Wrong shoes?

Sandtree

sevenhills said:

Sounds like a lame excuse, were these shoes 4 mm wider? It would not cause you to hit the wrong pedal.

My sister had a similar thing when an elderly neighbour got the wrong pedal and drove into her garden wall, this driver was partially disabled.

How does this happen, even indicating is something that is almost automatic.

Its amazing how much small differences can make... pedals may be a few inches apart but foot position may mean you are a fraction of that between hitting and missing the neigbouring peddle. Given it appears to be mainly blokes replying then I suspect we are less used to adapting to different footwear too (always impressed with the woman/person sprinting along the station platform in stilettos)

Potentially age has to be considered too, back in my claims days I had two customers who caused 2-3 accidents each damaging 4+ third party vehicles after they "got confused" over the pedals 

coffeehound

^ yes age is an acknowledged factor with unintentional acceleration syndrome.  Someone mentioned on here a couple of months back that it can happen when the driver puts the gear selector into the wrong direction of travel, causing disorientation, confusion and panic.  This would also be consistent with accidents occurring during low speed maneuvers as in this case