Pre-Collision Braking Almost Killed Me Today

I was starting out at a green traffic light in the early hours this morning, so it was still dark. The car ahead of me did the usual jackrabbit start and took off while I did the usual hyper-mile turtle start. When I got into the intersection and the car in front of me was about 50 yards ahead, my car violently stopped cold. It was hard enough to lock my seat belts and make me think someone had hit me from behind at speed. Only after I was stopped the red "BRAKE!!!" with the accompanying beeps appeared on the dash. There was nothing in front of me, the car ahead had not braked, and none of the cars visible in other lanes had braked. I do not know what triggered the car to do that.

The car behind me almost hit me and then started a mini-road rage routine because he thought I was brake checking him. What was also concerning is that for about 5 - 10 seconds the car would not let me go. I was stuck stopped in the middle of the intersection.

I had never given it any thought before, but now I'm very concerned about one of the following scenarios playing out:

1. The car does this and triggers a collision where I am found to be at fault for slamming on my brakes for no reason. The idea of being held liable for an accident I had no control over is very concerning to me. How would I prove the car did it and not me?
2. If this system were to trigger like that on the highway I could be killed by an inattentive driver.

I already filed a NHTSA complaint, and obviously Toyota will be inspecting the car, but I wanted to know if anyone else had experienced anything like that?

Having a car that you cannot control is VERY disconcerting.

 

My only hope is that the car stores enough information about the incident for Toyota to be able to diagnose it. I've had the red light flash and the car beep many times when a collision is NOT imminent, but I've just learned to ignore it (not good, I know). At least in those cases there was someone braking, or I was approaching someone quickly, but I've never had it just stop my car cold without warning.

 

That's where Boeing went wrong, and apparently Toyota: preventing the driver/pilot from overriding the software. That is a very dangerous proposition. Warning the driver is one thing, or even applying the brakes, but ignoring that the driver is pressing the gas and stopping the car anyway can be very dangerous.

What if there really was going to be a collision, but my choice was to collide with a car or be hit behind by a tractor trailer going 70 mph? Toyota would block me from saving myself. That's a horrible idea. A driver MUST be able to take control of their vehicle at ALL times.

 

Bells and whistles are one thing, but seizing control from the driver and BLOCKING them from taking control seems grossly negligent to me.

 

I did not. I was trying to press the gas and it would not move. It started moving once the red light cleared.

 

This brings us to an old debate: is it ethical to sacrifice the individual for the higher good? In other words, is triggering accidents with these systems ethical if it reduces the overall number of accidents? It may save lives in the case of accidental collisions and cost lives in collisions triggered by false activations. Is it "OK" to cause an innocent person to be killed to save two others? I personally prefer that Toyota or Congress isn't deciding that it's ok to kill me to save someone else.

EDIT - At least it can be disabled, which it will be forever more in my car.