The Piloti DTM was the first driving boot created by Kevin Beard in 1999. (Photo Courtesy of Piloti)

A stylish brunette puts on clear protective goggles. Shrill screams escape from her power saw as she cuts off the four-inch, right heel of her brand new Christian Louboutin pumps. After desecrating the $600 pair of shoes, the ruthless fashionista climbs into her royal blue BMW 3 Series and slams her freshly chiseled red sole against the accelerator.

Regardless of whether women were outraged, or men were turned on, by this 2007 BMW commercial, it drew attention to one thing: the shoes in the driver’s seat.

It is often an afterthought what shoes to slide on, lace up or squeeze into before looking for the car keys and zooming off to the next traffic jam. But the recent upheaval in the automotive world might change that. Deadly crashes caused by sudden acceleration have been blamed on faulty software or defective floor mats that trapped the accelerator pedal. But some investigators cited driver error, namely inadvertently pressing the accelerator when the driver thinks he is braking. In any case, there has never been more public attention paid to the interface between foot and pedal.

That is a potential windfall for a handful of designers who have labored in relative anonymity to create the perfect driving shoe. Brands like Prada, Tod’s, Piloti and Puma feast on the fashionable rationale we use to dress ourselves, but they also claim to know a bit about braking and accelerating too. All boast the most innovative designs, highest quality (and prices), blending racing technology with everyday comfort to ensure that wearers drive with precision.

Kevin Beard, founder and CEO of Piloti racing shoes, helped secure Olympic gold medals and Wimbledon championships as a designer for Reebok and K-Swiss before turning his attention to driving shoes. Beard considers himself ahead of the curve because other designers “have not equated the athletic needs of motor sports to a driver on the street.”

Robert Sinclair Jr., a New York spokesman for the American Automobile Association, is completely on board. “A driver on the street is no less in need of proper footwear than one who might be driving as a professional race car driver,” he explains.

In his 10 years at AAA Sinclair has seen hazardous footwear like high heels and flip-flops inhibit drivers from braking or moving between pedals. Such shoes make the foot’s movements imprecise, which costs precious time in an emergency situation. In driver improvement classes “we have a little device that measures your reaction time from gas to brake,” Sinclair says.  “Better footwear makes for quicker reaction times.”

Sean Kane, president of Safety Research & Strategies, a Rehoboth, Mass.,  automotive consulting firm, says that some vehicles are more dangerous when driven with the wrong footwear. For instance, the Audi 5000’s close pedals made it easy for a driver wearing wide shoes to inadvertently hit the wrong pedal.

Tyrone Black, a driver from Hattiesburg, Miss., blamed his sneakers after he crashed his 2000 Mercedes Cabriolet in March 2005. He filed a complaint with the Center for Auto Safety saying that he was unable to stop his car from plunging into a ditch and hitting a tree because he was simultaneously pressing the brake and the accelerator. In the report Black says this happened not only because the pedals were too close together, but because his sneakers were too wide. “Be assured that I will not again wear footwear that might precipitate this problem,” he wrote.

Black may reconsider after he sees the sticker price of most high-end driving shoes. Prada’s Car Shoe retails for $430. It is made using a “tubular technique” — pieces of leather are hand sewn around a tubular object resembling a shoe tree that mimics the foot’s shape. The Car Shoe looks like a descendent of the penny loafer at first glance. But with raised studs and tire rubber used on the sole for extra traction, it is as if your feet were an extra set of wheels.

Tod’s, another Italian shoemaker, designed its classic driving shoe, the “Gommino,” in the 1970s. A sleek loafer with rows of tiny little rubber bumps on the sole for traction, it is still popular today, with the Spring-Summer 2010 collection model starting at $425.

Tod’s connection to the driving world extends beyond its rubber-studded soles. Two of its designs are sold exclusively by Ferrari: the Laccetto Tubi GGT and the Mascherina Griglia. Both are 320 Euros ($428) on the Ferrari website and have the “Tod’s for Ferrari” logo. The stylish leather supposedly “reminisces the construction of seats installed in Ferrari cars,” according to the shoemaker’s description.

Kevin Beard, a serious southern California driver, had the goal of bringing racing technology to the masses when he started Piloti a decade ago. Optimizing foot rotation is a selling point of the Piloti brand. Its racing boots look like the fatter, suede cousins of a basketball shoe, complete with high ankle tops and a Velcro strap over the laces.

“None of the other brands had any kind of concept for applying biomechanics,” Beard says. The Piloti Roll Control Heel technology is Beard’s patented innovation. It provides extra cushioning on the heel to lessen the impact of turns and absorb heat generated by the engine. The Piloti natural spherical shape is meant to assist any driver with crucial maneuvers, whether it is in the passing lane at the Daytona 500 or the merge lane on Route 66.

Piloti’s more traditional sneaker and loafer models easily conceal the biomechanical technology and cost an average of $100.

Surprisingly, insurance companies and lawmakers rarely focus on driving footwear. “They are not concerned about shoes,” says Dennis Andrews, principal of Accidents and Safety Consultants in New Jersey, who is hired to investigate accident claims or testify as an expert witness.

But Sheila’s Wheels, a car insurance company based in the United Kingdom, is an exception. Its Safe Driving Report found that 80 percent of women wear improper shoes behind the wheel and pose life-threatening risks to their passengers and other drivers. As a result, the company designed the Sheila Driving Heel in 2007. It converts from a fashionable high heel to a driving flat with the push of a button.

Whether the shoe was inspired by the ruthless fashionista’s sawed-off Louboutin pump is unknown. But since Sheila’s Wheels still has not found a retailer that will sell its revolutionary heel, the power saw remains the only option.