A Long Island woman claims her daughter was killed when the Toyota she was driving suddenly sped out of control near her school in Pennsylvania, according to a suit.
Tyrene Livingston was killed just four days after she went to a dealership to complain about problems with the brakes on her 2007 Yaris, according to the suit filed yesterday by her mother Sandra.
“They checked it out and told her nothing was wrong,” Livingston’s lawyer Robert Nelson said.
When the 21-year-old aspiring teacher and University of Pittsburgh student drove the hatchback — which was not among the slew of models recalled for various safety problems — to her internship in East Pittsburgh on Oct. 26, 2007, the car revved out of control, the suit says.
FED GRAND JURY SUBPOENA FOR TOYOTA
“She was in the right lane and she sped across all three lanes, through a guardrail, through a barrier and into the woods,” Nelson said.
She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Tyrene “was one of a kind,” said her father, Lonnie, at the family’s Roosevelt, LI, home, which is filled with photos of his daughter. “This has been hard.”
In a statement posted on her lawyer’s Web site, Sandra Livingston said, “As difficult and painful as it is for me to go through this legal process, I feel it is necessary to do so. I hope that it will prevent another tragic death.”
The federal lawsuit — which was filed in Los Angeles, where Toyota has its North American headquarters — blames the death on a glitch in the electronic acceleration system.
Court papers claim the troubled carmaker should have provided a mechanical linkage between the accelerator and the engine or a way for the brake to override the system.
There have been at least three other wrongful-death lawsuits against Toyota, which has recalled more than 8.5 million cars because of problems with floor mats, brakes and gas pedals.
A Toyota spokeswoman would not comment on the suit.