the Toyota accident history. This has just hit the governments radar 2 days ago after 1,200 complaints on just the Cobalt (we do not know the other vehicles numbers) - my research indicates that the problem has been known for close to 5 years by Saturn. It should be VERY interesting to see if a recall occurs for the Cobalt and what if anything that they do with the entire Saturn, Pontiac and Opel products now that they are no longer GM divisions....