Detroit — An Edmunds.com study has found that Toyota has received more complaints of unintended acceleration than any other automaker, contradicting company claims that it’s been unfairly singled out by federal investigators. But the study also puts in doubt the claims of tort lawyers and their Congressional parrots that electronics — standard in vehicles over the last decade — pose a new threat to vehicle safety.

On a complaints-per-sale basis, Toyota had four times the number of complaints (4.81 per 100,000 U.S. vehicles sold) of Chrysler, Honda, Nissan, and GM (which averaged 1.22 per 100,000). But significantly, another manufacturer — Ford — also had an unusually high number of complaints: 3.12 per 100,000 or nearly double the industry average.

Tort lawyers salivate at the thought that electronics — which have displaced hydraulics and cables in operating accelerator pedals — are vulnerable to random electrical interference and faulty computer code. Some in Congress now routinely make wild claims about “possessed” vehicles.

But the Edmunds study suggests that runaway acceleration complaints are low and that where problems do arise, they are likely mechanical — as Toyota has contended by fingering poorly designed floor mats and sticky pedals (which dealers are currently replacing as part of Toyota’s massive 6 million vehicle U.S. recall).

Indeed, Ford CEO Alan Mulally Saturday confided to the Wall Street Journal that the company re-examined its vehicles after Toyota’s sticky pedal find and replaced commercial vans linkages that have a similar design.

But don’t expect data to get in the way of tort lawyers’ horror stories of gremlins in the electronics — or lawmakers’ hunger to draft new laws. At last week’s hearings, a Lexus owner told Henry Waxman’s Energy committee of her frightening ordeal as she tried to wrestle her car under control after it suddenly accelerated to 100 mph. In all likelihood, the undoubtedly terrible experience came to an end when the car’s floor mat became disentangled with the pedal or she realized her foot was on the accelerator, not the brake.

But the driver said she was only able to pull the car over when “after six miles, God intervened.” We look forward to Mr. Waxman’s new legislation mandating that “God intervene” whenever cars experience sudden acceleration.