In april 2013 i was merging onto highway i20 with my children in the back of my mini cooper s 2006. as i was speeding up to merge onto the highway the car completely cut off. i veered over into a median in the middle of six lanes of high-speed traffic. the car had completely shut off, even the hazard lights. i was very lucky that the median was there and that i had not yet entered the main stream of traffic. the police came, then a friend. after about a half hour it restarted without power steering and he was able to slowly drive it, and he fixed a belt that he said had looked like it had blown out. about four times in the year prior to this the car had cut off, but not while i was driving; it shut down as i was pulling out of a parking spot but then immediately restarted. no one could explain it. after the april incident i went to the mini cooper dealer and spent close to $3000 to ensure that the car was safe for my children. however, yesterday, 11/5/13, i was backing out of a parking spot and the car completely shut down. i called the dealership for assistance and they said they had never heard of this kind of problem and couldn't help; fortunately the car restarted about ten minutes later. however, i am extremely concerned that this car is unsafe and i have heard from an acquaintance who also has a mini cooper s 2006 who said this has happened to her, that something random happened with her car and it completely shut down while she was driving. she told me that there was a recall, but i called mini corporate today, and was told there was no recall and referred me to nhtsa. *tr