Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Department of Transportation found that sudden acceleration in Toyotas, which led to a massive recall, was actually the result of driver error. While acknowledging that floor mats were defective, the DoT found that most sudden acceleration incidents involved drivers mistakenly jamming on the accelerator rather than the brake.

Lest Toyota breathe a sigh of relief, the Washington Post reports that a federal grand jury issued subpoenas to the automaker for information about potentially defective steering relay rods. The steering relay rods relate to 4Runner SUVs, T100 pickups, and other pickups, and can allegedly wear out, causing drivers to lose control of their vehicles.

Joseph Checkler over at the Wall Street Journal reported on the potential hidden costs of punctuation, when he described a lemon law case involving the Chrysler bankruptcy. Checkler reports that, the controversy revolves around the placement of a comma. Did Chrysler accept liability for lemons “resolved pre-petition, or in the future, on vehicles” manufactured five years prior to bankruptcy filing? Or did it accept liability for lemons “resolved pre-petition or in the future, on vehicles” manufactured five years prior to bankruptcy? If it’s the later, Chrysler is off the hook for paying claims made prior to bankruptcy. If it’s the former, Chrysler is liable.

When typesetting was done manually, letters were inserted backwards. Thus, typesetters were told to “mind your p’s and q’s,” because the two letters could be easily confused. Clearly, it’s now time to mind your commas.

The committee in charge of hammering out differences in the financial reform bill completed their task this morning, sending the massive bill to the House of Representatives and the Senate for full votes. The final bill contains a hard-won provision for the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, which will be overseen by the Federal Reserve. The good news is that it will close some of the loopholes that allowed the events leading up to the nation’s 2008 near financial collapse to unfold. The bad news is that lobbyists for auto dealers ultimately prevailed, creating a loophole that excludes auto dealers from oversight by the new agency.

The U.S. Senate passed a major financial reform bill last night, but in the end, a major loophole didn’t see the light of day. As we wrote in the LemonJustice blog a couple of days ago, there was a hard push by auto dealers and their lobbyists to exempt auto dealers from oversight by the new Bureau of Consumer Protection. According to the New York Times, the amendment’s sponsor, Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) withdrew the amendment at the eleventh hour. This is wonderful news for consumers – particularly service members who are often victims of auto dealer fraud.

Although the Senate version of the bill and the House version of the bill need to be combined (a process that could take several weeks), it appears as though auto dealers will face much-deserved scrutiny by the new consumer protection agency. That’s a victory for hard-working Americans all across the country.

Thanks to Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety for keeping us up-to-date on provisions of the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency (part of the financial regulatory overhaul) that would protect American servicemen and servicewomen from unscrupulous automobile sales and financing practices.

Unfortunately, those who are serving our country are all too often the victims of scams like yo-yo financing, falsified credit applications, failure to pay off liens on trade-in vehicles, and excessive dealer markups. The Department of Defense has recognized this problem, and has encouraged the Treasury Department to advocate for the inclusion of oversight of auto financing and sales in the Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

As might be expected, lobbyists for car dealers have been pushing back hard, and convinced Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) to introduce an amendment to exempt auto dealers and their lending practices from the financial reform bill. The Military Coalition, comprised of groups ranging from the Veterans of Foreign Wars to the Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America to the Military Officers Association of America wrote to Senate Banking Committee ranking members Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Richard Shelby (R-AL) in opposition of the amendment.

The latest news is that the full Senate may vote on this important issue today. If you agree that our men and women in uniform shouldn’t get scammed, call your U.S. Senator today. You can find his or her phone number by clicking here.

If you are a service member (or are a family member) and have been scammed by auto dealers, you can also let Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety know by clicking here. They’re collecting anecdotal information to help ensure that our troops receive the protections they deserve.