Vehicle recalls have been given unprecedented media coverage with Toyota in the spotlight because of the global nature of its problem and the large number of UK cars affected.

But recalls take place all the time, and context is often missing from these media reports.

This time Toyota has been singled out and an impression created that the company is unusually remiss in allowing such a lapse in quality given the near 181,000 vehicles affected in the UK (more than eight million globally), with 8,500 Prius hybrids sold since July 2009 now added to the list.

However, Honda – another manufacturer associated with high quality products – announced a recall on Jazz models last week affecting more than 171,000 models sold in the UK, but this hasn’t received the same intense media scrutiny.

The worst case scenario with the bulk of the Toyotas involved in the recall could be that the accelerator pedal sticks open.

With the Honda Jazz, at worst an electrical short circuit in the window switch could lead to smoke or fire in the cabin.

In both cases, these are very unlikely outcomes.

During the last three months, many recall notices have been issued for thousands of cars and vans on UK roads, and they are all reported on fleetnews.co.uk

These include a recall because a seat could detach in Vauxhall Movano, Renault Master and Nissan Interstar vans, while Mitsubishi Lancers, Volvo XC60s, Nissan Pixos and Suzuki Altos could leak fuel.

Lights might fail without warning on Citroën C8 and Peugeot 807 models, while the gearbox may be faulty on Volvo C30, S40, V50 and V70 models.

The steering might fail on the Fiat Grande Punto car, van and Abarth model, while many Volkswagen, Audi, Skoda and Seat models using the optional double-clutch gearbox may experience a loss of drive.

In fact, there were 313 vehicle recalls in 2008/09 in the UK involving more than a million cars, vans, heavy trucks and motorcycles.

Recalls should not be trivialised as they often relate to health and safety which is one of the most important issues to consider when providing vehicles to staff, and they sometimes raise serious issues.

But they are commonplace in the automotive industry and despite the millions of miles of development carried out on prototypes of new vehicles, it is impossible to replicate every single driving condition that a vehicle and all its components might encounter in its lifetime.