[charleslmunger]

> Braking systems are controlled by a dedicated embedded software system that's extremely well-understood and well-tested (probably even formally verified).

Are you sure? That code is closed source, and the peek behind the curtain we saw with Toyota's investigation did not inspire confidence:

http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintende...

[semi-extrinsic]

That's a really interesting article for sure. But it does highlight that Toyota was being unusual in not following industry-wide (voluntary) coding standards for safety-critical embedded systems in cars, and they ended up losing big in court. So I do think (hope) that this example is worst-case, not normal.