December 7, 2025
Skid Marks & Spaghetti
Toyota Unintended Acceleration and the Big Bowl of "Spaghetti" Code(2013)
Jury cries reckless; commenters feud over floor mats, code chaos, and a secret firmware
TLDR: Toyota settled after an Oklahoma jury found “reckless disregard” in a crash linked to alleged “spaghetti” software. Commenters split: some blast chaotic code and demand the firmware, others cite NASA’s review and blame floor mats, while skeptics question lawsuit-funded sources — a fiery clash over blame and safety.
Toyota’s unintended acceleration saga just got a rerun in the court of public opinion. After an Oklahoma jury said Toyota acted with “reckless disregard” and awarded $3M, the company settled before punitive damages. The headline for nerds and non-nerds alike? Experts Michael Barr and Philip Koopman found the 2005 Camry’s engine software was a bowl of “spaghetti” — too complex to test, easy to break when fixing, and full of hazards. One jaw-dropper circulating in the thread: “academic standard is zero,” yet the code allegedly had 10,000 ‘global variables’ — think shared knobs any part of the program can twist.
The comments are a brawl. Some cry “dangerous code” and point to the case’s dramatic skid marks as proof she was braking; others say the real villain was floor mats and cite a NASA review claiming no electronic flaw. One user snarks, “Toyota was found guilty of not being a US company,” while another side-eyes the messenger: Safety Research Systems makes money from lawsuits. Meanwhile the hackers want receipts: “Where’s the firmware?” and a couple link old HN threads and debates. The vibe: true-crime meets code review, with memes about “Release the firmware!” and “no globals or no brakes.”
Key Points
- •Toyota settled the case after an Oklahoma jury found the company acted with “reckless disregard,” awarding $3 million before punitive damages were considered.
- •The 2007 incident involved a 2005 Toyota Camry experiencing unintended acceleration; braking attempts left skid marks, and the crash caused one fatality and serious injuries.
- •Expert witnesses Michael Barr and Phillip Koopman reviewed Toyota’s engineering process and source code, describing it as “spaghetti code.”
- •Defects identified included possible bit flips, task deaths disabling failsafes, memory corruption, single-point failures, inadequate protections against stack and buffer overflows, and thousands of global variables.
- •Barr’s testimony highlighted excessive code complexity, with some functions deemed untestable and unmaintainable; his review spanned over 20 months and produced an 800-page report.