Will Toyota’s defective product failures ever stop? First it was SUV rollover calamities. Then it was stuck accelerator pedal catastrophes. Now it’s bad brakes on Toyota’s Prius, the world’s top-selling gas-electric hybrid vehicle.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has begun investigating flaws in the 2010 Prius’ brakes, after its safety arm, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, fielded 124 complaints from consumers. Four of those complaints concerned brake-related accidents in the Japanese automaker’s hybrids.

It seems some Prius brakes fail to function properly when the vehicle travels over potholes, bumpy roads or surfaces which are slippery or uneven. That’s not good, especially when you consider how common such surfaces are on streets and highways. On them, a Prius’ braking might pause when the car shifts from its traditional hydraulic brakes to an electronic braking system.

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In mystery-novel terms, those hurt in a Toyota SUV rollover accident now may have a “smoking gun.”

That’s because a so-called “whistle blower” has stepped in to tell what he believes is the truth: that Toyota for years tried to keep a lid on investigations which showed why the Japanese automaker’s SUVs were inherently dangerous.

This charge has come from Dimitrios Biller, a lawyer who formerly represented Toyota in rollover cases. He’s now spearheading a lawsuit claiming that Toyota destroyed information which should have been available for plaintiffs in hundreds of defective product lawsuits.  He also says Toyota withheld a report on roof-crush data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Biller is suing Toyota for fraud, unfair practices and racketeering. Toyota dismisses his claims.

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Why is it so hard to collect  a car accident insurance claim, even when you weren’t at fault? Because insurance companies are stingy–and are getting even stingier due to uninsured motorists on the road. When an uninsured driver is at fault in a car accident, then the claim goes to the innocent driver’s insurer, who doesn’t want to pay. And that’s a huge problem.

Some Texas cities are doing something about it — but Houston isn’t one of them. According to a report on KHOU Channel 11 News, more than 15,000 drivers annually for the past two years were ticketed in Houston for driving without car insurance — a legal offense. And some uninsured drivers were ticketed repeatedly. In fact, more than 100 people got ticketed five times for the same offense.

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Some gun owners ascribe to the fierce philosophy that you can “take my guns when you pry them from my cold dead fingers.” Some SUV owners feel the same way about the keys to their bulky gas guzzlers – despite skyrocketing fuel prices which make them an economic dry well, not to mention ecological and safety issues, such as SUV rollovers, which deserve more than a drive-by glance.

CNN reports that, while SUV sales are down 33 per cent in this Year Of The $4-Plus Gallon, many SUV owners defiantly cling to their vehicles, hooked on the “sport” or the “utility” in their SUV name. Or maybe they just don’t like change.

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