What To Do if Your Vehicle's Accelerator is Stuck

And, if necessary -- and you're willing to write off your transmission -- shift the car into park.

Putting a moving car into PARK is a very bad idea no matter the conditions. Perhaps that is why Toyota did not mention it.

according to mythbusters, putting it in park does nothing.

It boggles my mind how popular automatic transmissions are. I've only driven stick shift cars for 15 years, and when I first started hearing this on the news I thought "why didn't they just push in the clutch?"

People should always consider a manual, thousands of dollars cheaper and IMO safer. Then you will actually drive the car instead of being a passenger behind the wheel.

Putting it in Park won't do anything at speed, the pawl just skitters along the top of the teeth and won't engage. What it will do is bring you violently to a very nasty halt when you've already slowed down a lot.

Secondly, you don't lose brakes by turning the engine off - but you will if you keep waggling the pedal. There's plenty of vacuum in the servo (or in my case pressure in the reservoir 'cos it's a Citroën) to allow you to use the pedal three or four times before you lose power assist.

I do drive a 2009 Toyota Tacoma 4x4 at work and the accelerator did get stuck.
I was being foolish.
I was in the wrong lane and wanted to jump ahead of the car beside me to make a turn. The pedal got stuck to the floor and I was approaching a T intersection rapidly.I jammed on the brake with my left foot as hard as I could and was kicking the accelerator as hard as I could with my right one. It finally came unstuck and all I could do was hurry to the next gas station and clean my pants after sitting on the side of the road for 5 minutes collecting my wits. I don't JAM on the accelerator any more and the company I work for just issued a statement about taking out all floor mats blah blah blah. I'm curious to see if they just raise the pedals or what.

hehe, i was reading the tips on a linked site, and i was wondering how to push down with both feet on the brake pedal... forgot about automatics and there doublewide pedals :D

That being said: if you put it in neutral it WILL stop drinving the weels. Might damage somthing in the proces..but thats only stuff.

K!P - the engine will either a) race to the rev-limiter, which should be harmless for a short time, but depending on the condition of things like the cam-belt might not be, or b) rev to wherever the throttle's stuck at, which will be the same or lower than the above.

As usual, panic causes death not the initial problems. Even a supercar with the accelerator jammed to the floor will stop if you firmly apply the brakes.

If the guy had enough time to dial 911, he had more than enough time to do several things that each could have fixed the problem. People are becoming so weak and stupid and so Dependant on technology and an easy life, they cant think for themselves, don't understand simple mechanical devices, and ultimately fail if their technology breaks for even a moment. How many innocent people, who know how to drive properly, get killed by those who dont? Or those who panic, or who text while driving?

E-Break????

OH yes, let's blame the poor people in that 911 call for panicing. It's ALL their fault that they didn't know exactly the things to do in that situation. I mean cause damn.... accelerators getting stuck happens all the time right??
So easy to sit there at our computer and say they should've known, and done this and this and act like some big tough guy douche.

Grow the FCUK up LisaL... common sense in any situation tells "intelligent" people to perhaps do what the tips say.. calling 911 in this situation is going to do NOTHING... follow the tips in the article and you'll likely survive, in any case, the driver obviously didn't understand how to drive and control a vehicle properly and paid the ultimate price..

and um, who should be blamed for the accident? I know.. we'll all blame you! That makes about as much sense as your comment now doesn't it.

There was one person to blame.. the DRIVER

The problem is that in an incredibly stressful situation, all things go out the window. When your accelerator is stuck and in the matter of seconds you are going from 20-80 mph, it's natural to panic and become frightened. It's not like you train every day on how to deal with a stuck pedal, in real life scenarios.

You either automatically react like Jaymez above, or you panic and forget everything you read.

When I was a kid, my dad's old Buick didn't always like to stop. When we needed to come to a stop in these cases, he pulled the key out of the ignition. Safe car? No. Trashy car? Yes.

I can't believe they didn't just turn it off. Stressful situation be damned, if something is going haywire, *turn it off*.

Wait wait.... so let me get this right. Because the CAR screwed up, it's the driver's fault? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

It is exactly as Geekazoid said. Most people in a situation like that aren't going to know what the hell to do.
As I said it's SO easy for people to say that they'd never panic like that when they've never been in anything half as stressful w/ their life on the line.

So sorry to hear about this tragic accident, available for our education on the Web so we can all learn from it. It's easy to blame people who put their trust in carmakers to sell them a car that won't have something go wrong like this. Did anyone else see Toyada's face the other day? He looked as guilty as one could look.

Oh my god...people are blaming the driver for Toyota's well-documented refusal to fix a lethal defect in their cars??

The late driver was a California Highway Patrol officer, by the way. Not a babe in the woods when it comes to...driving, I would think. And my thought when hearing his call was actually that he seemed quite articulate for being in a state of abject terror at his and his family's impending death. I'm willing to put money on the chance he tried like hell to use the brakes.

