I am the proud owner of a Toyota RAV4, a vehicle that has served me well in the two years since I bought it. Fortunately, my vehicle is NOT one included in the recent Toyota recall, but I have still been watching the stories with some interest. The other day my husband asked me, “What would you do if the accelerator got stuck?” I pondered for a minute and replied, “Probably put the car in neutral and put on the brakes.”
Having passed this “test,” the psychologist in me began wondering whether someone could actually carry out such a plan in an emergency situation. Lo and behold, this morning, I saw this headline in the Houston Chronicle : “Panic Impairs Driver’s Ability to Respond.”
Yes, it would certainly be difficult for someone to respond when a primitive part of their brain has taken over and made it impossible to reason. During times when our lives our threatened, this is essentially what happens. The fight or flight response gets triggered. Basically, an instinctive part of your brain overrides the rest of your brain to save your life. You literally cannot think because there’s no time to!
So what do you do if you find yourself in danger? Unfortunately, the time to figure that out is well before the event even happens. Remember all those fire drills in school? They were preparing you for something that does not normally happen, but when it does, requires quick action. You literally have to rehearse what you will do so many times that it becomes automatic…then you can do it in an emergency.
So all you affected Toyota owners out there. Spend lots of time practicing what you would do if the accelerator pedal got stuck. Or better yet, just take your car in and get it fixed. 