8 ms·
Tesla fire kills man because door handles wouldn’t open, lawsuit alleges (2019)
- bobflorian 6y agoI agree, the handles on the Model S are a little too over engineered, but what prevented the first responder from breaking a window? How is this different than the doors just being locked? I own a Model 3, and the lever handles still wouldn't have opened when the car is locked.
- orangepanda 6y ago> what prevented the first responder from breaking a window? First responders werent paramedics or firefighters. You'd expect a random bystander to risk their life breaking into a flaming car?
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoYes. Normal humans have empathy.
- vntok 6y agoHaving empathy means feeling sorry and sad for the person you see currently trapped in the burning car.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago'Sorry' and 'sad' are intellectual things. They can be understood by a sociopath who sees that its horrible, without feeling anything. Burning to death is such a horrible way to go, what empathetic person could resist trying to help?
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoHey, one of my Scouts did this - rescued a family from a burning car. Because he had the wit to do it, while others stood on the sidelines. Probably because he'd been actually trained in taking quick action, in leading by example. He was 16. So I can see that folks may be paralyzed by indecision, even by the intensity of their feelings. Ok, 'normal' people want to help but probably don't because of a lifetime of holding back.
- RandomNick 6y agoAccording to the article it wasn't just random bystanders, it was a police officer. "But Awan survived the crash, and he could have escaped the smoke and fire, too, Grossman said — if only the police officer who arrived on the scene could have opened the car’s doors."
- bloak 6y agoI might, but I'd perhaps be more likely to risk my life saving someone from a Citroën 2CV or a VW Beetle. I'm only half joking. There is a real tendency to judge other people by what kind of car they're in and the decision whether to approach a burning car is likely to be made quickly rather than through careful application of logic. If you regularly drive more than one kind of car you might notice that other road users treat you quite differently depending on which one you're driving.
- jsight 6y agoI worry about this with the trend of using more laminated glass that is really difficult to break. But this Model S is very unlikely to have had that, and it sounds like there was a policeman on the scene. Surely the officer would have access to something that he could have used to break the glass? I've read a few articles about this lawsuit and I have yet to see a clear answer as to why that wasn't the solution. It makes me wonder if the "doors wouldn't open" part is just a spurious claim and the lawsuit is really about the post-crash fire.
- jonplackett 6y agoYeah you wouldn't want this to happen in the CyberTruck!
- jsight 6y agoAlso the front doors on the current 3 & Y.
- danesparza 6y agoThis story is over a year old (from October 2019). Why is it being posted here as news?
- mohaine 6y agoIt needs at least a (2019) in the title.
- chrisseaton 6y agoDid you know in your boot (trunk?) if you have one there is a mechanical lever you can pull to escape that works at all times (car off, no battery, locked, etc.) Maybe by the bonnet (hood?) release catch there could be a similar 'unlock and open everything lever' for emergencies.
- bichiliad 6y agoThat's a good tip, although I know that not all cars make it possible to get to the trunk (or boot) from inside the passenger area.
- Accujack 6y agoThat trunk latch is there because of legislation introduced at the request of a couple who were kidnapped and locked in the trunk of a car. Before then, you couldn't open a trunk from the inside. Nothing similar has happened with the hood or door handles...yet.
- LeifCarrotson 6y agoA mechanical release would be good, yes, and I agree that modern cars are too obsessed with drive-by-wire when it comes to safety features like doors and pedals. But that lever wouldn't have helped in this case. I infer that the driver was unconscious and bystanders/first responders outside the car were unable to open the doors. There are no claims that the internal handles were defective, they only complain that the futuristic, flush external door handles that are intended to detect key presence plus an approaching hand and extend when you reach for them were inoperable. However, there are no details in the article on whether the doors were even unlocked or airbags deployed. Regulations require that the doors unlock after the airbag deploys, most manufacturers also turn off the ignition and fuel pump (in an internal-combustion vehicle); I expect that this routine would include extending the handles in a Tesla. However, Tesla handles getting stuck is a pretty common problem, it seems the standard response is to pry them open with a credit card or similar object. And typically it's the electric actuator and slide mechanism that jams, so other doors would have worked, in this case it sounds like the power to the door actuators was gone due to the crash so no door would open. But car doors getting crushed in and becoming inoperable is a common problem, and the standard solution is a glass breaking tool or other heavy/sharp object. Had the door latches been crushed and stuck closed in the attorney's recommended "Chevy pickup", regardless of whether the handles were accessible, the police officer who responded first would have been expected to break a window. It sounds like the first responder got stuck in the problem-solving process when their plan to open the doors using the handles didn't work and they didn't know what to do. That's easy to identify from my armchair, but I'm sure it would be different when you've got an unconscious guy in a smoking Tesla in front of you, and certainly is no good resolution for the widow.
