Once You Start Down the Regulatory Path, Forever Will It Dominate Your Destiny

Via Scott Stein, CNN reports:

This fall, Toyota will voluntarily recall nearly 160,000 Toyota Tundra pickups so that they can be made less safe for children riding in the front seat.

The recall, announced Monday, is meant to make Tundras comply with a set of safety regulations.

To comply with said safety regulations, cars with a front-seat airbag shut-off switch must also have a child-seat anchor system. This is hard to understand, given that the switches exist only to protect small children who might be sitting up front; why discourage the addition of a safety feature? Toyota has built 160,000 trucks with the switches, but lacking the anchors, and The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has denied a petition to let it slide. All will now have to be recalled. But installing the anchor systems, say Toyota execs, is way too expensive; instead, the company will take back the cars, remove the switches, and send them back.

All of which is just an excuse to link to this classic Toyota story:

A former Hooters waitress has sued the restaurant where she worked, saying she was promised a new Toyota for winning a beer sales contest.

Instead she won a new toy Yoda -- the little green Jedi master from Star Wars.