[MalibuBimmer]

Originally Posted by spatterson007

I am glad she is ok, but how does one mistake the two pedals?! I mean unless you are a new driver.... ahh! Could have been much worse.

Have you ever seen really old people drive? Or what happens when someone has a stroke while driving? To say nothing of dialing a number or texting while driving. Or eating. Doing one's makeup. The list is endless. How many of these do we want to make death penalty offenses.

Judge John Merrick, who sat on the Malibu Justice Court, which became a Municipal Court and eventually a Superior Court, used to say that driving over the double yellow lines was a death penalty offense in Malibu, but he wasn't talking about the punishment he would mete out for that offense.

[josec70]

Crazy video

[RickFLM4]

Her account in the article posted by SakhirM4 is a little different than in the OP news article. She says her foot slipped off the brake, she went through the cables and hit gas on way down (which wouldn't do much at that point) vs. mistaking pedals. The only way that sounds feasible to me is if she was going down a ramp too fast and tried to brake but couldn't when her foot slipped. She clearly made a mistake of some kind but sounds like facts are still fuzzy.

[raysspl]

Originally Posted by Tag

Was waiting for it

[E90.V8]

great job BMW engineering

[cenix]

It is a testament to BMW's good safety engineering and also to the fact that Americans need too much governance in their lives because they love to shift the responsibility of their actions onto something/someone else.

[MalibuBimmer]

Originally Posted by cenix

It is a testament to BMW's good safety engineering and also to the fact that Americans need too much governance in their lives because they love to shift the responsibility of their actions onto something/someone else.

Does the garage operator have no responsibility to build and operate a safe multi story garage?

I'd also be interested in your opinion on building standards.

[DrivenByE30]

Originally Posted by Roch M4

She was probably parked forward in the parking, because the front of the car hit first the floor, flipped and landed on the top ...so considering that, she probably engaged the car in drive, then she realized that she was not going back, so when she feels that the car was going in the wrong direction, she hit the accelerator instead of the break...that is the only explanation...

Thats the ONLY explanation.

I am surprised it took 5 pages for someone here to state it so.

I think part of the reason is that BMW auto transmission is a very bad and counter-intuitive design.

[cenix]

Originally Posted by MalibuBimmer

Does the garage operator have no responsibility to build and operate a safe multi story garage?

I'd also be interested in your opinion on building standards.

My answer is yes, but your interests would be wasted on me.

I'm not going to address building standards, but I'll give you some insight as to my opinion on the litigious society we've become... we need warning labels telling us that coffee is hot because someone got burned by a hot cup of coffee they ordered that wasn't labelled as such?

[MalibuBimmer]

Originally Posted by cenix

My answer is yes, but your interests would be wasted on me.

I'm not going to address building standards, but I'll give you some insight as to my opinion on the litigious society we've become... we need warning labels telling us that coffee is hot because someone got burned by a hot cup of coffee they ordered that wasn't labelled as such?

When the coffee is superheated, the coffee seller is negligent. So rather than warning signs on the coffee, the coffee seller should simply follow the mandatory temperature guidelines the franchisor has established and has contractually required the seller to follow (and which the seller has ignored because its employees are lazy and the owner of the franchise doesn't give a shit). That's the coffee case that is often cited without any understanding of the facts.

I do agree, however, that we live in a litigious society.

But I also believe that because people are human and mistake-prone we should make things safe when we can. And putting in proper cables rather than the flimsy cables that failed twice in a short period of time, would be a good idea. Safer cabling would also protect the driver carefully backing her car out of the space getting hit hard by a car coming around the corner and sending her back into the parking space and then 7 floors to the ground. Could that driver sue both the jerk coming around the corner and the building operator? Of course. Would that be "too litigious"? I don't think so. YMMV

[SakhirM4]

Originally Posted by MalibuBimmer

When the coffee is superheated, the coffee seller is negligent. So rather than warning signs on the coffee, the coffee seller should simply follow the mandatory temperature guidelines the franchisor has established and has contractually required the seller to follow (and which the seller has ignored because its employees are lazy and the owner of the franchise doesn't give a shit). That's the coffee case that is often cited without any understanding of the facts.

I do agree, however, that we live in a litigious society.

But I also believe that because people are human and mistake-prone we should make things safe when we can. And putting in proper cables rather than the flimsy cables that failed twice in a short period of time, would be a good idea. Safer cabling would also protect the driver carefully backing her car out of the space getting hit hard by a car coming around the corner and sending her back into the parking space and then 7 floors to the ground. Could that driver sue both the jerk coming around the corner and the building operator? Of course. Would that be "too litigious"? I don't think so. YMMV

You probably need to review the facts in this case. McDonald's coffee conformed to industry standards, and coffee continues to be served as hot or hotter today at McDonald's and chains like Starbucks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebec...7s_Restaurants

[dzvero]

Drivers like this should get their driver license suspended forever!

