When the accelerator pedal of Lauri Ulvestad’s 2011 Kia Sorento crossover jammed on Interstate 35 in Missouri, she tried switching off the ignition, but the Sorento has an electronic fob or “proximity” key, rather than a mechanical key, and pressing the stop-start button had no effect.
She tried, unsuccessfully she said, to shift the transmission lever into neutral, pulled up the handbrake and pushed down on the brake pedal.
But nothing worked and the car kept accelerating - so she called the cops!
“I knew I was going to die,” she told KCCI-TV in Des Moines. “I didn't have any doubt about it. I really thought I was going to die ... and no matter what I did, I couldn't slow it down.”
Local deputies and state troopers responded to her 911 call and tried to shift traffic out of her way as the Sorento kept on accelerating up to nearly 200km/h.
“It was accelerating faster and faster,” she said. “I was looking at my GPS, and the number kept going up and up and up.
“My foot isn't even on the accelerator.”
“The emergency brake is on all the way. I'm trying to move the brake pedal, but it's not working.”
Some drivers wouldn't move over for the police cars' lights and sirens (you'll see that on the video) and Ulvestad was forced to steer off the road, on to the centre median around them, and back on to the freeway.
Police spokesman Sheldon Lyon said: “Every close call was caused by people who wouldn't get out of the way for the lights and sirens. They ended up with near-misses several times.
WILD RIDE
“It was really amazing to see her go into the median - not once but repeatedly - pull back up into the passing lane and hit that asphalt lip without overcorrecting.”
The wild ride lasted 35 minutes and 94km, until a state trooper, speaking to her on her cellphone, advised her to put her right foot under the accelerator pedal and lift it while pushing down on the brake pedal with her left.
"And so I did that,” she said, “and it slammed me from 119mph to like nothing."
Kia North America has said it is working with Ulvestad to find out what happened but, so far, has been unable to replicate the problem.
Some comments have suggested that she should have thrown the fob out of the window, but our local Kia agent said that would have had no effect other than to make it impossible to start the car again once it had finally been stopped.
WATCH THE POLICE DASHCAM VIDEO