After reading all the reponses, i'm really believing that it's a software glitch. The possibility that a software glitch kicked in to me is very probable, however this issue probably isn't affected on all cars, I"m willing to say that the possibility of a handful of car computers could be affected, maybe not a software issue as much as a hardware issue. some cars get bumped and bruised on the roads more than others, it could be affected by simply: luck of the draw.
As for the police officer not reacting like he should have, if you think about it, his training was either in a crown vic, caprice or charger, all with keys, plus the familiarity of the cop car he drives to me superceds that of the camry he drove.
Also, as far as domestic automakers hiding and throwing blame on their issues, I have to say the import mfgrs are experts at keeping things hidden away, and I blame the news media for that.
In this case there was no way toyota could hide from this. But blaming floormats sounds like and excuse for what the issue really and probably is, and I'm sure they have a good idea what it is, but they're having problems reduplicating it consistantly.
it's like the domestic car makers are held to a higher standard from the media standpoint.
the Ford issue with the Firestone tires seemed to be a fiasco of finger pointing.
IMO, at the time when the Explorer was super popular, and people were scooping them up, most people had never driven an SUV, and the explorer was sitting on a pickup truck chassis, with a higher center of gravity than that of a passenger car.
I put a lot of blame on people not really paying attention to how an SUV drives vs. a car, or treating it like a car, as well as not maintaining the correct tire pressure.
And yeah, the firestone tires were defective, but not all of them.
If the Explorer was so bad, why was it just Firestone that took on the recall, of not just the Wilderness, but also ATX and a couple other models. So (Thank you firestone for my free set of tires that were on my Ranger pickup!) to me, Firestone knew something was going on and tried to hide it. Of all the explorers sold, only a very small handful had this issue. So... you can't really throw blame on the vehicle, but the driver.
The push button switch is a nifty idea, but in an emergency, 3 seconds is like someone wrote 2.5 seconds to long. a lot can happen in 3 seconds. I'd like to actually see an on/off push button instead. putting a engine kill isn't a bad idea, but cutting the fuel pump, in a real emergency can get things worse. I think of having a circuit that cuts power to the pump to like 8-9volts and has the engine running rough, but still running so you still have steering and hopefully brakes! if someone panics, which is to be expected, and they floor the gas, nothing will really happen, and that extra second or so might get you to realize.. wrong pedal!
speaking of pedals.. floor hinged pedals would be very hard to jam downards, dunno why they got away from it, BMW, Mercedes all have floor hinged pedals, and I know lots of women who drive these cars and have never complained of anything when they wear tall shoes. I think it was more design change than anything. i think it's easier to go WOT with a floor hinged pedal anyway.