I grew up on a gravel road just outside of Oswego NY, so I know all about lake effect and winter driving. I also well understand the pros and cons of abs, having 25+ days on the track including many exercises on skidpads and in parking lots. I know where ABS helps and I know where it's a hindrance. That said, on the street, where we are generally far more distracted than on the track, I don't think so much of my driving skill to believe that, caught completely off-guard, I'd be able to threshold brake and steer perfectly every time. Just last fall I came the closest I've ever been to an accident in 16 years of driving when a guy blew through a stop sign over a blind hill and nearly plowed into my driver's door. I had time to brake 100%, steer away from him, and nothing more. There was literally NO reaction time to be had, and I seriously doubt anyone who says they could have threshold braked perfectly in a similar situation. I did, however, avoid the accident entirely and was able to go about my day shaken, but ok. ABS is by no means the be-all end all, but I've heard far too many people convinced they could do better themselves, 100% of the time when my experience on the road and on the track indicates that most people are far better drivers on the Internet than they are in real life.

Feel free to provide any references proving otherwise.

That cable and spring might be simple, but it is far from reliable. There are countless people in this *very* thread that have had a throttle cable malfunction in a dangerous manner. It's yet to be proven that there are that many people in the entire country over the last 10 years, that have had a DBW system malfunction dangerously.

Funny that it is usually people who have actually experienced a stuck throttle cable who advocate sticking with that flawed method. Fact of the matter is that solid state is much more reliable than a physical cable.

Audi's have had this safety feature for a long time now, but there is a small lag period before the gas is cut, which should be plenty long enough to allow you to control your position on a hill. It does get in the way of left-foot braking on the track, however.

There is an in-depth explanation of why this is unlikely further up in this thread, but basically, a decent DBW system is very redundant, with multiple sensors compared and any variance causing a limp condition. Furthermore, the angle of the throttle plate itself and the volume of air coming by the MAF sensor is compared and again, if the values are implausible, the car goes into limp mode.

Throttle cables stick all the time. There must be 20 people in this one thread who have had it happen. There may not be 20 people in the entire COUNTRY that had that happen with DBW in the last 10 years.

Exactly how did disabling your ABS improve its handling? I suppose you are one of those who thinks they can threshold brake perfectly in an emergency situation. I also suppose you didn't realize that your ABS likely controls your brake bias. FCUK....

With you until the last paragraph. Pretty much any car on the road today CAN be stopped from 70MPH at WOT. See http://www.caranddriver.com/features/09q4/how_to_deal_with_unintended_acceleration-tech_dept for one of the recent tests done to prove it. Sure, if you pussyfoot around on the brakes for a mile or two you can heat them up to the point of fading, but getting on them and stopping NOW will work.

It may be that a physical cable provides more direct feedback that is desirable in an enthusiast's car, but I have little confidence that a cable will be more reliable in the long run. Throttle cables malfunction for a variety of reasons quite commonly. I've never seen a proper study published, but I'd wager that the incidences of confirmed acceleration are much higher with a cable than with electronics. Furthermore, as can be read elsewhere in this thread, DBW systems have multiple layers of error checking and are VERY well designed in general. I'm still in no way convinced this is a software issue unless Toyota was not following the industry standard designs.

But the fact of the matter is that EVERY proper test that has ever been done has shown that the brakes can stop the vehicle even one traveling at speed with the throttle wide open. See http://www.caranddriver.com/features/09q4/how_to_deal_with_unintended_acceleration-tech_dept

It seems you are the one spreading mis-information.

Actually, when all cars were outfitted with an actual throttle cable, unintended acceleration was not particularly uncommon, and was something that many drivers would experience over their lifetime. Perhaps the difference was that a higher percentage of those cars also had manual transmissions, meaning pushing the clutch in immediately disconnects the engine from the drive train. Even today, many older cars on the road have a physical cable that can become damaged and stuck open in any number of ways, especially as they age. I'd wager that there are FAR more instances of this happening in cars with a real throttle cable as opposed to drive by wire.

So what? You can still steer and stop the car without power ASSIST.

Um, and which cars would those be? Specifics, please. The hydraulic brake systems of all cars is separate from the electronics, and works fine whether the car is on or off.

And I just flat refuse to believe that the series of events that would be required to make that possible happens more than once every 10 years, if that. The brakes are a SEPARATE, hydraulic system that work fine whether the car is on or off, and are capable of stopping a car even at full throttle. Heck, even if a brake line fails, the systems are designed so that opposite front and rear brakes are still operable, so you're actually looking at TWO failure points in the brake system.

Don't have any handy, but several articles I have read over the last couple of months have pointed this out. The sheer volume of articles written about the recall efforts makes finding a specific article rather difficult. Here's one that I could find offhand from http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov/08/business/fi-toyota-recall8:

Sure, that's something to go on, but really, 15 deaths in 9 years??? That's hardly statistically significant. I could just as reasonably argue that it's because Toyota drivers are more prone to treating their cars like appliances and are less skilled drivers. Anyhow, even today, the number of verified cases of unintended acceleration is so small that it is hard to believe there is this much concern over it. There are plenty of other things that could be done with this much time, energy and money that would be far more effective at saving motorist's lives.

Sure, but what is happening now is that anyone who has an accident with a Toyota is blaming it on the supposed 'defect.' The media shares responsibility because they focus the vast majority of their efforts on blaming the car manufacturer and creating hysteria. If instead, they reported the truth, that it is unknown if there even *is* a problem, and repeated over and over how to safely deal with this 'issue' that could come about in ANY car, they'd be doing far more of a service. But nobody ever wants to suggest that a paying customer might be in the wrong.

It is relevant, as it's much the same thing over again. Once you start looking for a problem, when you have a sample size of tens of millions of vehicles, you are going to find SOMETHING to support whatever conclusion you are looking for. The point is, reported cases of unintended acceleration are not new, they are just the issue that is currently under the microscope.