As going red baby points out below, The article says the police want to negligent driving resulting in injury, not filing a false police report. If you would allow me to simplify here, in US law, negligent driving does not require knowledge that you are driving badly, just that you SHOULD HAVE KNOWN you were substantiailly and unjustifiably deviating from the reasonable person's standard of care. So, if you should have known you were stomping on the gas, when you thought you were stomping on the brake, you can be negligent. By contrast, "filing a false police report" generally requires evidence of knowledge of falsity. So, I'm not guilty if I tell police I was braking--if I honestly thought I was stomping on the brake, when I really was pushing the gas pedal. Seems like this might be what's going on in a lot of these cases. Based on what the police are considering doing, it seems like they think the driver was careless, but do not have evidence the driver was dishonest. Course, I know nothing about Japanese criminal law, so I'm just yapping here.
From the article: So it has nothing to do with making any false claims. I think that should be considered from now on as I think a lot of people are not blaming the car in good faith and are using it as an excuse for their mistake.
Thanks for pointing out my error Going red baby! I've rewritten my previous note to reflect your correction.