[dzvero]

Originally Posted by RickFLM4

Yeah shouldn't have left them out. Distracted drivers in general are a bigger risk than 80+ year olds hitting the wrong pedal.

You are totally right Look what is saw the other day
http://f80.bimmerpost.com/forums/sho...4#post22073694

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by MalibuBimmer

The driver was certainly at fault, but the garage design was also inherently unsafe. A jury will probably allocate liability. I'd give her 80-85% and the garage operator the rest. Buildings and parking structures should be built with the idiot in mind. And people do make mistakes. That's why we have airbags and seat belts. (And many people -- proving the idiot theory -- try to avoid using them.)

As an example why the parking structure was unsafe, take the situation where a driver is backing out of a space and gets rear ended by some other driver, pushing the backing out car through the feeble "safety cables." Is that accident solely the fault of a driver who just rear ended another driver backing out (an accident that probably has happened a couple of times in the United States while you were reading this post), or do we hold the garage operator accountable too? The answer is pretty clear to me.

Spoken like a true lawyer. Well done. The woman can't drive simple as that.

I'd bet, though neither you no I know the design of the garage, that there are possibly just a few places in the garage where the possibility of one car rear ending another car backing out of a space who have enough force to move a car forward when it is in reverse gear and with the engine turning and applying torque in the opposite direction of the force opposing it, and forcing the backing-up car through aircraft cable. The car hitting the backing-up car would have to be going seriously fast to do that and I doubt there is anywhere in the design of that garage that would allow enough space where a car, even under no control of the driver could gain enough speed to counter act the forces of another car backing up in reverse gear.

But maybe in Lawyerland it could happen.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by pcohen15

I hope she doesn't wind up suing BMW for some sort of design flaw whereby the gas and brake pedals could be confused.

Many on this forum may remember the Audi incident back in the 80s where a person intended to back out of a garage and hit the accelerator instead, trapping a child between the car and the garage wall. They wound up suing Audi and it took them (Audi) decades to recover from all the troubles. More recently, Toyota suffered from the "Unintended Acceleration" incident.

One of the news reports said the BMW driver was on the phone, so maybe it was another case of too many distractions to realize which gear she was in, or which pedal is which.

I agree with other posters that the garage design is inherently bad. Unless you're Jason Bourne, you shouldn't be able to drive off a garage.

Audi deserved to be sued, their cars SUCKED in the 1980's.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by jpnh

I'm sure she'll sue BMW as well as the parking garage owner for failing to prevent bad consequences to her incompetence.

I wonder how much off a run up to the restraining cables there was before the launch off the edge

So, I'd like to do the physics equations, but don't have time. However, she managed to break through three aircraft cables and traverse approximately 20 feet vertically (she hit the building across the street - severing a gas line ) as she was falling. So I'll estimate 25 - 35 MPH. It definitely was not parking lot speed.

For years I parked in a garage of similar 3-cable cable-restraint design and those cables (assuming proper construction and good health of the structure) are damned stout. I inspected them several times because the engineer in me was curious. The garage I parked in the cables were routed through the 3-foot square concrete pillars holding the structure up (the garage was the first 5 floors of the building over top of it). The cables were extremely taught and 5/8th diameter.

The woman is a Darwin candidate and 100% at fault.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by RickFLM4

Not really. It's not like people driving manuals avoid accidents or stupid behavior. Your argument would advance mandatory collision avoidance systems or even autonomous-only driving more than it would advocate going back in time when everyone drove manual transmissions.

I'm going with stefan. A "both feet in" driving technique would have prevented this event.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by RickFLM4

Increased difficultly will not decrease accidents. People will still be distracted and make mistakes. We are on a path as a society to less control over driving, whether we like it or not. If her car were forced to stop itself before collision the vast majority of the general public would advocate that solution rather than making it more difficult to drive.

So Tesla's Autopilot didn't recognize a tractor trailer as not being a billboard (it was designed to ignore) and decapitated the driver (errr... computer-assisted-passenger not paying attention to where the car was going). So you think an autonomous car would see three cables as a barrier and safely stop?

