How do you stop a car with a jammed accelerator?

The recall of thousands of Toyotas with potentially faulty pedals raises a terrifying hypothetical scenario - what should you do if the accelerator on your car jams? It's a driver's worst nightmare. You try to slow down but find the accelerator pedal is stuck - you're in a runaway car.

The world's largest carmaker Toyota has recalled millions of vehicles across Europe and the US due either to the risk of accelerator pedals becoming stuck on the floor mat or jamming on their own.

Toyota insists the jamming problem is very rare and that it has only received 26 reports of any kind of problem in Europe.

If the accelerator is stuck, you should first firmly depress the foot brake, he says. This will override the accelerator. It must be the footbrake and not the handbrake, which could cause the brake pads to burn out and potentially put the car into a spin.

Next, the driver needs to depress the clutch, effectively stopping the engine from powering the car. The equivalent in an automatic car is to put the gearstick into neutral. Continue braking and keep an eye out, forward and back, for an "escape route" to the hard shoulder. Do not try to steer straight across in one quick swerve - this could be dangerous, and destabilise the vehicle at such a speed. In a short time - perhaps 10 seconds - you can bring the car to a halt, says Stephen Mead, assistant chief examiner at the Institute of Advanced Motoring.

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source: BBC