There have been more deaths in vehicles made by Ford Motor (NYSE: F), Chrysler and other brands from unintended acceleration-related accidents, often blamed on human error, than from Toyota (NYSE: TM) during the last three decades, according to data compiled for Bloomberg News by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.

Out of the 110 fatalities that have been attributed to sudden acceleration in NHTSA records, 59 of them occurred in brands other than those sold by Toyota, whose recent recalls have brought significant public attention to the issue.

The federal agency received 15,174 complaints from drivers involving unintended acceleration issues during the last 10 years. The company has ran 141 investigations of the phenomena during the last 30 years, ending 112 of them without any corrective actions.

NHSTA repeatedly concludes that these accidents occur largely because drivers mistakenly stomp on the accelerator instead of the brake. Because of the large number of cases involving human error, the NHTSA has taken complaints of runaway vehicles less seriously than they otherwise would have.

“The agency had made a determination that this was primarily a human factor, driver error, and that’s outside NHTSA’s purview,” said Joan Claybrook, a former NHTSA administrator to Bloomberg.

He continued, “The Toyota case has brought new scrutiny to other factors, and NHTSA has to look at other causes.”

Claybrook also serves as the president emeritus of Public Citizen, a D.C. based advocacy group that has sued automakers in hopes of getting crash information.