[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