- bluSCALE4 6y ago100k for a car, but no 5 dollars for a window hammer/seat belt cutter.
- chrisseaton 6y agoI've never known a civilian carry a hammer or seat belt cutter. Do you? I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to do that.
- vntok 6y agoNo it's complete nonsense apart from public transport vehicles like buses where passengers are kind of expected to be able to find and use window hammers in case of emergency.
- bluSCALE4 6y agoYou must have never ridden public transportation. Must buses have certain windows with levers and need to be pushed out or kicked out. Trains have release levers to open doors and some have close buttons, at least the CTA does next to the red pull knob.
- craftinator 6y agoInteresting, nearly all of my family and friends carry a window breaker in the car. I started doing so after trying to help someone out of a car after they crashed, and realizing just how tough those windows are to break.
- leetcrew 6y agoI keep a small cutter + window breaker combo in my car. [0] not sure how effective it would be, but it's small and cheap. is it reasonable to expect people to do this? I dunno, you're driving around at high speeds in a metal box. no matter how well engineered, some fraction of the time it is going to crumple in a way that the doors no longer work. of course, if you're going to account for this tail risk, there's a lot of other emergency equipment you should probably carry around for more likely events. I can't leave my house everyday with 200 lbs of equipment. [0] https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Emergency-Cutter-Window-Accessories/dp/B073JCMTW2 https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Emergency-Cutter-Window-...
- arnon 6y agoOn the topic of overengineering: My modern sensibilities mean that I'm always surprised that toilets and taps work when there's no electricity. Most of what was once a "trivial" design decision has become computer-controlled beyond recognition.
- sircastor 6y agoI was the same way about landline telephones - the fact that they carried their own power source was unexpected.
- pp19dd 6y agoAnd very useful. We used them to power shortwave radios in '93, during the war in the Balkans to figure out what the heck was going on since there were communication blackouts.
- dagw 6y agoMy favorite piece of everyday 'overengineering' is that old fashion phone lines basically always worked even during a complete power outage.
- zaarn 6y agoPhone lines are their own power grid. It can have outages too, but since they don't share infrastructure too much with HV lines, it's less likely both fail at the same time.
- agumonkey 6y agocopper lines are getting replaced by .. fiber it seems, i hope it retains that feature
- exhilaration 6y agoNope, the ONT (Optical Network Terminal) that Verizon FIOS installed has a backup battery, but once that's exhausted it goes dark like the rest of the house. They also removed the copper line during installation, it seems like Verizon at least doesn't want to keep supporting their copper network where FIOS is deployed.
- Symbiote 6y agoI was scared to read about how a Tesla's door handles work -- it may apply to other modern cars, but I've only read about the Tesla. (It was probably when this incident first hit the news.) The doors are electronic. The front doors have a mechanical override simply by pulling the door release lever further than usual. That's OK. For the rear doors, there's an emergency cable to pull on at the very bottom of the door[1]. I was 11 when my dad crashed our car, at night at a decent speed. When we stopped moving, the car next to ours was already on fire, and I'm told ours also caught fire, although I didn't notice it at the time. My dad's (driver's) door was blocked, so he had to clamber across my younger sister in the front passenger seat. I unbuckled my younger brother (age 5), opened his door a bit, but had to kick it to get it to open sufficiently -- it was also badly dented in the collision. If we'd had a Tesla, would you expect 11 year old me to know to "look below the seats for the carpet flap, find the little plastic tab, grab it and pull it to the side" -- and to be able to kick open the door while pulling that tab, since the side of the car is smashed in? (We were all uninjured; some people in other cars had broken bones.) [1] https://youtu.be/01lXcD_Uz74?t=41 https://youtu.be/01lXcD_Uz74?t=41
- lmilcin 6y agoNobody would know. I am interested in Teslas, was driven in one (as a passenger only, sadly) and I didn't know. A random person doesn't stand a chance. Even if you know it as a trivia, it is likely that in an extremely stressful situation you will revert to doing what you have been doing all your life, but now with no effect.
- me_me_me 6y agoOnce panic sets in we are running on instincts. A lot of airplane passanges die in crashes because they are unable to unbuckle the seat-belt (everyone is trained by cars to push on the button not pull the buckle). Unbuckling airplane seatbelt is far easier then having secret door handle in the doors. All for sake of form over function.
- kmfrk 6y agoI'm already uneasy with the move from analogue interfaces to digital, but there's also this middle ground where "fanciness" just gets in the way of convenience. Realistically, we're going to have a tough time finding out what dangers we'll have from moving from analogue dashboards to digital ones. Feels a bit like when we got rid of the incandescent bulb before LED bulbs were really ready.
