Minnesota Doctor Says His Prius Took Off In Reverse

A Minnesota doctor who says he and his wife had gone so far as to practice what to do if their 2007 Toyota Prius suddenly accelerated -- and even posted a note on the dashboard to remind themselves -- says that didn't do any good when the car suddenly accelerated while in reverse.

Minneapolis' KARE-TV has the story. "This was a car that was great for 34,000 miles," says Dr. Alan Hoffman. "But those last two seconds were really bad." He has donated the car to an engineering school so that professors and their students can study it. The note on his dash, by the way, said "shift to neutral and brake without pumping."

Toyota has recalled millions of vehicles because of accelerator-related problems. Its list of which models are affected is posted here

And as we said earlier, the Toyota story has reached the point where crashes that would have been local news, at most, are now of national interest.

Update at 1:55 p.m. ET: Along with this story, the high-speed drama involving a Prius in California on Monday and the crash of a Prius in Westchester County, N.Y., yesterday, there's word from Connecticut of a 76-year-old woman who says her Toyota wouldn't stop when she was pulling into a church parking lot.