Toyota Prius 'phantom accelleration' incidents skewed towards the elderly?

[thewayne]

The Los Angeles Times recently did a story detailing all of the NHTSA reports of Toyota "sudden acceleration" fatalities, and, though the Times did not mention it, the ages of the drivers involved were striking.

In the 24 cases where driver age was reported or readily inferred, the drivers included those of the ages 60, 61, 63, 66, 68, 71, 72, 72, 77, 79, 83, 85, 89--and I'm leaving out the son whose age wasn't identified, but whose 94-year-old father died as a passenger.

These "electronic defects" apparently discriminate against the elderly, just as the sudden acceleration of Audis and GM autos did before them. (If computers are going to discriminate against anyone, they should be picking on the young, who are more likely to take up arms against the rise of the machines and future Terminators).

Fascinating, Captain.

http://www.businessinsider.com/a-deep-dive-into-toyota-sudden-acceleration-accident-stats-2010-3

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/04/05/0019227/Toyota-Accelerator-Data-Skewed-Toward-Elderly?art_pos=4

Comments

[kylejcrb.livejournal.com]

More than likely, it just means older people have slower reaction times, not thinking fast enough to pull the parking brake before they hit something (which I see the first article kind of mentions.)

Or the machines are rising up against seniors.

Either way, I for one welcome our new machine overlords.