Toyota was under pressure today over the accelerator fault that is forcing it to recall 2m cars across Europe as the RAC described the problem as “incredibly dangerous” and urged concerned owners to have their vehicles checked immediately.

Amid calls for the Japanese company to explain why it had waited for a year before issuing the recall, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents called on the manufacturer to launch an immediate inquiry into why the potentially serious fault was not detected before millions of vehicles were released on to the market. Robert Booth and David Teather, The Guardian.

As an owner of a Toyota Aygo which is less than a year old I have a special interest in this story – I yet to hear a thing from Toyota: is my car affected or not? According to the Toyota’s website Aygo’s from February 2005 to August 2009 – so yes it is. So much for Japanese reliability – how many deaths have they waited for before issuing a recall another case of profits before customer. The whole thing is troubling enough but if a reputable company like Toyota is willing to sacrifice customer’s lives for profits what on earth or less scrupulous companies up to? Capitalism it’s just amoral.

Still what to do if your pedal sticks – the best advice I can find is to put the car in neutral and brake hard – don’t switch the ignition off as you’ll lose power steering and braking. I’d also suggest being very careful where you overtake as there’s no way you want to be in the outside lane of a motorway when the pedal sticks – always making sure you can get to the hard shoulder easily.