I'm not 100% convinced that it's always the mats (not even 30% convinced).
In fact, I believe people are always interested in a quick and easy to understand answer to the question "how did it happen?"
The other typical answers, other than "mats" are:

• Driver confusion (mainly attributed to elderly drivers)
• Driver forgot to take medication (again thrown at the elderly)
• Driver's foot slipped

My father's 2007 Honda Accord had unintended acceleration on THREE separate occassions over the course of 5 months. I don't know the details of all of them, but I believe he was sitting in park at the time (on at least one or two of the times).
He's been driving for long enough to know the difference between the pedals.
It's impossible to believe that the mats moved three times.
What do I account it towards?
These machines are no longer about engines and valves, but rather computer chips and software.
I am not a ludite, but I believe that things can go very wrong when you rely so much on high tech.
But it's easy for the manufacturer to throw the blame on a sliding floor mat.
I don't buy it!

 

I won't disagree that it's possible that there could be a software problem.

But it's less likely than old rusty mechanical throttle linkages, misplaced floor mats, or just plain the wrong pedal.

Where is the "black box" data here?

Most cars anymore record various things (throttle position, brake pedal activation, speed). At the moment of an airbag deployment these data points for a period of time are stored.

 

But my father had it happen three times in the short period of time he had his car.
The dealer couldn't find anything when they looked at the car. There was no crash, so the data recorder wasn't used.
If it were the mat, i think he would have noticed it was misplaced EACH time after the racing resolved.

If you ask me...it's a "shoot (or at least, discredit) the messenger" campaign by major manufacturers who have a bit of a problem on their hands.
if you shift the blame to the driver or on a dumb product (the mat...as opposed to the brains inside the engine), then the masses will say "that wont happen to me, the car is safe, so i'll buy it".
However, if you let it be known that there's a HAL9000 or SkyNet issue out there...well let's say sales might suffer just a bit.

 

Did anyone see the nightline segment this past week. It seems that the problems may be defective electronic throttle control modules and Toyota is covering up. Several owners did not have mats installed and their cars took off.

 

It is different on the hybrid. Unlike most cars, you MUST be in park to start the TCH.