Best described as an amalgam of
Speed and
Vanishing Point, the made-for-television action thriller Runaway Car stars fair-haired Nina Siemaszko as Jenny, a painfully inept and butterfingered young nurse who winds up at the wheel of a battered old car full of passengers - including a businessman in need of a ride (
Judge Reinhold), a skateboarder whom she almost hits, and her infant niece - only to discover that the accelerator is stuck. The only option, then, is to pilot the vehicle at absurdly high speeds until it runs completely out of gas. In lieu of simply driving the car through the open desert to avoid calamities and thus forcing it to overheat (which seems like an obvious solution), Jenny decides instead to drive it through obstacle-filled and traffic-ridden Los Angeles -- a solid excuse for the film's creators to stage a high-voltage series of live wire stunts. En route, Jenny draws a highway patrolman like a magnet, and receives counsel from a 911 operator and two radio hosts. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide