New Toyota Technology Addresses Unintended Acceleration

Almost everyone, at this point, has read a report where a driver claims to be a victim of their car accelerating unintentionally. In fact, Tesla is being investigated as we speak by the NHTSA for reports of this very phenomenon, though they vehemently deny the claims. Toyota can surely commiserate with Tesla, as the company went through its own unintended acceleration fiasco. In a black mark on the company’s safety record, it was fined more than a billion dollars in 2014, a payment that allowed Toyota to avoid prosecution for what prosecutors said was a coverup of the mechanical problem that caused “sticky” gas pedals to freeze when partially depressed. And while Toyota can’t go back in time, they can help with unintended acceleration issues going forward, and this time they’ll focus on what’s arguably the most common cause of them: driver error.