For several months now there have been cases where Toyotas will randomly accelerate with out stopping until the car either hits something or I think explodes, killing all the people in the vehicle. The automaker has blamed floor mats and sticky gas pedals for random acceleration problems, but not electronics, even though most of the complaints from owners have been about the electronic components.

My parents own a Toyota hybrid and my brother and his with have two Toyotas.  First of all, let me say that my dad has a tendency to go a bit “conspiracy theory” over things.  Ever since the runway Toyota problem has been in the news my dad has been going on and on and on about what he thinks is really happening and how he believes that Toyota is covering it up.

Today I came across a story on the ABC New website that made me think; maybe my dad isn’t so crazy after all?  It turns out that Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood told Congress today that Toyota owners should stop driving their cars and take them to their dealers.

Of course, after seeing this I had to call my dad immediately to get his take on the story.  He hadn’t heard about it yet but he did say he thought, “It was going to come to something like this.”  He went on to explain (please imagine an English accent here),

“Toyota has come up with this cockamamie scheme as a deal, as a cover, because they don’t know what the shit is going on.

Now if you are driving one of these cars and it accelerates and you kill a mother and a child in a parking lot, and there is a demand for vengeance, it’s gonna be you going to jail.

Because you knew there was something wrong with the car, and the government told you not to drive it.  It’s even worse than driving drunk because you are stone cold sober.”

Whether this really is the case or not, it’s safe to say that my brother won’t be driving his Rav4 around anymore.