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Toyota Unintended Acceleration and the Big Bowl of "Spaghetti" Code(2013)
(www.safetyresearch.net)
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this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2025
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Did you need 10000 reasons to never enter a Toyota again? No? Well, now you've got them, whether you wanted them or not.
I’d rather have that than a Tesla which could cause the entire car to not respond because of JavaScript.
That's a little like saying that you'd rather be shot in the head than burned alive. Sure, I won't argue against it, but I've got a better suggestion: How about neither?
Tesla is number 1 for deaths AND accidents. Toyota is not in the top 5 for either.
https://www.iseecars.com/most-dangerous-cars-study#v=2024
https://smartfinancial.com/car-brands-with-most-accidents
Sure, and how does that excuse Toyota's sloppy coding practices? Look buddy, if you want to drive in one of their vehicles, I'm not going to stop you.
What vehicle do you drive?
I don't.
Oh I see, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Got it.
When I speak about what I intend to do (that being avoiding being a passenger in a Toyota vehicle henceforth) "I have no idea what I'm talking about"?
Huh. Next you'll be telling me I don't know what my name is or where I live.
The real funny part is how you think other car manufacturers are any better, having never heard a thing about their software! Yet one article can make you avoid one of the safest car manufacturers on earth because you think you know something.
Meanwhile, you don’t know your own name or where you live.
You're putting words in my mouth: I've never said any such thing. I've spoken exclusively about Toyota and their software development practices, which is what this thread is about. I've literally not mentioned any other manufacturer at any point, let alone expressed the opinion that any of them "are any better" - although now that you mention it I'd frankly be very hard pressed to see how any of them could possibly be much worse than what is described here. That'd be difficult to do while still having your code even compile.
I've see a lot of code over the years, written in numerous languages and running on a very wide variety of hardware. Some of it was... Terrible. I've yet to see anything anywhere that had a global shared state space of 10000 distinct variables. That's beyond insanity.
So how many automobile computers have you worked on? What language did you use? Why didn’t you just refactor everything since the code wasn’t up to your standards?
You’re just like an old man yelling at clouds. Or I guess just one specific type of cloud.
Get out here with your code review.
Why not both?