Recall or government attack?

[Blue-S]

It's a seriously misguided notion that NHTSA has pushed the unintended acceleration issue on Toyota in order to help out GM. The LA Times hasn't been good for much lately, but they can be credited with publishing several articles that have raised awareness of the issue. We now know that there is a design issue with the Toyota accelerator pedal position sensor that can cause increased friction and sticking under certain conditions, as they have recalled the affected vehicles for a "shim" installation.

The puzzling part of this is that Toyota doesn't seem to have a rationality check on the accelerator vs brake inputs. I understand that most vehicles with electronic throttle control do check brake apply status vs accelerator pedal apply status. I know for sure that Chrysler ETC vehicles do this, as they largely copied then-partner Mercedes-Benz's strategy when they introduced ETC on the 2003 Hemi. Typically, engine power will not be cut instantaneously if brakes are applied with throttle pedal applied; it may take a couple of seconds simultaneous pedal application to set a rationality DTC and put the ETC system in some sort of limp-in mode with reduced throttle response. I guess that Toyota didn't want to inconvenience their customers with a fault code if they hit both pedals. So much for Toyota's perceived perfection...