The problem is cars have weird incentive schemes. Namely: fault, because it's related to insurance and they're expensive. If you have an accident, the absolute last thing you ever do is admit fault.

There's also no specific reason to think the driver would identify various mundane fault conditions - i.e. if your car lurches forward and you hit a taxi, then such an impact would be enough to unwedge a stuck carpet.

There's also lots of unknown detail - i.e. if the car was accelerating out of control while you road the brake, and you hit something at 5mph, then did the car stop accelerating at that point? Was the engine damaged and it stopped then? Why not shift into neutral if you're cognizant of the fault condition? Did the car not shift or what happened etc. In these cases make and year model - in Thailand - is pretty important too, since its a market which would have a lot of old used cars. A 1980s model minivan is going to have rather different throttle control.

It's all the hallmarks of urban legend, replete the buy-in line of it being foreign cars - which is how the story always goes and is played with the media. Sure, I'm willing to believe there are real control system issues, but it seems odd to me that no recall notices go out for ECU updates.