It is not as cut-and-dried as saying the spike in Toyota Unintended Acceleration (UA) is completely due to driver error and ambulance chasers.

Toyota/Lexus UA complaint rate by model year:
1990 0.4
1991 0.4
1992 1.1
1993 1.1
1994 0.7
1995 1.2
1996 1.5
1997 2.1
1998 5.1
1999 4.8
2000 6.8
2001 6.8
2002 15.7
2003 14.9
2004 14.9
2005 12.3
2006 9.7
2007 15.2
2008 6.8
2009 7.5

Clearly Toyota’s UA complaints jumped starting with the 2002 model year. If Toyota UA was totally due to ambulance chasers and driver error, then there should not be the spike beginning in 2002.

Absolutely a few of the current reports are ambulance chasers and probably even more are people who legitimately think it is Toyota’s fault instead of their foot on the wrong pedal.

But Toyota clearly has some sort of problem starting in their 2002 models, according to the above data taken from:

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/nhtsa-data-dive-2-ua-rates-1990-2009-by-manufacturer-updated-with-new-charts/#more-347666

(ps – read the user comments there…it states Toyota converted to electronic throttle starting in 2002/2003)