Bet ya our buddy MalibuBimmer would love to sink his teeth in on that lawsuit.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by Yeru

This may very well be true, but only forensic data and not perception can bear that out. I say this because subjective perception may be incorrect; a few years ago, if you compared a carbon-fiber component with its steel counterpart, the uninformed would perceive the CF to be the inferior of the 2; i.e. light-weight and thin CF = "flimsy" (bad) versus heavy-weight and thick steel = strong (good).

If the barrier cable was engineered to withstand an ingress parking bay speed of S for a vehicle carrying a max weight of W and that falls within regulatory spec, then I don't see how she'll successfully litigate against any combination of architect, builder, parking lot operator and anyone else in that construction supply chain; unless some Bernie Madoff type entity knowingly and deceitfully supplied sub-standard materials; but she'd need to prove that and it would cost her a ton to do so. Even in seemingly benign driving situations like parking bay entry; the onus is on the driver to be defensively vigilant, retain control and to rectify bad decisions in split-seconds.

We've all screwed up while driving; most of us get away with it without damage to life, limb or property, but hopefully reach the point of realization that we acknowledge having more luck than brains in the past; I know I do.

In the recent past, I drove a 428i Convertible loaner; the little 2.0L i4 has surprisingly sweet bottom-end torque starting at 1,250 RPM, braked and handled well. I was impressed. Maybe BMW’s 360 degree cam and automation technology will prevent this in the future, where the car ignores driver acceleration input and applies the brakes to prevent shooting off the 7th floor. But even then, I’m sure many will blame others first, as we’ve evolved into a spoilt, self-indulgent and distracted generation.

Well stated Sir.

[RickFLM4]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

So Tesla's Autopilot didn't recognize a tractor trailer as not being a billboard (it was designed to ignore) and decapitated the driver (errr... computer-assisted-passenger not paying attention to where the car was going). So you think an autonomous car would see three cables as a barrier and safely stop?

Bet ya our buddy MalibuBimmer would love to sink his teeth in on that lawsuit.

Tesla' AutoPilot was / is remains a beta test. I don't agree that more complex driving will remove human error (including distracted driving, falling asleep and stupidity in general) better than safety systems designed to prevent crashes when those systems are well designed and tested for the general public, which is were this particular debate started. You are not going to save manuals by saying they are safer because they make driving more challenging.

That doesn't mean a system will never have a crash particularly if operating among human drivers in other vehicles, but there is no way that isn't what the future holds, like it or not. It may not happen for decades but eventually I expect people won't be allowed to drive at all on public roads. Don't mistake that as an endorsement for these systems or loss of the ability to drive. Personally, I'd rather drive myself but the vast majority of people want to move from Point A to Point B and do something else while being transported.

[MalibuBimmer]

Originally Posted by SakhirM4

You probably need to review the facts in this case. McDonald's coffee conformed to industry standards, and coffee continues to be served as hot or hotter today at McDonald's and chains like Starbucks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebec...7s_Restaurants

I know the official reports but I've spoken with the lawyers on the case. The memorandum regarding the temperature of the coffee was not permitted into evidence. I'm not sure why, but that's the way it was.

That coffee was superheated, too, pretty close to 210 degrees F.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by RickFLM4

Tesla' AutoPilot was / is remains a beta test. I don't agree that more complex driving will remove human error (including distracted driving, falling asleep and stupidity in general) better than safety systems designed to prevent crashes when those systems are well designed and tested for the general public, which is were this particular debate started. You are not going to save manuals by saying they are safer because they make driving more challenging.

That doesn't mean a system will never have a crash particularly if operating among human drivers in other vehicles, but there is no way that isn't what the future holds, like it or not. It may not happen for decades but eventually I expect people won't be allowed to drive at all on public roads. Don't mistake that as an endorsement for these systems or loss of the ability to drive. Personally, I'd rather drive myself but the vast majority of people want to move from Point A to Point B and do something else while being transported.

A manual transmission makes driving more involving, not more challenging, is the argument. Being more involved keeps distraction errors down.

But I agree (young) people really want personal transportation as a passenger rather than as a driver. I say most of that infrastructure exists other than the "personal" part. But it exists in large metropolitan areas and is very efficient already. The farther away from metro you get, the population is still more interested in driving themselves. But I think the idea of an autonomous driving future is not going to be as individualistic as people think (the Government will control it) and therefore not as convenient as they hope it will be. And I don't think it will lower accident rates. It may lower fatalities because the pods will be all standardized and not travel very fast.

The idea of cars travelling at 60 MPH within 3 feet of each other is laughable and will never be achieved. The system will end up being completely Government controlled and a max speed of 25 MPH. And if it ever happens at all it will be 5 decades from now. There is not enough private or public money available to implement a true accident/fatality free autonomous system.