(c)2010 NPT PHOTO BY NELSON MORAIS

Becky Anne Lane, 46, of River Street, Newport, was taken by EMS to Baptist Hospital of
Cocke County for possible injuries following a wreck where the accelerator on her 2008
Toyota Camry LE allegedly stuck to the floor, leading her to plow into Manes Funeral
Home on East Main Street, on Wednesday. Lane told police she had stopped for the stop
sign on East Main Street at Court Avenue, at about 2:30 p.m., when she stepped on the
gas pedal and it got stuck to the floor. Lane said the steering wheel locked up, she lost
control of the Toyota, clipped a sign in the funeral home's parking lot, and the vehicle
ran into a lobby of the funeral home. No one else was injured.

NEWPORT-Becky Anne Lane, 46, of River Street, in Newport, was taken to Baptist Hospital of Cocke County, on Wednesday, Feb. 3, for possible injuries following an accident at Manes Funeral Home in her 2008 Toyota Camry LE that she blamed on a stuck accelerator in the vehicle.

Lane told The Newport Plain Talk that her accelerator got "hung" as she was headed east on East Main Street at Court Avenue, at about 2:30 p.m., on her way to Food City East.

Lane said she had stopped for the stop sign on East Main Street at Court Avenue when she stepped on the gas pedal and it got stuck to the floor.

She said the steering wheel locked up, she lost control of the vehicle, clipped a Manes Funeral Home sign in the business's parking lot, and ran into the building, damaging considerably the interior lobby.

The Toyota suffered damage to the left side and far front of the vehicle when it plowed into the funeral home, according to a report with the Newport Police Department.

The impact of her vehicle into the funeral home overturned a table inside, buckled a wall it came in contact with, and threw stacks of literature onto the carpet.

A witness, Gary Ford, of Timber Trail Road, told Patrolman Donald Coakley that he saw Lane in her Toyota coming by him at a high rate of speed before swerving into the Manes Funeral Home's parking lot.

Ford told police when he approached the vehicle with Lane in it immediately following the accident, the motor was racing at a high speed even though the vehicle was in park, Coakley's report stated.

   No one was in the lobby of the funeral home, which the car entered, at the time of the accident,         according to a spokesperson with Manes.

In Washington, according to the Associated Press, U.S.Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood startled the public this week with a comment, which he later retracted, that Americans should park their recalled Toyotas unless driving to dealers for accelerator repairs.

The recall spanned the U.S., Europe and China over sticking gas pedals in eight top-selling models including the Camry, the AP reported. The recall involved 2.3 million cars in the U.S. alone.

The latest setback for Toyota involves the brakes for its gas-electric hybrid vehicle, the Prius. The automaker has received 77complaints in Japan about braking problems for the Prius. Separately, the Japanese government confirmed 14 complaints.  About 100 complaints over Prius brakes have been filed in the U.S., the AP reported.

In the U.S., Toyota dealerships began receiving parts to repair defective gas pedals in millions of vehicles and said they'd be extending their hours deep into the night to try and catch up. Toyota said that would solve the problem - which it said was extremely rare - of cars unaccountably accelerating.

Toyota is also set to face additional questioning from U.S. congressional and other government investigators. Toyota has shut down several new vehicle assembly lines and is rushing parts to dealers to fix problems with the accelerators, trying to preserve a reputation of building safe, durable vehicles, according to the AP.

Lane on Wednesday told the Newport Plain Talk she had contacted the Toyota dealership in Morristown about three weeks ago asking them to check her accelerator following the news reports of possible problems with accelerators on Toyotas.

"They told me I had to wait on papers - recall papers,I  guess," before her vehicle could be worked on there, she said.

Lane also said she was directed by the Morristown dealership to contact the Toyota dealership where she bought her Camry, which is in Knoxville.

Lane said that, as a practical matter, it was simply not possible for her to have stopped using her Toyota until it could be taken to Knoxville and fixed before using it again because she needed the vehicle to get around the Newport area.