This is a major technological defect in Toyotas, with documented fatalities and lawsuits and congressional inquiries going back 8 years, which Toyota has ignored and whitewashed and not taken seriously until the broadcast of this 911 call, not a temporary freak hitch that the driver could have avoided if he wasn't such a pansy Loser.

Disgusting knee-jerk non-researching blame-fetish internet tough guys. Well done.

>>Rick Norwood: I was thinking the same. Why not just push in the clutch? But i never tried an automatic, so i guess they have only two pedals?

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/09q4/how_to_deal_with_unintended_acceleration-tech_dept = "DRIVER ERROR" regardless of the fact his was on officer...

What a terrible thing to happen.

When I was a stupid college kid, knowing very little about cars (then as now), my 1991 Honda did this same thing - rapid, unstoppable acceleration. (Turns out the shop I'd had the brakes fixed at somehow screwed something up.)

Being an idiot, I didn't know what was happening. My girlfriend at the time was in the car with me and started screaming. So I put the car in neutral, hit the brake, turned the car off, and within short order I was safely in the breakdown lane.

It's a real shame the guy in this 911 call didn't make it. I don't blame the guy for anything but it isn't hard to get your car to stop moving even if it doesn't want to stop. You just have to remind the car who its master is.

(To the guy who mentioned driving a manual - I drove a stick in college for awhile. After replacing my 4th clutch in a year and a half I decided "I'm not doing this right" and switched to an automatic.)

In 2003 I took my BRAND NEW Explorer into the dealer for some warranteed front end work. I came back in the afternoon and picked up my truck. I had an errand to run so I decided to go down I95, an 8 lane highway with speeds of 65. I started to go down the on-ramp and as with all on-ramps in MD it was a sharp right bend when I noticed a rumbling sound, the steering wheel stuttering and then a crash - I saw something go down the side of my truck and then saw it, the entire right fron tire and wheel assembly was going up a hill, into some woods and then crashed into a tree. I started to drive off the road which by now straightened out. I pushed my foot on the brake which promptly went to the floor although I did have a small amount, I guess from the other 3 wheels. After about 1000 ft of coasting I stopped and the right front wheel came down - plop. The dealer jerked me around, the truck was never the same, finally I talked with an attorney, so I went back and told the dealer I would put in the local paper what happened to me (remember Explorers were supposedly flipping over, I was going on three wheels at 65 mph) unless he gave me a good deal on a Mustang Convertible. They relented and I got the GT which I still drive. When in doubt THREATEN THEM with bad publicity.

Lisal, let me make this clear. To stop his car, the driver could have stepped on the brakes. Then he could have turned the engine off, or put it in neutral (either one.) Is that really so hard?

Idiots should not be allowed to drive, almost all accidents are driver error, and often innocent people like me (who drive carefully and have a CDL btw.) can get killed as a result.

Calling 911 when a car is out of control is like flapping your wings when a jet starts falling out of the sky. It is such a stupid reaction it is almost comical, if it did not involve death.

Very tragic indeed. However, I think the audio on this might be fake. I just watched the report from NBC San Diego and they indicated that the wife called 911.

Few know how to drive. At all.

To idignantly complain that it's the car's fault shows that. Yes, the vehicle malfuntioned but that's all.
The transmission and the brakes didn't malfunction, so panic or not, stop the car.

This happened to me my first year of driving, after I was showing off to my pal in my dad's new car. I was in 2 lane traffic and nailed the gas. It stuck. Wide open. In traffic. I stood on the brakes, the engine kept screaming, I tried to lift the gas pedal with my hand as I was was trying to find a way off the road but it just flopped around down there. Signaled, pulled over, put it in neutral, engine redlined for the 2 sec it took me to shut the car off. I was 16 and it was a big fast German sedan.

Panic? Oh yeah, scared the crap out of me but you have to PAY ATTENTION and know how things work or take the bus.

To me shift down neutral or first gear is what I would do! I was in a stuck accelerator on an off ramp once in my cadi, and that is just what I did. A bit of panic yes but the first thing that went through my head is how do I stop the car, oh yeah neutral. This story is tragic yes but this driver, lost his ability to think under pressure, and he was a cop? Makes me very nervous to drive home today.

Hey Lisa you are a tard...yes the unfortunate stuck pedal was a problem...but that problem should have lasted about 5 seconds. If the dumbasses had time to call 911....but not enough time to think about a simple shift into neutral...its obvious now they were beyond help. EVERY CAR HAS A SIMPLE DEVICE CALLED ...a neutral safety switch. This is what keeps the trans from shifting into reverse when you slap it into neutral from drive. To think this guy was a highway patrolman is disgusting...I have been a cop for over 20 years and would never even have to think twice about shifting into neutral. Really how is this not common knowledge? R2k is spot on with his comparison. Sad truth......reality is a bitch folks.

