This evening, while travelling into Nottingham, I had a bit of a scare in the IS200 SE Auto courtesy car which I am using while my GS is having some balljoints replaced.
I accelerated hard (foot flat to the floor) onto an A road, upto about 50MPH ,and then released the accelerator. The car continued to accelerate at the same rate. By the time I had realized what was happening, I was doing about 70MPH. The brakes made hardly any difference. :o
I like to think that I am a mechanically sympathetic kind of chap, so I turned the engine off rather than shifting into neutral and leaving a brand new engine (400 miles) bouncing of its rev limiter. This allowed me to coast to a stop in a layby. I was surprised how bad the brakes were with no power assistance. :duh:
After a brief inspection of the accelerator, I saw that the very bottom edge of the pedal had wedged itself under the mat. The mats are genuine Lexus ones, but the retaining clip near the seat was missing, allowing it to ride forward.
I'm glad that I remained calm and had at least some idea about how to stop a car in this situation. I told my 17 year old brother what had happened when I got home, and he said that he wouldn't have had any idea what to do. If he had been driving, he would probably have ploughed into the back of a line of traffic at some traffic lights at about 90MPH. That would have been nasty...
Make sure your mats are securely fastened down chaps!