Remember that quirky Mario Kart-inspired tour service in Japan we told you about last week? Well now in addition to being sued by Nintendo, the company — called MariCar, in case you had forgotten — is in the news thanks to one of its karts driving right into the side of a small police post. Who would have known letting untrained tourists drive a go-kart a bustling urban center would lead to such headaches? Oh, right, everyone would have known that.
Japanese news service The Mainichi reports that the tourist was a South Korean woman who rented the go-kart from MariCar and was cruising around Tokyo’s Minato Ward with a group of other tourists on March 5th when she lost control. The kart proceeded to slam into the side of one of the city’s many “police boxes,” which are small manned outposts law enforcement uses to receive reports and carry out other community duties.
The tourist, who was reportedly in her 20s, failed to properly negotiate an intersection and found herself speeding up the sidewalk and into the side of the building. Thankfully, no serious injuries resulted from the mishap, and everyone walked away from the crash in good shape. None of the other costumed kart-riders were involved in the crash.
Needless to say, this isn’t going to help MariCar win its court case, and might call into question Japan’s apparently lax laws against driving go-karts on city streets. In the United States and many other countries, a vehicle like a go-kart is generally considered to be not licensable, and therefore is prohibited from zipping down streets alongside full-sized cars.
