This is the result of manufacturers trying to make everything in a vehicle -by-wire. Electronic throttle drives me crazy, the blinker does a half-beat every thirty seconds or so, the horn has a slight delay. Why does everything have to be routed through a computer with the power of a VIC-20?
I’m sure they didn’t intend to make accidental deaths more likely.
Damn, that’s terrible… only 27, all the many things he could have experienced and achieved. So sad for his family and friends.
I don’t believe they were outlawed per se, just they got a bad rep for not being reliable and durable enough using 1950s technology as well as safety issues and were driven off the market.
FWIW in the WaPo report linked earlier it indicates that the current model year of that vehicle has reverted to a shifter that uses the linear P-R-N-D sequence with a physical clickstop at each setting even though the control is strictly electronic. Why was *that *not the first choice standard for the e-transmission I’ll never understand. By all means go ahead and install the more efficient, more reliable if activated correctly, technology but, would it kill you all to provide a user friendly interface that emulates what the consumer is familiar with… I suppose that’s why I’m not in a cutting edge design division.
I have had the dubious pleasure in recent times to rent a Chrysler 200 with a* turn-dial knob selector* for the automatic and the flip-button e-brake right by its side - that was a solution to nobody’s problem. Especially in close proximity to a different turn-knob for another unrelated function.
Update: Anton Yelchin’s Role Will Not Be Recast
Transferred to the Reliant.
Zoe Saldana and Simon Pegg were on The View this morning (again, don’t judge me!) and they were clearly moved and having trouble speaking when Whoopi asked them about Anton. She, too, was emotional about it.
In news that should surprise absolutely no one, Anton Yelchin’s parents will file a wrongful death lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler
I know the family is hurting. I’d sue too.
Could be a hard case to prove. No one knows for sure what Anton did that night. Was he in a hurry? Did he know the gear shifter could be difficult to get in park? Lawyers will bring up all sorts of scenarios. No witnesses and there’s no real answers.
The recall is troubling but does that automatically mean that defect caused this tragedy?
Maybe he didn’t know the shifter could be difficult to get into park - because, like everyone else in the universe, he’d grown up with cars that were easy to shift into park, and the jeep design stupidly made this critical safety function uncommonly difficult.
If a car manufacturer reversed the brake and accelerator pedals, they would be (rightly) sued over the resulting epidemic of crashes, no matter how big a warning they put on the dashboard.
It’s a civil suit, so the standard if guilt/liability is not “beyond a reasonable doubt;” it’s merely “preponderance of evidence.” Given the history of crashes attributed to the Jeep’s shifter, Yelchin’s parents should have no trouble at all showing that the crappy shifter design was the most likely the reason that he left the car at the top of a hill in neutral instead of park.