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Who’s Lying – An Anonymous NHTSA Employee or The WSJ?

Last week, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that the early results of the NHTSA investigation into “runaway” Toyotas found that the problem was driver error. This wasn’t shocking information – we’ve been saying that driver error is the cause of these incidents for months.

However, this story has taken an interesting turn. An anonymous source at the Department of Transportation (the branch of the government that oversees NHSTA) told Just-Auto.com last week that the story in the WSJ was planted by Toyota.

Mike Ramsey, the reporter at the WSJ, has denied this allegation and said that he viewed NHTSA data when making his report. Toyota has denied these allegations as well.

The facts are that either:

1. An anonymous NHTSA employee incorrectly claimed that Toyota planted a story, or
2. A reporter at The Wall Street Journal did someone at Toyota a favor and ran a story that was completely false

The question is, who’s lying?