[makeitdouble]

Japan has a very public problem of self powered vehicles running into people/stuff.

With an aging population, drivers who mistakingly hit the accel when they meant to brake, thus running full missile mode into shops and sidewalks make the news almost every day("Prius missile")

The last things people want is additional vehicles plowing forward at the push of a button, this time indoors and/or on the sidewalk from the start.

[throwaway2037]

    > drivers who mistakingly hit the accel when they meant to brake, thus running full missile mode into shops and sidewalks make the news almost every day

"Almost every day"? Hmmm... I do not think so. Wouldn't the same happen in other countries with lots of Prius and old people, like the US?

[teractiveodular]

Yup, and it does, to the order of 16,000 times per year in the US alone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_unintended_acceleration

While I'm at it, here's the most famous Prius case in Japan, where a 87-year-old geriatric senior bureaucrat ran over and killed a mother and her child, but was treated with kid gloves until the husband whipped up enough public outrage to force the police to do something about it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higashi-Ikebukuro_runaway_car_...

[8note]

That really isn't very many when you consider what the opportunities for failure are with hundreds of millions of people driving many hours a day