By chance, Alina, is the surge you're describing upon initial braking happening when the car slows below 10 mph?

 

I was wondering the exact same thing ....

 

In a completely unrelated car model, I recall having to take it in to the shop to have it looked at because it would rev up and want to go faster and I would have to push harder on the brake to make it stop. The mechanic was able to reproduce it and put it in the list of cars to work on that day but that afternoon I got a call saying to come pick up the car no charge. Turned out the floor mat had ridden up and was causing the accelerator to catch and stick slightly depressed. the mechanic was a bit embarrassed that he hadn't caught this in the initial inspection so he didn't even charge a evaluation fee.
I do wonder if you could ask for the records from Honda's inspection of the car to see the exact things they know or found out about the car. I would think that they would have the information that was described as being stored in the "black box". and legally I don't see why they could deny giving you that information.
-13th

 

Why not just pop the car into neutral or flip the key off? Neutral is propably the easist

 

The throttle is not mechanical, it's electrical. It's likely in the throttle sensor or computer.

 

The denial notice was issued for HAH crash happened in 2005.
Here is the link to the notice:
http://www.federalregister.gov/artic...t-petition#p-3

Here is the link to NY Times article about this case:
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2010...ef=automobiles

I wounder is she will continue the battle at this point?

 

Interesting reading the old accounts.

The funny thing is that the Audi cases that were mentioned actually DID have a resolution. It was discovered that Audi pedals were on average 6-9 inches further to the left than most cars. Add in that the vast majority of Audi crashes were secondary drivers, and driver error (made worse by an odd design) was at fault...

 

Why didn't you turn the car off?

 

...turn the car off, shift to neutral, emergency brake, downshift to 1st (at least in 1st gear the car will be redlining and never really be going that fast, whatever the mechanical top speed is in first at redline). I was thinking these same things when Toyota had the accelerator problem and resulting large scale recall a few years ago.

There are options, but some people freeze up and stop thinking. Which, gets them or others injured or killed. Not thinking, not being prepared, frozen from fear...

Reading these articles, I'm not sure exactly what happened or what went wrong. Heck, not even the investigators know! The driver claims the car accelerated on it's own. Maybe. Machinery does malfunction. Or was she unknowingly applying pressure to the gas pedal instead of the brake? Or maybe fat-footing it and applying pressure to both? Possibly. But, we'll never know for sure.