Violet another Tard................doesn't matter if you had two men and a small boy standing on the brakes. The first thing that should have been done was to shift into NEUTRAL.....the "N" on the gear shift. This clown was a disgrace to the profession. As one poster said he doesn't feel safe driving home now knowing this guy was a State Patrolman and couldn't get it right.

I agree with riding the bus if your that dumb...........

Calling someone a "tard" is quite rude, but it's worse when you call someone names and come up with the wrong argument.

Shifting to neutral would've worked before computers take over some car's gearshifts - drivers have shifted out of "drive" into "neutral" and even "reverse" with no effect on the uncontrolled acceleration.

Hitting the brakes may or may not work - depending on how much brake assist (vacuum) is left. There was a case where investigators noted that the driver died in a crash with both legs firmly planted on the brake pedal.

There are many reasons that you get uncontrolled acceleration. In older cars, it's because the accelerator is stuck. Toyota had initially blamed the floor mat its initial recall, but then cases emerged where the uncontrolled acceleration happened in cars without floor mats.

In newer Toyota models, depressing the accelerator doesn't cause anything mechanical to happen (this simply means the pedal isn't connected to a lever that causes more gas to be fed into the engine). When you press the gas pedal, the computer tells the car to go faster. More and more people are inclined to think it's a software error where the computer tells the car to accelerate despite having no input from the gas pedal.

Alex your wrong....computers control the modulation of the shift that is no longer controlled by fluid. A shift to neutral is purely mechanical. You my good man......need to know what your talking about.

here you go dummy....
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/09q4/how_to_deal_with_unintended_acceleration-tech_dept

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I'll bet, as a cop who was panicking, he was also thinking of the safety of other drivers on the road. Not only was he calling for help, he more than likely wanted to attempt to keep others out of his way and safe just as he would do if he were on the job and saw a speeding car approaching a potentially dangerous situation.

The reason I got on this site was to find out why people didn't simply turn the engine off. I found it so hard to imagine that people wouldn't think of that, that I Googled it to find out why; it appears they must have simply panicked. I am a commercial pilot, and during training for the rating, have practiced, over and over, every type of emergency scenario. Things can happen very quickly, and panic can set in; that is why pilots are trained this way. I also have a class A CDL, and drive an eighteen-wheeler, and I do agree that (car) drivers should receive more intense training to receive a driver's license. However, I would not call anyone an "idiot," as I was not the one in their situation, and every situation has its own unique circumstances. It is foolish to "assume" what one might do in a hypothetical situation, and worse to condemn someone because their mistake cost them their lives. It may have nothing to do with automobiles or vehicles of any kind, but any one of us could end up in a situation that we might not "intuitively" know how to handle, and that we might just need the grace of God to get out of! Haughtiness, arrogance and pride (among other things) open the door to the devil, which comes to "steal, kill and destroy."

@Tom63: "why people didn't simply turn the engine off" - actually, recently someone whose car accelerated out of control on the I-8 tried to do just that, but couldn't. He also couldn't shift out of drive to neutral, and the car continued to accelerate even after hitting the brakes.

If you were in an airplane and some critical part electronically fails AND you're lucky enough to survive, I'm sure you'd be pretty pissed at the airline for improper maintenance. You TRUST your life that the plane is going to work right. Toyota doesn't get a free pass.

In the event the equipment doesn't work, Pilots are supposed to have hours upon hours of ER training and PRACTICE to be able to handle that...I doubt most are taught what to do in situations like this in driver's ed.

Even if you are experienced, it means little if the computer doesn't respond. Some cars won't even LET you turn off the engine while the car is in gear as a failsafe. Neutral might work but there is something fundamentally wrong with the car's computer if the accelerator is out of control. As was said, some cases have reported neutral not working.

Bottom line is it comes down to knowing your car. If your car has anti-lock brakes, if it will allow you to turn it off in gear etc. However, you never know if you'll be in heavy traffic or open road. So blaming the driver is not only incompassionate, but presumptive when you don't know everything he did to stop the car. In this case, he had little time before an intersection.

Most disturbing to me is how Toyota has simply tried to PR over the problem instead of just recalling everything and stopping sales. But no-they want to continue to sell unsafe cars to the public. Lamely blaming it on floor mats, the shape of the pedal, and making commercials claiming the problem is fixed when they don't even know what it is. "We can find no evidence of electronic malfunction". Unless the cars run like trolleys, it's obviously electronic. Toyota will never have my business...not just b/c of this issue, but how they've treated the public like dumbasses.

Crikey. There are some very ignorant people commenting here; I really hope that they aren't allowed to drive, but sadly I suspect that they are.

Putting the car into neutral is a purely mechanical action that decouples the engine from the wheels in either a manual or automatic transmission. Gear to neutral, then brake as normal. Fine, it will sound horrendous until you stop, but so what? It's unlikely to do much damage to the engine if you bring it to a stop inside a minute; and it's certainly better than crashing.

Cars can be lethal; people who aren't competent to drive shouldn't be allowed to do so, for the safety of others. (Think pedestrians and cyclists, nevermind other car drivers.)