[Indian2003]

Here are some warning labels. Makes me wonder. My brother once made a fire on the floor because the light bulb blew. He made a fire with firewood.

[Cresterk]

Originally Posted by arijitkanrar

Sounds like lawyerspeak.


Its not necessary that the door has to be closed manually till the first latch engages. There are various scenarios where the door can close unintentionally. Car on a slope, a gust of wind, someone bumping into the door and so on and so forth. If someone has their hands on the B-pillar at the time, it usually is a not that big of a deal as any finger will have only a small impact. But if the car then without warning actively closes the door before a person can react, it definitely is a design flaw and a serious one at that.

In the linked video here, see how quickly the car fully shuts the door once its closed partially. Anyone not expecting it is in for serious pain!
https://www.Youtube.com/watch?v=DgKjFPsFiMI

In the video you can clearly see how little a gap is remaining when he closes it. Thats not enough for a finger or toe or anything to be stuck in there. This is not an auto door close feature like Rolls Royce or Tesla, it just sucks in the last 1 cm when you do it improperly and there is a small gap of air remaining. At most, a small fleshy part of his thumb was stuck when the door latched and instead of yanking their finger back like a sane person, he just left it there for the second or two needed for the soft close feature to pull it tightly shut.

[howler]

Originally Posted by digitalnirvana

Also the cup material was inadequate to handle such hot beverage.

The lady only wanted medical expenses for her surgery to be paid for. McDonald's refused and was then sued and had to settle for a substantially higher payout.

Please read up on the case.

Maybe missing the point here ? Don’t drink and drive applies across the board, it’s just as distracting as being on the phone. ‘Do stupid things , win prizes’ should be the new catchline for the USA

[sunnysideup_]

Originally Posted by howler

Maybe missing the point here ? Don’t drink and drive applies across the board, it’s just as distracting as being on the phone. ‘Do stupid things , win prizes’ should be the new catchline for the USA

If I remember right, the plaintiff of that case was seated on the passenger seat and wasn't driving. While I do agree people do stupid things at times and expect compensation from corporations, I am all for making corporations' pockets hurt. For a lot of them it is merely chump change anyway.

In Mercedes Benz's case it does seem like a serious design and safety flaw, and one that does need redesign. It is surprising it took so long for this flaw to come to focus, but better late than never I guess.

[digitalnirvana]

Originally Posted by howler

Maybe missing the point here ? Don’t drink and drive applies across the board, it’s just as distracting as being on the phone. ‘Do stupid things , win prizes’ should be the new catchline for the USA

Please read up on the case. I don't have anything further to add to the conversation. It's a well published example of a mega corporation getting penalised for wrong business practices.

[howler]

Originally Posted by digitalnirvana

Please read up on the case. I don't have anything further to add to the conversation. It's a well published example of a mega corporation getting penalised for wrong business practices.

Yup I stand corrected here , the details do change my perspective.

[pratika]

A parallel can be drawn between this case and an autonomous car that runs over someone. If action of autonomous car is wrong, I think logic applies similarly in this scaled down version. In both cases, machines used sensors and logic to decide to take some action. That action caused bodily harm to someone.

As someone stated above already, anti-pinch on windows and sunroofs also exists for a reason. Accidents can happen by anyone - adults, children, or pets. Machine designers should keep safety as top priority whenever designing any such system.

[Worldchamp 2019]

I often wondered if they were safeguard sensors installed for these soft close doors. I was under the impression that surely they would have it and now I'm shocked that they didn't. Speaking from experience where I've had 2 fingers squashed in a car door, apart from being a no brainer, it is absolutely necessary to have safeguards for these. Just imagine if your fingers are present on the door and someone shuts the door gently. In an ordinary car you might just injure your fingers slightly but here they're going to get totally smashed. If Merc can do it for the windows I'm sure they should do it for the doors too.

