Toyota will soon announce a plan to voluntarily repair the accelerator pedals in a variety of late-model Toyota products, the idea being that shrinking and re-shaping the gas pedals will reduce the chance that their vehicles will careen out of control because of a stuck floor mat.
Too bad this is only a partial solution. While making the gas pedal smaller certainly won't hurt, the REAL solution is to upgrade the engine management computer so that it includes a "brake to idle failsafe," a system found on competing models from Chrysler and Mercedes-Benz.
Modifying the vehicle's software so that brake inputs over-ride accelerator inputs is a guaranteed problem-solver, and Toyota should proceed in this direction instead of playing with the pedals.
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