Toyota's " Death Pedal " autopsy

[James OLC]

The inherant flaw to all of these new cars that park themselves, check your blind spots for you and apply the brakes because you're obviously not paying attention is that they rely on a machine (ok - what should be a smart machine) and not good old fashioned driver input and output. The more computerized systems that are integrated into the design of new cars, the more frequent failures of those same systems will become. They aren't fool proof and never can be and unfortunately I think that this is just the tip of the iceburg - for Toyota and everyone else.

If this is, to some extent, a software issue (as I understand it may be with the new prius's) then is should not be a tough fix. If I understand correctly, the factory Ford drive by wire is triple redundant - something like that should be an easy to incorporate solution. If however, the answer is IF speed >30 AND brake = yes THEN throttle = idle then the issue in not software - it's a hardare bandage (and a big difference from John's Ford example of IF fault THEN idle - which seems like a logical path). I know that I for one wouldn't want to drive something that cut my throttle if I hit the brakes just because of my speed.

I don't know if the truth will ever come out on this one - it's become something else entirely in a lot of ways - but it does make you think a bit about how much control we give or are prepared to give to a computer...