RELATED: List of recalled vehicles
"I stayed up all night last night, just periodically going over it and over it in my mind, you know," Marie Hodges of Glenside, Pa. said.
In the 24 hours since Marie Hodges' Toyota Camry ended up inside this Cheltenham Laundromat, she's asked herself again and again how it could have happened, but while police continue to investigate, she keeps coming back to the same unsettling cause. She is absolutely convinced it is Toyota's fault.
Hodges' 2007 Toyota is on the list of cars recalled by the embattled automaker, though it's not yet known if a sticking accelerator is to blame for yesterday's crash.
Meanwhile, like Marie Hodges, Dr. Alan Ostroff of North Wales, Montgomery County is convinced the malfunction at the center of the massive recall could have killed him.
"When it first happened, it was driving on ice. You hit the brake and you can't stop," Ostroff said.
Ostroff drives a Toyota Prius, not recalled by the company, but he says his gas pedal stuck and he could not slow down.
"And when I got within a few feet of the car in front of me, I swerved into oncoming traffic," Ostroff said.
Ostroff's car now sits unused, where, he says, it'll stay until his questions are answered and its manufacturing flaw fixed. For now, his anger over what happened is tempered by what could have been.
As is the case for Marie Hodges.
"There was a lady standing right there, it seemed like I was just going toward her you know, but the car, like, curved at the wall," Hodges said.
For that, she is more than grateful. And while she may not know the official cause, she did come to one conclusion.
"I don't think I want another Toyota, you know what I mean," Hodges said.
Toyota says while concern is warranted, panic is not. If you own one on the recall list, bring it in for repair. If yours in not included, there is no reason to believe what happened to these two Toyota drivers will happen to you.
