we may have had 2 or 3 recalls
 

but we should be grateful none have been for a problem as potentially life threatening as this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15410253

I used to have a X-type, got one of the first ones when they launched in 2001. I'd just bought the car new in september for about £29,000 when the airline industry suddenly went into free fall, for obvious reasons looking at the date.
Another one of my astute financial decisions !
Anyway, from what I remember there was a lot of shared technology on it from Ford and Volvo during the days of ford's P.A.G so I wouldn't be surprised if Volvo used a similar cruise controller.

It is interesting to speculate about how a jammed cruise control would play out. Presumably there would be something that you could do to turn it off before crashing.

Some years ago I had problems in another car with a cruise control that did not switch off normally by just touching the brakes. I could manually switch it off with the steering wheel switch or by keeping the brakes on hard, it would eventually give up. Not a disastrous problem if you are alert enough to realise what is happening.