Runaway Toyotas or Runaway Hysteria?

Looks like it was the hysteria that was going full speed:

The U.S. Department of Transportation has ... found that at the time of the crashes, throttles were wide open and the brakes were not engaged, people familiar with the findings said.

The results suggest that some drivers who said their Toyota and Lexus vehicles surged out of control were mistakenly flooring the accelerator when they intended to jam on the brakes...

The findings by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration involve a sample of reports in which a driver of a Toyota vehicle said the brakes were depressed but failed to stop the car from accelerating and ultimately crashing.

The data recorders analyzed by NHTSA were selected by the agency, not Toyota, based on complaints the drivers had filed with the government.

The findings are consistent with a 1989 government-sponsored study that blamed similar driver mistakes for a rash of sudden-acceleration reports involving Audi 5000 sedans.

The Toyota findings, which haven't been released by NHTSA, support Toyota's position that sudden-acceleration reports involving its vehicles weren't caused by electronic glitches in computer-controlled throttle systems, as some safety advocates and plaintiffs' attorneys have alleged. More than 100 people have sued the auto maker claiming crashes were the result of faulty electronics.

I smelled a rat on this thing from the beginning.  The case in San Diego was especially troublesome because the driver seemed to be unwilling to try anything simple like shifting into neutral or shutting off the ignition.  It just seemed to "made for TV", if you will.

So, will Congress call the head of Toyota back to Capitol Hill to apologize for the witchhunt they put him through?

Of course not.