US Government wants fix for "unintended acceleration"

The US government's safety agency wants all new cars to have a "brake override" feature, so that if drivers hit both accelerator and brake pedal, the engine will return to idle automatically.

This follows the controversy over allegations of Toyotas experiencing unintended acceleration. At the time, Autoblog was deeply sceptical of these allegations, having spoken to engineers at rival car companies who did not believe it was technically possible. Now the US government has confirmed that it has not been able to substantiate a single case against Toyota. However, it believes driver error can lead to too many cases of hitting both pedals together and it wants car companies to make it impossible for both pedals to activate at the same time.