The comments under that article are priceless! Great to see some people have commonsense and a sense of humour.

The cause it says in the article is a removable floor mat that cause the accelerator to be stuck down....I can think of a fix to that cause...remove the removable floor mat.

I've had this happen with the removable floor mats in the Ford(s) many many times and with 550Nm of torque that car accelerates more than a Toyota, brakes will overcome your accelerator and so will pulling the mat back with your foot, so would sticking the car in neutral etc....

I hope there was more to it than just floor mats for a recall that will cost them 100's of millions.

EDIT: Read a bit closer "Toyota spokesman Irv Miller said until the company finds a fix, owners should take out the removable floor mat on the driver's side and not replace it. "....it was just the floor mat - funny Ford never ran a similar recall here and there mats have been doing that forever.

I normally remove the mat in case it gets caught UNDER the accelerator.

There must be more to the pudding that toyota is not telling.
Also its making the highway patrol officer a complete dunce.
Im sure there is a problem beyond the floor mats.

you guys know what else toyota is doing that is scary? the new generation prius has a fly by wire throttle and a fly by wire BRAKE PEDAL. WTF that WILL kill people, think about it what happens when a wire earths out on the body, yes there would be safety control stuff but damn im not going near one!!! let alone want to be on the road when one is coming the other way. also the mitsubishi 380's which have the fly by wire throttle, when you are cleaning the throttle body out i know of people getting their fingers trapped because it closes on them as a computer calibration thing, thats bad too.
my two cents worth anyway, go back to the proper way of doing things, the simple way!!!

Commercial jetliners have been fly-by-wire for over 20 years, and have proven to be just as safe as cable control.

So there is nothing inherently dangerous.

We had a little family discussion about stuck throttles and calling the police for help doing a buck twenty.

I'm still unclear as to the relationship of fly-by-wires and floor mats.

We had that same family discussion when I was nine years old. My moms chevrolet throttle got stuck, and afterwards she explained to us what to do to save your life. Chevrolet recalled 300,000 cars for that one.

Time Magazine, 1971

Aircraft and mass produced autos are worlds apart for obvious reasons.
Technology is great but not when its overused,finding the right balance
is the issue.

For me FBW brakes would be like riding a domesticated horse without reigns.
Just takes that one day when the horse does something else instead of what
it should be doing.

So you don't trust fly-by-wire throttle. So be it.
I don't trust extra floor mats.

I live by the Datsun 1200 rubber mat which is securely bolted to the floor, almost no chance of a problem with that.