[v1p3r]

Damn, this is bad bad bad. I remember when Opel showroom people would proudly stick their hand in the Astra's window after hitting the auto close buttons, to show the anti-pinch safety stop feature. The fact that Mercedes did not design a fail-safe into the soft-close system is very scary. I shudder to think what might happen to a small child if a gust of wind pushes the door towards closing. Forget children, even adults are at risk. If there truly is no failsafe, I have zero sympathy for MB and they deserve huge punitive penalties.

Originally Posted by Indian2003

Americans appear stupid sometimes. A colleauge of mine was sued in 1985. He was on holiday in the US and he stopped at the last moment at a pedestrian crossing, in a hire car frightening a lady with a dog. They actually ran across the road. He was sued for mental anguish.

A similar thing happened to Sam Kapasi's dad, who was the pedestrian in this case, and he was nearly jailed in Germany for his mistake. It's documented in one of the travelogues.

Originally Posted by Indian2003

A woman sued McDonalds because she spilled hot coffee on her lap while driving. She was awarded $640,000 There was no warning on the cup that hot coffee can cause scalding.

Please read up on the case again. Scalding and third degree burns means the coffee was unfit for human consumption. The lady was 80. The scalding happened much after she had left the store. If she had consumed the coffee at the store, she would have likely died. McD deserved the verdict.

[Indian2003]

Originally Posted by v1p3r

Please read up on the case

I wrote this from memory from a local newspaper article about 20 years ago. Why should I read up on the case to write in a forum. The law suit did happen and if you want to find out more, you should look up the case. I dont.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Indian2003

I wrote this from memory from a local newspaper article about 20 years ago. Why should I read up on the case to write in a forum. The law suit did happen and if you want to find out more, you should look up the case. I dont.

When we put something down in social media, broadcasting to the world, we should make at least an iota of effort to check if all our facts are right and the context is correct. At least on Team BHP we try to live to a higher standard than the crap that floats on WA groups etc.

[shancz]

Originally Posted by sauravpat

But the ruling was very much in the car manufacturer's favour saying that people have been losing fingers due to normal car doors closing on their hand for years and years and no one sues the manufacturer.

I would disagree since in normal doors the entire action is done by the person so the entire responsibility lies with them.
Technically if I close the door on my hand the driving force(me) immediately senses the obstruction (my thumb) and releases the closing force as expected since the feedback loop exists within me(the driving system).

In this case the closing action was done by the motor which didn't release the force because it didn't sense the obstruction hence its a failure of the system's feedback loop.
Whether the sensors malfunctioned or were missing altogether is something to be verified.

Just can't accept with the fact that MB designed any auto close system without the feedback loop(pinch sensing mechanism) in today's time.

[2000rpm]

Originally Posted by RahulNagaraj

The soft-close doors offered by Mercedes-Benz and many other premium car brands have come under scrutiny after a US man filed a lawsuit against the feature. Richard J. Kartigar Jr., the chief deputy of Pima County Sheriff Department, Arizona, USA, who owns a 2020 Mercedes-Benz GLE 450, has filed a lawsuit after the power-closing doors ripped a part of his thumb off.

US is funny. I think by this logic, I can sue the car manufacturer even if my finger gets trapped in manual door when someone shuts the door.

Also, if someone gets run over by a car, the car manufacturer can be sued, since he should have clearly provided collusion detection and anti tyre rotation on sensing a man near the bonnet..

[SPIKE ARRESTOR]

As a thumb rule, for all products, vehicle systems (specially the safety critical ones), the product is to be designed and developed for a "reasonably foreseeable misuse". There is a difference between reasonably foreseeable misuse and abuse in the hands of a customer.

Usually, the anti pinch feature is controlled by a Body Control Module with at-least ASIL B rating. I might be wrong, but I seriously doubt that Mercedes would goof up on this one. But with the Americans you never know.

Spike

[Akshay1234]

This is a bit ridiculous if you ask me, the soft close in these cars activates when there is quite a small gap remaining. Its really not easy to stick ones finger in or anything else for that matter.