[m104]

Right, I want to be clear: I'm not saying cars don't accelerate on their own. In your case, you had an actual mechanical problem and did the right thing which prevented a tragedy. I knew a Ford Taurus owner with that sort of problem, as well. My point was that the big-story cases with Toyota (and Audi of the past) focus on these harrowing "I was pressing the brake as so hard that I hurt my ankle" kind of stories where we're not allowed to second guess the driver's actions.

There was a case in Minneapolis some years back where a police van accelerated, from a stop, and killed at least one person during some festival of lights thing. What they found, eventually, was that the police department wiring modifications from the stock van (to get the cherries and strobes working correctly) could cause the police vans to accelerate on their own. It wasn't a manufacturer issue, but it was still scary stuff.

[greml1n]

That's fair enough. I've driven long enough to see that we all do plenty of stupid-enough things in a fully-functioning car.