Detroit –– Clarence Ditlow, “safety expert” with the Center for Auto Safety, told the Senate Transportation Committee Tuesday that “the Toyota unintended acceleration crisis” has been caused by “electronic controls” used in cars for the last decade. His solution? “First and foremost, Toyota needs to install electronic brake override systems in all vehicles with electronic throttle control.”

That is, the solution to faulty electronic computer code is to . . . install more electronic computer code!

So went another day of farcical Washington auto-safety hearings. As in the House a week ago, the Senate Transportation Committee eschewed expert engineering witnesses for tort lawyer mouthpiece Ditlow while browbeating federal safety officials into issuing more regulations.

Ditlow echoed Transportation Sec. Ray Lahood who — desperate to show his department is doing something — floated the idea of a proposed mandate requiring brake-override systems.

Will it solve the problem? Not likely, says Bill Visnic, senior editor at Edmunds.com.

“Brake override system” is a fancy way of saying that new code has been written into a vehicle’s electronic software. If a sensor detects a foot on the brake pedal, the code then tells the engine to close the throttle. In other words — in a direct contradiction of the tort lawyers hand-wringing over unreliable, “possessed” vehicle electronics — electronics will save a driver if they misapply the brake, thinking it’s the accelerator (which, for example, is what caused Audi’s “sudden acceleration” problems in the ‘80s — in cars that did not have electronic acceleration).

But what if — as is likely in many sudden-acceleration panics — the driver has mistaken the accelerator for the brake? Brake override offers “no advantage at all,” says Visnic. “It’s not going to do anything for you.”

Thanks for nuttin’, Secretary Lahood. Visnic notes that many automakers currently offer brake-override systems. And manufacturers that don’t — Honda, Toyota, Ford, Subaru (the industry leaders in quality, it’s worth noting) — won’t resist a mandate.

But this “solution” will mask the real problem that is probably exactly what Toyota suspects it is: a mechanical failure involving floor mats or sticky accelerator pedals. Visnic says Toyota’s troubles are likely a mix of environmental issues causing corrosion (thus stickiness) in pedals, poor floor mats, and now widespread publicity that has artificially elevated the number of possessed-accelerator claims.

While Lahood has scared the pants off the public (this is a public safety official?) by claiming that Toyotas are “unsafe” to drive, Visnic — a veteran of Car & Driver magazine and one of the industry’s most respected tech analysts (apparently a disqualifier for being called to Washington hearings) — emphasizes that “stuck throttles” in this thankfully electronic age are rare. “I am not alarmed. I am not panicked. Anybody would reasonably conclude that the risk is low,” he says.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be anybody reasonable in Washington these days.

– Henry Payne is an editorial writer and cartoonist for the Detroit News.