Story Toyota Motor Corp. said Tuesday it will recall 3.8 million vehicles in the United States, the company's largest-ever U.S. recall, to address problems with a removable floor mat that could cause accelerators to get stuck and lead to a crash.
That's tragic, but how do you get up to 120+ before you just turn off the ignition!?! I'm not trying to be cold, I just find the psychology really amazing.
I can barely fathom how this situation makes people THAT brainless, and I've witnessed it FOERST hand. I rode shotgun with a friend on the FOERST drive of his FOERST SR swap and the car started running out of control, something like 45-65 mph and he sort of froze. I calmly reached over and turned off the ignition. There was the obvious relief and that sheepish "Oh... yeah, good idea". It took maybe 3-5 seconds. Who knows, maybe with another 2-3 seconds it would have dawned on him too; maybe not. Then we found a piece of welding slag about the size of a grain of salt that wedged the throttle plate open. Anyway...
These people had enough time and presence of mind to call for help... grab a phone and press the buttons 9-1-1-send. Here's an idea that is both horrible and great: Put a big red emergency stop button like an amusement park ride in the middle of the dash.
[edit]The word filter makes me look even more callous , so let me make a real joke...
Put a big red emergency stop button like an amusement park ride in the middle of the dash... and label it "911".
Please don't let the government know.. I don't want these buttons popping up on a future car of mine.
Last edited by foilman on Thu Oct 01, 2009 9:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.
That's so sad, but i'd have to agree. Turn the car off before you get to that speed. But who knows, maybe it all happened so fast they couldn't think. so sad
people are just dumb. we're all car people here so its easy to joke around about this kind of thing. but most people, when their throttle gets stuck they panic, and mash the brakes. when the engine is at wot the booster does absolutely nothing. its damn hard to slow a car down without a brake booster lol.
But who knows, maybe it all happened so fast they couldn't think. so sad 
