LASD: How to Stop Runaway Car

As a 40-year-old mother from Sunland was driving through La Canada Flintridge on Monday morning, she noticed that her car's accelerator pedal was stuck.

Moving between 20-25 mph with her 5-year-old daughter in the back seat, the mother couldn't stop her out-of-control Ford Escort.

That's when she called 911.

"There are cars in front of me and I can't stop," the woman sobbed to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s dispatcher Richard Engersbach as her vehicle was approaching a red light.

A Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department statement released Tuesday said that Engersbach asked the woman to check her brakes, then put the car in neutral and turn off the engine.

She followed his directions and the car slowly came to a stop before reaching the dangerous intersection ahead.

"I was shocked when I first got the call," Engersbach said in the statement. "Knowing that a child was in the car made it that much more urgent that the car be stopped."

It's scary, but such incidents occur with vehicles—a car could fail to stop while heading down PCH in Hermosa Beach or lose control along a residential street.

To avoid such a situation, county sheriffs have advised to stop your vehicle if a pedal starts to feel sticky but isn't yet stuck. Call a dealer to arrange for your vehicle to be picked up.

But if you've already lost control of the vehicle, county sheriffs have offered these tips:

• If the pedal is stuck in a depressed position, shift the transmission to neutral.
• Turn off the ignition switch.
• Apply the brakes and pull over.
• With the engine cut off, you will lose some power steering assist, but you should still be able to steer the vehicle to a safe stopping position.

Do you have any other tips to share?