Toyota’s cozy relationship with regulators extends beyond the sudden acceleration issue that has forced the automaker to recall millions of cars. Documents uncovered by Congressional investigators show that Toyota officials were instrumental, or at least think they were, in undermining safety standards pending at the Department of Transportation (DOT), according to the Los Angeles Times.

A document, which I have yet to find online, turned up by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee “describes the automaker's regulatory agenda and highlights a wide-ranging string of ‘wins for Toyota,’ " according to the Times. Those “wins” include:

• Saving more than $100 million as it "negotiated" a limited recall in 2007 of 55,000 floor mats in Camry and Lexus ES sedans that had been the subject of a sudden-acceleration investigation. By agreeing to the recall, Toyota avoided a deeper investigation into the problem.
• Delaying the implementation of a federal safety rule requiring side-impact air bags, which saved the company $124 million and the cost of 50,000 hours of labor.
• Stalling or mitigating safety regulations governing roof crush standards, electric shocks from hybrid- and electric-vehicle batteries, and sliding doors on vehicles, which saved Toyota $11 million on its Sienna van. 

As it turns out, Toyota hasn’t won much of anything. Recalls and repairs to millions of cars won’t be cheap. Toyota’s now-sullied reputation will be even more expensive and take longer to fix. Maybe playing fast and loose with safety issues does not bode well for a company in the long term.

But drivers are the big losers here.

If Toyota’s claims that it delayed safety standards are true, it speaks just as badly, of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (an arm of DOT). NHTSA’s roof crush standard, for example, was delayed for years during the Bush administration. While we always suspected the stalling had something to do with industry objections, to see evidence of that now in such stark terms is frustrating and disheartening. Why was NHTSA, the mission of which includes saving lives, so willing to defer to the wishes of Toyota?

The delay is down right disgusting when you think about the lives that could have been saved if a stronger roof crush standard had been adopted earlier. NHTSA finalized the roof crush standard in April 2009, almost four years after it was first proposed and several months after a congressional deadline. It was the first time the standard had been updated since 1971. NHTSA estimates the revised standard will save 135 lives every year. (About 10,000 people die in rollover crashes each year.)

The House Oversight Committee will probe Toyota during a hearing scheduled for tomorrow morning.