Originally Posted By: fdcg27
IIRC, there was nothing actually wrong with these cars [ ...]
Had their drivers [...] reached down and gotten the floor mat clear of the throttle pedal, turned the key switch to the off position or selected neutral, the festivities would have come to an end.
Most drivers first instinct under these conditions would be to brake hard.
Mine would be.
[...]
Toyota error or driver error?
As with Audi, driver error every time.
fdcg27- Toyota Error. Pretty simple, really. The floormats were not properly secured by design, causing the accelerator to stick in some situations. In a separate design problem, accelerator mechanisms could stick due to a design flaw. Both of these are SERIOUS design problems, and if you are going to try to assign personal responsibility, I'd suggest it belongs to Toyota, not the victims of their design flaws. It's all too easy, with 20/20 hindsight and all the time in the world to analyze and play armchair-driver AFTER the cause has been determined, to say "oh yes, the floormat, they should've just moved it out of the way". If you've never heard of the floormat problem before (as was the case with the victims), I'm going to guess your reaction would be very different and much slower. Also turning a key is easy, but how about pushbutton start? To those in the transitionary period from key turn to pushbutton, they may not know to hold down the start button to emergency power-off. Again, 20-20 hindsight is easy as pie. Walking in their shoes in their circumstances, not so much. Shifting into neutral is the only one of your solutions that holds, though even on that one, turning a dial to shift isn't quite the same feeling when you're in the cockpit, especially in an emergency situation (not sure what type of shifter the vehicle(s) had.
I'm not sure how you can defend Toyota when they knew the problem existed in other models not ID'd for the floormat fix, volume-sellers like the Corolla, which Toyota now admits they KNEW had the very same problem, but which they chose not to fix. I guess playing armchair-driver is easier than admitting Toyota messed up- BIGTIME.