interesting question about automatic transmissions
 

so i was reading about the whole brouhaha regarding toyota sticking gas pedals. some people commented that some electronically controlled transmissions may prevent the driver from shifting from drive into neutral if the engine is under load. is this true? and what would be the purpose of such a feature? i have never heard of any auto trans that prevents shifting into neutral under any condition.

I don't think so...I think anyone of them could have shifted to neutral.

Or turned off of their car. It's a safety factor, there's now way they would prevent neutral from working on the fly like that. Same reason park and reverse have stops on them.

Car and Driver March 2010

or stepped on their brakes

I believe this was a throttle problem.
The engine would keep revving, so if most of the drivers were smart they should've kept the car in neutral and shut it off.