In a July 13th story, the Online Wall Street Journal released unofficial data from the NHTSA the 3000+ complaints of sudden acceleration in Toyotas that plagued the country and filled the news media earlier this year.

And if the NHTSA’s preliminary data proves accurate, the culprit was more often pedal confusion than any kind of flaw in the design/construction of the vehicles themselves. In the cars examined so far by NHTSA, which has teamed up with NASA for the research, many of them show indications that the brakes were not applied prior to the crashes, but that the gas pedal was floored.

Once again, this is all speculation based on incomplete and unofficial data so far: not actual proven results. Don’t expect a final report of the NHTSA investigation for months yet.

Adding fuel to the speculation is the fact that in November 2009, Toyota announced a recall of almost 4 million vehicles, and three months later there was a rapid increase in the number of complaints filed with the NHTSA. (See our spiffy chart for a visualization of this increase.)

This raises a question: if the problem was actually drivers hitting the gas instead of the brake, how many of them did it because of confusion and how many did it to make some money?

To read the original story and see a video clip of an interview with WSJ’s Michael Ramsey, click here.

More people are talking about Ford’s new Curve Control Safety System, planned for release in 2011.

Last week CarGurus.com was worried about the potential safety risk of this system, designed to adjust the speed at which drivers take curves. Ford hopes this will help to eliminate some 50,000 mishaps every year. T Griffith at Car Gurus is worried that the system will misinterpret the driver’s intentions and intervene when it should have left well enough alone. A valid worry: read his article to get the full picture.

Today, Automoblog has offered its opinion. Instead of talking about the risk, they seem to think this is most
beneficial to people who maybe shouldn’t be driving in the first place. Check out their candid and rather funny comments here. If nothing else, it’s a great example of typing while muttering under your breath.

The Car Talk guys have a discussion going on their Website, asking people to contribute their best summer driving tips.

If you — like a lot of us — have any kind of road trip ahead of you, check it out. See what tips others have provided and leave a few of your own.

If, however, your plans involve more commuting than traveling, you might make better use of Automoblog’s “Trivial Traffic Travels,” good advice to make your drive to work more pleasant. Or just more tolerable.

And forget the old saying: sometimes free advice is worth more than you pay for it.

If you’ve yelled that some drivers shouldn’t even be on the road, here’s some vindication for you.

20% of  US drivers couldn’t pass the written test if they had to take it today, according to the 4th annual  GMAC Insurance National Drivers test. After researchers polled more than 5,000 drivers in all fifty states, their data showed that as many as 38 million drivers in the USA don’t know what they need to to get the driver’s license they already have in their pockets.

The poll consisted of 20 questions from each state’s DMV written test. The average score of all participants was 76.2%, down somewhat from 2009’s average score of 76.6%.

Compared on a state-by-state basis, Kansas drivers scored the highest, with an average score of 82.3%. New York came in the last with 70%.  Texas was part of the three-way tie for 18th place, with Michigan and Vermont.

If you’d like to see how you compare, take the 2010 driving test for yourself.

Other details from the report:

• Older is better. Drivers 35 and over are most likely to pass the test.
• Gender is something of an issue: 20% of female participants would fail the test, compared to 13% of the males.
• Some test items are widely known. 98% of those polled knew the correct response to solid yellow lines,  hydroplaning, flashing lights on an approaching vehicle.

DISTRACTED DRIVING ISSUES
A second aspect of the poll questioned people about their multi-tasking while behind the wheel, with some frightening results.

Roughly 25% of the drivers in the poll admitted to driving while eating, talking on a cell phone, or adjusting their radios or iPods.

Only 5% of drivers admitted to texting while driving, but in a study where subject “self report” on behavior, some lying to make themselves look better is always possible. Even if the 5% number is accurate, that is still almost 10 million drivers on the road who are sending text messages.

“The really sad thing is that you see this more and more in young drivers,” added Wade Bontrager, senior vice president of GMAC Insurance. “They are not only the least experienced, but also need to pay the most attention to the road.”

CNNMoney.com has reported on this test and even added a very cool interactive map: click on the unwise behavior of your choice and see how the various states measure up against each other.