Thanks for your response. Not to discourage you, of course, but rather to crystalize my thinking, and to move it from the event forward.

Sooo. According to Nancy (my wife) the car quickly accelerated from 40 to 60. She could not stop the car with the brakes (hence the brake fire). Some of that might have resulted from the car driving downhill (surrounded by lots of cyclist).

I should think the first thought would be to stop the car with the brakes. She usually does not drive the Prius, and so she ignores much of what is displayed.

Possibly she next tried to shift out of D. And than tried to shut off the engine.

I was, floored (no pun intended) when the service manager showed me a picture of the rubber Toyota Prius mat against/over the edge of the accelerator peddle. I moved the mat back(it was not against the peddle when we looked at it yesterday) to its original position. To move that mat, you'd have to move it by hand. And at that, it was difficult to do.

I read the other incident. Much harder to brush off.

No damage to the fender/paint. They're replacing everything in the front brakes. 1500.00 bucks. Some of which are on order.

My guess is that they will say as little as possible. I was told that, as luck would have it, a factory rep was passing through and tested the system and found only that drat floor mat to be the cause.

My guess is that one would need to have equipment in place to capture what I would consider to be a random event.

Thanks for your concern. We are, of course reporting the incident to the NHSTA.