After crashing through the garage, Charlene Amerson's 2009 Toyota Camry came to a stop in the backyard after hitting and dislodging her air conditioning unit. Amerson says she was just backing the car into the garage Thursday morning when it took off on her.
"I felt it accelerating so I tried to stop it by hitting the brakes but it never stopped," said Amerson.
Amerson, who filed a police report, says just two weeks ago she brought her car in for service because of the recall of Toyota models with sudden acceleration problems. She got a receipt for the work. She says her car never acted like this before, though there have been other reported complaints about sudden acceleration in Toyotas even while driving in reverse.
"It was going so fast, till it didn't hardly give me time to think what I should do to stop it," said Amerson.
Because her airbag never deployed investigators will not be able to get information from the car's so-called black box. The data recorder recently helped investigators determine the crash of a Prius in New York was not caused by sudden acceleration as the driver had claimed. In fact, it showed the driver had never applied her foot to the brake.
A Toyota spokesperson tells ABC7 they will notify Toyota's quality insurance team in Chicago. They will also contact the dealer and assist with the police accident investigation.
The spokesperson also tells ABC7 Ms. Amerson should call her dealer. She says she did that and they gave her the Toyota national number. But after waiting on hold for more than an hour she says she finally hung up.
