Japanese auto giant Mitsubishi was taken to court in Beijing yesterday by four Chinese consumers over allegations of faulty brakes on a Pajero sport utility vehicle, with the suspect parts believed to have caused a serious traffic accident in 2000.

This is one of a series of lawsuits that Mitsubishi's Pajero line has been involved in since 1996 on the Chinese mainland, due to quality problems.

The four plaintiffs, including 38-year-old Liu Wenhong, 40-year-old Chen Ping, Liu's daughter and Chen's son, experienced difficulties while driving a Pajero V73 on the expressway from Tianjin to Northwest China's Xi'an in August 2000.

The prosecutors claimed that the accident can be attributed to the sudden failure of the vehicle's braking system.

The four plaintiffs are seeking a total of 2.9 million yuan (US$351,000) in damages, including double the vehicle's cost, economic losses, medical fees and compensation for the plaintiffs' psychological trauma.

No decision was made in the first hearing at the Beijing No 2 Intermediate People's Court after nearly a full day of trial proceedings yesterday, which marked the third anniversary of the traffic accident.

The Pajero V73 in the case was directly imported from Japan. In 2001 another two types of Pajero, the V31 and V33 models, were forbidden by then State Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision from being imported to China for their faulty brakes.

The major point of the dispute yesterday in court was whether the cause of the accident could be attributed to the failed brakes.

"I turned the wheel left and put on the brakes, when I suddenly saw an obstacle (later proved to be a flat tyre) on the expressway, but then I found the brakes did not work properly. So I turned the wheel right immediately and then the vehicle rushed over the guard rail and jumped into a ditch over 10 metres deep," said plaintiff Chen Ping, who was driving the car at the time.

But Liu Honghuan, the lawyer representing the accused, countered that the plaintiffs' reaction was the cause of the accident, instead of the vehicle itself.

"Because he was too tired at that hour (before dawn after driving for 11 hours), the plaintiff turned the wheel in a wrong way, resulting in the vehicle turning around. This is the real reason that the vehicle rushed over the rail. The brakes of the vehicle are normal," she said.

The accused further invited an expert witness from Hong Kong University to prove their conclusion yesterday, but the plaintiffs obviously disagreed.

"The fact that the plaintiff could recognize a barrier 100 metres away should prove that he is totally clear-headed," said Li Wanhua, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs.

Local traffic police in Zhengzhou, Central China's Henan Province, where the accident occurred, identified in August 2000 that the accident was caused due to Chen's driving while tired and by taking improper measures during the emergency.

In December of the same year, Xi'an automobile quality supervision authorities determined that the brakes of the Pajero vehicle involved in the accident were ineffective, the evidence provided to the court said.

After further investigations into the case, local traffic police in Zhengzhou confirmed in March 2001 that the accident was not due to any improper measures conducted by the driver, according to the evidence.

(China Daily August 27, 2003)