On July 10, 2010 I was parking my '09 Toyota Corolla behind a Ford on the side of the road. As I pressed the brake to come to a stop the car bucked and the engine made a revving noise. My car accelerated into the back of the Ford damaging my bumper and the Ford’s back bumper. On July 12, I called my insurance company and reported the incident. They sent out someone to assess the damages and told me where to take my car to get it fixed. I was told to have a Toyota certified technician check the brakes and inspect what may have caused this. I called my local Toyota dealership and they told me they could not look at the car until the end of July. Since I didn't feel safe driving the car, I decided to take the car to get repaired first and see if the repair place had a Toyota certified technician there. I was told they didn’t but while they waited on parts they would take it to the dealership. On July 14th, the Toyota dealership told me that they couldn't inspect the brakes because of the recalls and I would have to call the Toyota 800 number and report the incident. On July 15th I called Toyota and relayed the incident to a man on the phone. I was asked what I wanted Toyota to do about it. I said I wanted them to find out what the problem was and fix it, and as it was a Toyota malfunction to have them take the responsibility of the accident. A few days later someone from Toyota called me and told me that within 10-14 days an inspector would be in contact with me about looking at the car. About 3 days later a woman called me to begin what I thought was the inspection process. Over a week I was continually calling my inspector to talk to her about what was going on. Every time I called I got her voicemail and it would take her between 3 hrs to 2 days to call me back, while I continued to leave her messages. After a week of this, I called left 2 messages over 2 days and asked her for a timeline of when this inspection would be done so my Toyota could be fixed and I could get my car back. She told me an inspector would contact me in 5 days. I have been without a car for almost 3 weeks now and my insurance company can only give me a rental for 3 days, since that's the estimated time of the repairs. But they can't repair the car until it is inspected. Toyota refuses to give me a rental car and basically told me to pay for one myself. Toyota is not taking an ownership of faulty construction and runaway brakes.

Update from Aug 23, 2010: So finally, after much hassle with Toyota's 1-800-number (they think it's customer service, but it's just a way to frustrate people) an inspector comes out. He takes my story, drives my car a few miles, and runs some tests. True to form about 3 weeks later, I receive a response from the Toyota claims department (where there is no phone number, just a fax and an address). They said they were sorry this happened but because no SUA (sudden unintended acceleration) occurred in their driving and testing of the car that it is not a manufacturer problem. They won't do anything about it. It seems very obvious to me that SUA doesn't happen all the time because if it did I would be running into cars left and right or into trees or having to shut the car off all the time. I am going to write to the claims department and show them all I researched about this and ask them again to consider their stance. All I wanted was for them to take responsibility, pay the deductable, and fix my brakes. Now I want them to buy back my car (which I have nicknamed "The Death Trap") and give me money towards buying another car--certainly I will never, never, never buy a Toyota again. Not simply because of SUA or the issues with the company, but because the company refuses to take responsibility for the mistakes they have made and actually fix the problems. Instead they want to blame it on floor mats. Clearly floormats have nothing to do with it. How many people have to die in runaway Toyotas before something changes?