How the hell can they see over the steering wheel and reach the pedals? 
Tester
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I don’t recall hearing many complaints about unintended acceleration in the days of yore, early 90’s & before, when most cars used a cable-actuated throttle, linked directly from the accel pedal. Or was this same problem common then too?
Yes it happened with carbs also, depending on the carb, the cable could fray and hold the throttle open, a/the throttle return spring could break…
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How would you?
You’re not a mechanic, and there was no internet back then.
But it did happen.
Tester
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The only incident I recall from that era, a elderly woman accidentally ran into her husband in their driveway. They were leaving for an errand, wife in driver’s seat, and hubby was closing the garage door. He got trapped between the car and the garage door. Fortunately, while the personal injuries were serious, not fatal. Thought to be caused by pedal confusion.
I can imagine like DMP says above, the cables and linkages could foul, or a spring break or come loose and cause this. But I personally never heard of it happening. True, it could have been happening all the time, but I just was never in the grapevine. I did read the newspapers of course, don’t recall it being a common report there.
I’ve never had to replace throttle cables, linkages, but I have to replace cables on my bicycle occasionally b/c they start to fray & stick. But early symptoms offer plenty of fore-warning before catastrophe could occur.
Sure, that is what they all say, she got tired of his grumpy ass and tried to run over him making it look like an accident!!!.. I know these things cause my wife watches way too much ID on TV… 
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You don’t remember the Audi supposed problem, 1986 or so? Really kicked off the whole thing, 60 Minutes episode and all. Turned out to be driver error.
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Audi’s in 1986 and there were complaints about early Jeep Grand Cherokee’s, before the brake shift interlock was added by Chrysler. One Grand Cherokee was so concerning to the owner that they contacted a TV news crew to document. Jeep sent out an engineer to the vehicle near Chicago and found an aftermarket floor mat and frozen slush making the pedal stick to the floor.
The former Chrysler and Ford PR rep Jason Vines tells the story in a little more detail in his book What Did Jesus Drive, you can find for Kindle along with other formats. Has his account of the Ford/Firestone debacle as well.
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Broken engine mounts caused problems with mechanical linkage. My 59 Pontiac, engine mount failed, touch the accelerator pedal, engine twisted, went to wide open. Same with my parents 62 Studebaker with a 289 V8.
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The same thing happened with a friend’s mid-60s Impala, but he managed to narrowly avoid a collision.
Later, GM issued a recall but the recall didn’t involve replacing the weak motor mounts. Instead, GM’s recall involved installing a cable to keep the engine from rotating when a motor mount snapped.
Back to brakes. I’ve been replacing my brake pads and front rotors. They really werent that bad but the one rotor was scored and making noise.
At any rate I like to open the bleeder to push the piston back. I got three open but the one was stuck. Blaster, a little heat but nothing. I heard a little click but thought maybe the socket turned. Must have opened it a little cause I dumped a whole resevoir full on the garage floor.
I was going to have my guy do a fluid exchange so I’ll have to see if he can get me in. If not I’ll pick up a new bleeder screw and a caliper and have at it to see if I can get it out. $100 bucks plus $50 core charge, and maybe restocking if I don’t need the caliper. Perils of diy but I had to replace two calipers on my 68 dodge when I broke the suckers off.
Makes me think of my grandmother, drove peering between the steering wheel and dashboard, not 2 footed driver though!
I used to use a sears catalog until I was 12.
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?? Doesn’t a new caliper come w/a new bleeder screw? I’ve had problems removing those screws on my drum-brake truck on occasion. They often just snap off. The easiest solution seems to be to just replace the wheel cylinder. That then presents the problem of unfastening the brake line, but for some reason that’s never got stuck to the point I couldn’t shift it after a soak in thread penetrant. I’m guessing this is b/c the line side of that connection is made of brass.
I was able to remove one that snapped off on the bench using a reverse-thread drill, just to see if I could, as an experiment.
I got the old bleeder out using a bigger wrench and just replaced the valve. It was pretty sluggish. Returned the caliper to Napa and got my $150 back. Made an appointment for a fluid flush. All is well. Cleaned the mess up on the floor.
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