All car companies have issues. Toyotas previous reputation allowed them to recall/repair cars under TSB's. Now that the media has a hold of them, they have to disclose (publicly) every issue they know about, or it may come back to bite them in the arse later. Don't believe all 34 deaths are directly gas pedal related. Remember the years of Audi unintended acceleration? Never proven, image tarnished for a decade.

Where you as sympathetic to Ford/Firestone

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I wouldn't say sympathetic, more like confused. America is a country full of bad drivers who think they are great drivers. Just go for a ride with a bad driver then ask them.

Those times when I see a video of a car chase and an Explorer (or similar vehicle) loses a tire (or two or three) the vehicle keeps going without rolling over. Hmmm. High speeds, reckless manuevers, panic stops....and they keep going until they hit something or the cops do a PIT? I guess they have control of the vehicle, but the average person in an Explorer who has one tire blow out panics then takes thier hands off the steering wheel and screams "Jesus, take the wheel!"

I know, it's the young and inexperienced that we should feel sympathy for. BUT if we had better driver training, like Germany, more people could handle emergency situations.

The phone call from the back seat of the 'speeding out of control' Toyota (or was it a Lexus?) makes me wonder. You have time to dial 911, ring ring, answer "911 what is your emergency" "we are speeding out of control, we cannot stop" "put the car in neutral, sir" "good idea, none of us in the car could think of that, thank"...crash. Was it the car makers fault, or the lack of a correct reaction on the drivers (and passengers) part?

I think you know my opinion. So sad for the families.

The same thing I thought about when that hit the news...

quick thinking and acting might have helped save their lives instead of listening to what the operators had to say...

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TSB's are usually the first step before a recall is issued. In fact, if there was a problem that rose to the level of a vehicle recall, NHTSA would have been all over it. Toyota has now been forced to disclose all complaints, even if it does not prompt a recall.

Anyone remember this? You won't because after the media got burned for the 60 Minutes rigging of an earlier Audi 5000, they kept this quiet:

Ford, GM and Toyota Also Suffer from UA Reports, But Audi Gets Top Headline
Recent complaints of unintended acceleration have been bad news for Ford and General Motors, but it could be much more traumatic for Audi.
The luxury brand has come a long way since similar accusations nearly drove it out of business in the 1980s, helped along by fabricated TV coverage courtesy of the CBS news show 60 Minutes.
It looks likely that the nightmare is recurring, but this time its not a corrupt TV series making up stories for ratings, but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) heading up the investigation.
Monday the NHTSA stated it is investigating the 1998 and 1999 Audi A6 for a possible defect that could cause the sedan to accelerate “out of the control of the driver.”
Why the need to investigate? The government organization states that 16 complaints have been lodged with the agency regarding stuck throttles in cold weather, normally sub-freezing temperatures. One of the 16 complaints states that the vehicle was “fully accelerating on its own,” while another says the vehicle “suddenly began to race,” which resulted in the car running past stop signs and through intersections before the engine was shut off.
But the Audi cases arent isolated. Over the last two years complaints of unintended or sudden acceleration incidents have been growing. As previously mentioned both Ford and GM have been the subject of lawsuits.
Even the Japanese have been targeted, with the best selling Toyota Camry being investigated by the NHTSA for the same problem.
Looking to the past to make sense of the present, unintentional acceleration cases became more prevalent after 60 Minutes presented their one-sided coverage (actually 17 minutes of coverage) against the 5000, the A6 predecessor.
If youre not familiar with the 60 Minutes feature, it featured a variety of “victims” including one distressed mother, Kristi Bradosky, who had unintentionally killed her six year old son Joshua when her “foot slipped off the brake pedal onto the gas pedal accelerating the auto,” according to a statement taken by Canton, Ohio police officer Steven Zerby. Of course, the 60 Minutes episode that initially ran on November 23, 1986, titled “Out of Control,” and then ran again on September 13, 1987, declined to mention the police report, but rather took an excerpt that featured Mrs. Bradosky stating she had only pressed the brake.

If you want to read the rest, they also mention the CAMRY....way back when.

Audi Investigated for Unintended Acceleration

I can't tell you how many times a day I see a rear end wreck that has pulled into the turning lane, and just thought "What a moron." And to think that its normally caused by some dumbass going 30 in the left lane of a 45mph road where everyone else is doing 60.

I don't even think most states require basic drivers education... not like it helps. My high school had to keep firing the instructors because they were found to be molesters or a front for a coke-trafficing business. Not even joking.

I might win 100 dickhead points for saying this, but if you don't know that you cut the engine and your car stops, thats pretty damn close to natural selection. I mean, what?!

I have never seen a car that won't let you put it in neutral while driving... Hell, I did it to my own truck when a friend was driving as a basic stupid joke. (it was my turn to drink beyond driving, we take turns as DD)

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RIP 4.6is.....

2003 4.6is

At least your state has a centre turn lane for traffic to turn into. Most VA highways (non-interstate) do not have a shoulder and only a centre median, so we get folks that take up a lane of traffic because well, they smashed into someone else trying to make a turn in the first place. It's always idiots who try and force a turn across a 70mph highway ("I think I can squeeze between these oncoming cars") or turn onto the highway ("I don't need to accelerate to match speeds with 70mph traffic flow, they'll all slow down for me"). Uh, what's driver's ed?

In Maryland, I did not have an on-road road test for my driver's license. Everything was done in a tiny parking lot course and it took all of....like, 3 minutes. It tested parallel parking, a 3-point turn (presumably our cars are too big to handle U-turns), and backing up in a straight line (if you want to run over someone.........). That's it.

I think the media has been going too far; yes. Stuck throttle pedals are dangerous, but it's gotten to the point where Toyota is a bit cornered. Imagine if BMW were forced to publicliy disclose transmission problems (many models) and HPFP failures (many models). The power steering issue for Toyota this time is really just to the severity a TSB.