Dec 3, 2009 11:01 pm US/Eastern
I-Team Investigation: Runaway Cars
Reporting
Jim Osman
PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ―
Laura Scotti and her husband Russ of Richboro are busy parents raising two children. Laura needs a reliable car to take them to practices and events.
It's what happened behind the wheel that left her with little faith in her 2009 Toyota Camry.
"The car grabbed - like the accelerator grabbed - even though my foot wasn't on the accelerator anymore," Scotti said.
Laura was driving alone on Route 29 in New Jersey when she says suddenly the car accelerated on its own - going from 45 to 65 miles an hour.
Her attempts to brake failed.
The problem is called sudden acceleration and it can affect various kinds of cars.
But safety experts say it's happening too often to a number of late model Toyotas: Camrys, Avalons, Tacomas, Tundras, and Prius vehicles; plus three Lexus models.
In October 2009 near San Diego, Chris Lastrella told 911 the Lexus he was a passenger in accelerated to 120 mph.
He reported the driver's foot was not on the accelerator and hitting the brakes didn't work.
Lastrella, his sister, and her family were killed.
Sean Kane is an automotive safety expert who has found more than 2,000 sudden acceleration cases involving Toyotas, which resulted in 16 deaths and 243 injuries.
Toyota believes the problem could be caused by accelerator pedals catching in floor mats, but Kane thinks there's more to it than that.
"There are clearly incidents that fall outside floor mat interference. We're finding instances where there weren't floor mats in the car," said Kane.
For example, take Laura Scotti's case.
After two incidents, the Toyota dealer wasn't sure, but told her the floor mat could be the culprit.
So she took it out, but the sudden acceleration happened again.
The federal government has investigated sudden acceleration cases in Toyotas and says the only pattern it can come up with to explain some of the sudden acceleration cases are pedal entrapment by floor mats.
Still, some safety experts believe the problem may be in the electronic acceleration system.
The company has issued recalls, saying in January it will start to reconfigure accelerator pedals to prevent floor mats from catching them.
It will also install a brake override system in the recalled vehicles.
If you're ever in a sudden acceleration, you should not turn off the car, instead shift into neutral to try and slow the vehicle down and re-gain.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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