Although in Toyota's defense the officer was too clueless to know he just had to hold the start button down for three seconds to turn off the ignition.
That's got to be the worst ever user interface. Press the START button to turn OFF the ignition? That's not accidental that's malicious, especially in an emergency situation. Have you ever seen a chunk of industrial machinery? Those big red mushroom buttons are the emergency shutdowns and they don't take 'three seconds' are not labeled 'start' for extra confusion in times of panic.
In push to start cars, holding down the start button is the normal way to turn them off, so it is not unreasonable to attempt to do so for an emergency shutdown.
Having said that, I would like an emergency stop button in cars (preferably one that works indepenently of the onboard computer).
It's certainly a reasonable thing to try, but as as your aunt eropple notes, an emergency shutoff should be something so obvious that a person in fear for his life would think of it.
Such as an ignition switch which you turn to the left to physically cut power to the ignition system, like we used to have back when cars weren't so overcomplex.
