"Every man, woman, and child in the U.S. has approximately a one-in-8000 chance of perishing in a car accident every year. Over a decade, that's about one in 800. Given the millions of cars included in the Toyota recalls and the fewer than 20 alleged deaths over the past decade, the alleged fatality rate is about one death per 200,000 recalled Toyotas. Even if all the alleged deaths really are resultant from vehicle defects—highly unlikely—and even if all the worst things people are speculating about Toyotas are true, and you're driving one, and you aren't smart or calm enough to shift to neutral if the thing surges, you're still approximately 250 times likelier to die in one of these cars for reasons having nothing to do with unintended acceleration. So if you can muster the courage to get into a car and drive, the additional alleged risk of driving a Toyota is virtually negligible..."
The rest is in the C&D article referenced, I believe, by the author:
The C&D article (and the ones it points to about their road test) is really good. Because there are more people talking about this than actually know anything. Including in this thread.
The C&D article does leave the door open to the possibility of the brakes not stopping the car. If you pump the brakes, rather than firmly putting them down once, you may lose vacuum, or overheat the brakes in a series of "slow down a little" steps. The vacuum is apparently hard to replenish when the throttle is open.
The advice about turning the car off works sometimes, but not always. Suppose you're in a rental Lexus like the one the CA state trooper died in. Would you know that to kill the engine, you have to depress the off button for 3 seconds continuously? Three seconds is a long time with the throttle wide open.
It seems the key technical mistake on Toyota's part, as pointed out in the C&D article, is to omit an interlock that kills the throttle when the brake is depressed. This is apparently standard on many other cars.
Toyota's damage control on this has been disastrous.
The rest is in the C&D article referenced, I believe, by the author:
http://www.caranddriver.com/news/car/10q1/toyota_recall_scan...