I experienced the floor mat problem, however, the problem is that the mat creeps under the brake – not over the gas pedal. The lack of braking makes you think at first that you have a stuck accelerator. The natural reaction is to step on the accelerator which only makes the problem worse.

I was able to figure out that it was the lack of braking caused by a mat creeping underneath the brake pedal, was able to put the car (a 2005 Prius) into neutral, then work the floor mat out from under the brake.

I allowed by Prius to be recalled, however, they did not solve this problem. In fact, after a call to their corporate service people I discovered they don’t even recognize it as a problem.

A complaint to the NTHSA two months ago has been left unresolved. In fact, after I complained via email to the NTHSA that it had ignored my complaint, they promptly closed my file.

Personally, I think the NTHSA is as bad if not worse than the MMS.

You just reminded me of when I was learning to drive over 23 years ago. I was with my mother, in her Toyota Corrolla no less, and was turning onto a side street to get to my home. A car, going a little over the speed limit, was coming down the side street I planned on turning onto and was coming down to a stop at the intersection.

I don’t know if it was the sudden appearance or the speed. I was in no danger of being hit or hitting her, but I panicked. I oversteered to the right, jumping the curb and sideswiped a stop sign. The sign marred the paint job of the passenger’s side and I think jumping the curb popped the right front tire.

I felt terrible at the accident and I knew it was my fault. Never in a million years would I have blamed the car for that error. Nevertheless, my mother forgave me and still let me use the car for driving practice.

I just hope when my son’s old enough, that he won’t have to go through the same thing. =o)

A report on an individual vehicle within a few weeks is generally reasonable. Compiling multiple reports, from multiple vehicles, to look for anything but obvious points of comparison (i.e. Brake Depressed or Throttle Position in the seconds leading up to the event) within the entire data set…. that takes more time. In cases where there was no “event” (such as an accident resulting in an air bage deployment, or a “near deployment” event), no data record would be available at all.

Still, I share your frustration, and eagerly await the “official” NHTSA report, even though I have strong feelings as to its likely conclusions.

What bothers me is that the NHTSA had to have had the data from the memory modules in each automobile in hand in a very short time. Why does it take them months to issue a report? [that’s a semi rhetorical question] In private industry, a final report would have been forthcoming in a few weeks.

The unanswered question is whether the spacing of the gas and brake pedals in Toyotas is significantly different than in other cars to make them prone to driver mix-up. Probably not (from my experience), but I did not exhaustively check this out.

Bob