Tesla was recently forced to recall every Cybertruck it’s ever built — all 3,878 of them — because the cover on the accelerator pedal could come loose, causing unintended acceleration. As it turns out, though, you don’t even need to be old enough to get your driver’s license to deal with unintended acceleration recalls. JAKKS Pacific has just recalled the Mario Kart 24 Volt Ride-On Racer because despite being a toy for kids, its accelerator pedal can also get stuck and cause unintended acceleration.
About 17,500 vehicles are affected by this recall, with the Consumer Product Safety Commission saying, “If the acceleration pedal on the battery-operated ride-on toy becomes clogged with debris, it can stick after the user’s foot is removed from the pedal, posing a crash hazard.” According to the CPSC, it’s received at least 65 reports of children experiencing unintended acceleration, 15 of which crashed into some sort of permanent structure.
The good news is, only one injury has been reported so far. Thankfully, it was minor enough to be described as “a chafed hand.”
If you’re the kind of badass parent who made your kid’s dreams come true by getting them a real-life Mario Kart race car — and I cannot stress this enough, hell yeah on that front — the CPSC says to stop using the kart and contact JAKKS Pacific to get your free repair kit. Unfortunately, unlike a recall on a real car, you’re going to have to replace the pedal yourself. Still, there are worse problems to have, like not having a real-life Mario Kart race car to play with.
According to the CPSC, “The vehicles have an 8-character alphanumeric manufacturing date code, in the format of XXXXVEO1, located on the bottom of the blue panel on the vehicle’s underside. The only vehicles subject to this recall have the following date codes: 1752VE01, 1782VE01, 1952VE01, 2242VE01, 2352VE01, 2852VE01, 0583VE01.” If you check yours, and it has a different date code, you should be in the clear.