The importance of curiousity

Looking at this account of a man who is currently imprisoned for his role in a crash of a 1996 Toyota, it appears that the defense has uncovered a sticky throttle in the vehicle, as well as evidence that the filaments on the brake lights were hot when the car crashed--one may actually be able to determine this from their condition when broken.

This uncovers a bunch of questions. First of all, given that the clear testimony of the man and his whole family was that he was trying to stop, it seems odd that there was no investigation at the time as to whether the throttle was stuck. If the defense lawyer is telling the truth (we can't assume that, of course), there are some very real issues of "withholding of evidence" in play here--which should get the man immediately released with compensation, and the prosecutor needs to be fired and disbarred. This is, after all, a pretty basic Constitutional issue.

More ominously, if indeed an obvious sign that someone needed to look at the gas pedal was missed at this time, it's entirely possible that about thirty people have died needlessly because an over-aggressive prosecutor didn't follow obvious signs that something was very wrong with the car involved.