How much of the Toyota hysteria is just that?

The Toyota joke that I came up with, which I shared with my students as well, was:

You know why the latest model Prius has problems stopping?
Because, when Toyota upgraded the battery, they used the Energizer batteries and now the Prius keeps on going :)

But, of course, there is a difference between joking around and systematically understanding social issues.  As I posted earlier, I think we are overplaying the Toyota recall issue.  And, as we get more into the data, well, I will use Megan McArdle's words:

[You] don't usually make a profit by killing your customers.  It's too risky, in this age of nosy regulators and angry consumer activists.

Their behavior becomes a bit more explicable when you consider this argument from Ted Frank:

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).

And based on the data, McArdle has the following chart:

I tell you, the story is a lot more complicated than a simple narrative that we might prefer.

The other day, a colleague and I were walking from the parking lot to our offices, and I asked him if his wife was enjoying her retired life.  "Yes" he said, and added that she is recovering from an accident.  What happened?  His wife was walking towards her car with a couple of shopping bags when she was hit by a Lexus.  Nothing major, but nothing minor either. 
I asked him whether it was related to brakes/speeding up problems of Toyota--after all, Lexus is a Toyota product.  He said that the driver apologized profusely because it was her fault, and then he noted that it was quite an old woman who was driving it. 
Why mention this?  Because, McArdle reports that it is not only the age, but also ....

a slight majority of the incidents involved someone either parking, pulling out of a parking space, in stop and go traffic, at a light or stop sign . . . in other words, probably starting up from a complete stop. 

and has the following chart:

So, who you gonna believe? :)