Unintended Acceleration

Nissan has created a new system to help reduce the likelihood of pedal misapplication. Called the Emergency Assist for Pedal Misapplication with Carpark Detection Function (catchy, huh?), the technology uses a version of the company's ingenious Around View monitor to detect if the vehicle is in a parking space. If so and there are solid object such as other vehicles or walls near by, the

It's happened to you or someone you know: You think your car is in Park and begin to exit your vehicle, and then it starts to roll. Now, most drivers catch themselves that moment, step on the brakes, throw the gearshift into Park and wait for their heart rate to come back down. This was not one of those times.

Police car dashboard cameras have provided plenty of footage over the years of criminals attempting to evade police or horrific car accidents, but Lauri Ulvestad wasn't the former and some inspired – if not lucky – driving prevented the latter. Ulvestad, 47, of Ames, Iowa, experienced a stuck accelerator while driving her 2011 Kia Sorento along Interstate 35 in Missouri, and while she was able to call police to help clear traffic in

Floor mats impeding gas pedals are continuing to cause problems for automakers. This time its Mercedes-Benz. According to The Detroit News, the German automaker is recalling all-season accessory floor mats on 2012 and 2013 M-Class models for fear that the mat could entrap the go-ped

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Administrator David Strickland has released a letter defending the agency's handling of investigations into claims of unintended acceleration by Toyota owners. Republican Senator Charles Gra

A day after Ford issued a recall of 485,000 Escape crossovers from its 2001-2004 model years, Mazda has reportedly issued its own for the 215,000 examples of its Tribute, the Escape's mechanical twin. While it's the same engine con

It was just last week that the 2013 Ford Escape suffered two separate recalls mere days apart, and today, we have news of a third.

Last week, the Center for Auto Safety called on Ford to recall about 470,000 Escape utility vehicles to fix an "unintended acceleration" problem they say was caused by a previous recall repair program.

Toyota is facing further fallout from its recent unintended acceleration debacle, with Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) calling on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to reopen its investigation into the situation that led Toyota to recall some eight million vehicles. According to TheDetroitBureau.com, Grassley has writ

Seven years ago, Ford recalled about 470,000 Escape crossovers from its 2002-2004 model years to fix a troublesome accelerator cable. But the Center for Auto Safety says those repairs may have caused another problem.

Judge James V. Selna has warned jurors in a wrongful death suit about suspicions surrounding Toyota. According to Inside Line, the warning comes tied to the automaker's conduct during an investigation of a 2008 Camry involved in a fatal crash allegedly caused by unintended a

Even though Toyota's unintended acceleration debacle is as ancient as Jurassic fleas for most of us, the California Distric Court of Judge James Selna is still chainsawing through a massive docket of claims. Judge Selna had been considering whether plaintiffs in California, New York and Florida could sue Toyota for economic loss related to the claims of unintended accleraton – the plaintiffs wanted Toyota to reimburse them for the alleged decline in

We hate to reinforce stereotypes as much as anybody else, so we'd like to point out that the source for this story comes from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. With that out of the way...

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has announced plans to update the agency's current vehicle safety standards. In order to protect drivers in the event they depress both the accelerator and the brake pedal at the same time, automakers will be required to install a bake-throttle override on new vehicles moving forward. The hope is that the systems will curb instances of unintended accelerati

U.S. District Judge James Selna – who has presided over the unintended acceleration cases against Toyota since 2010 – says the automaker does not have the right to compel 20 named plaintiffs into arbitration. The plaintiffs are seeking class-action status for lawsuits covering economic losses from the alleged issue of unintended acceleration. Toyota had maintained that l

CNN revealed a confidential memo written in Japanese on the Anderson Cooper 360 show last night that it contends shows Toyota engineers found an electrical problem that caused sudden unintended acceleration in a pre-production test vehicle. The news organization commissioned three separate translations of the documents, though Toyota has objected to the accuracy of e

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was sued by an auto-safety firm over the federal regulator's probe into the possible case of unintended acceleration in a 2003 Toyota Prius, the New York Times said, citing legal documents filed by the firm.

"We couldn't find anything, but we're still blaming the car." That's the gist of the statement from a National Academy of Sciences panel headed by New Jersey Institute of Technology physics professor Louis Lanzerotti. The NAS supports U.S. regulators shutting down investigation of Toyota unintended acceleration incidents without finding electro

U.S. District Judge James V. Selna has dismissed the first unintended acceleration lawsuit against Toyota in California on the grounds that it should have been filed in Utah. Automotive News reports that the case was brought to court by the families of two people killed in a Utah crash in 2010.