- Bud 6y agoThis lawsuit is disgusting. The driver was doing 116mph in a 25mph zone. That was the cause of death. Nothing else. If you are doing nearly FIVE TIMES the speed limit, well, pardon me, but you're asking for death. It's a miracle he didn't kill anyone else. He also hit 3 other cars, 2 trees, and rammed into a stone wall.
- grumple 6y agoAmazing that this article doesn't tell us that, you have to look at other referenced sources to find that detail.
- ryanmarsh 6y agoFTA: Awan, a 48-year-old anesthesiologist and father of five, leased the Model S for two reasons, family attorney Stuart Grossman said: He was environmentally sensitive and safety conscious. I'd say his family got a damn good lawyer, and by that I mean shameless.
- svrtknst 6y agoBe that as it may, it's possible for the driver to be a lethally reckless idiot and for Tesla to have dangerous door handles.
- thatjoeoverthr 6y agoAll of that can be true, and irrelevant. If the car has a design that impedes rescue, it will impede the rescue of people who have done nothing wrong. Bad man is dead, buta lawsuit can serve as a nice smack to remind car builders about safe design.
- arghwhat 6y agoThat this person committed crimes doesn't change that more reliable mechanisms should be preferred or required. That crimes were committed doesn't mean he should burn to death. The legal system should pick the punishment. There's a reason you're not allowed to have pure drive-by-wire either, requiring mechanical connection to brake and steering. While doors are generally less of a concern, but it's still nice to know that the door handle works when the electronics do not. Such as when there is a fire. Braking a window is harder than you might think if you don't carry a dedicated tool for it. (And no, while this guy was a criminal, that does not mean all fires are by criminals, nor that criminals should burn to death)
- yawaworht1978 6y agoMy goodness the entity which approved this death trap (if any) needs to review the requirement. The "ux designer" has failed miserably here. There should always be a fallback option. These issues with the handles have been reported in various tesla fan forums even. Very sad story. Just seen the speeding mentioned, valid point , extremely irresponsible , however the topic is vehicle safety. When it comes to human life , every % to prevent death should count.
- bootlooped 6y agoDon't many modern cars automatically lock the doors once you exceed a certain speed anyway, so even if they could have pulled the handles the doors may have still been locked?
- jiveturkey 6y agoyes and no. Modern cars automatically (most with an option to disable) lock the doors, yes. This is to maintain crash integrity BTW. Not anti-carjacking as many folks seem to assume. But also, it's required that the doors mechanically unlock when you use the interior handle. In this case: > That’s because the car’s retractable door handles, which are supposed to “auto-present” when they detect a key fob nearby, malfunctioned and first responders weren’t able to open the doors and save Awan, the suit alleges. It didn't matter. Clearly Awan was unconscious or unable to extricate himself. As you said, most cars auto-lock the doors. If the doors were locked (we don't know from this article), it wouldn't matter if the handles "auto presented" themselves or not. They wouldn't be able to open them from outside the car. If the doors were unlocked, well that's a different story.
- sandworm101 6y agoThere is an old story in my family about my father buying the family car, the first to have electric windows/locks. In his mind those were a potential safety issue (winter, dead batteries). He insisted on at least the sunroof having a manual crank. That wouldn't help anyone trying to get in from outside, but at least someone on the inside could get out.
- jiveturkey 6y ago2019
- jjk166 6y agoIn my car (not a Tesla) the handle opens the door through a mechanism that relies on a relatively thin steel cable. I've had this cable snap under normal circumstances (which is how I found out about this mechanism). I would not be surprised if this mechanism failed in a wide variety of circumstances. If my life depends on the door handle working properly, I'm a dead man. Mechanical mechanisms are fragile - anything strong enough to survive impacts at highway speeds at an arbitrary angle is going to be too bulky to move manually without the assistance of yet another fragile mechanism. You can't design unsinkable ships, at some point you need life boats.
- kodah 6y ago> Awan, a 48-year-old anesthesiologist and father of five, leased the Model S for two reasons, family attorney Stuart Grossman said: He was environmentally sensitive and safety conscious. It may be arbitrary but I did want to point out Teslas are not environmentally conscious, they're luxury vehicles [0] In order for electric vehicles to be anything but luxury their power sources will need to be environmentally sustainable and friendly as well. Home automation, which I used to take gratuitous part of, is also a luxury. I figured out pretty quickly that for every physical interface I replaced, I still needed a manual override. For example: I could have eliminated wall switches when I was seeking to automate my lights based on presence and time. Instead, I chose some Zigbee wall switches that used an internal relay. Even if the house turned the lights off, you could still walk over to the wall and turn the light on. In infrastructure automation I generally have the same sort of concept just for different reasons. I imagine Tesla needs something similar. Edit: Just did some further reading and manual overrides are present in Teslas. It's safe to say Dr Awan didn't know how to use it, or didn't think to use it in a panic. Education and accessibility sound key here. [0] https://www.wired.com/2016/03/teslas-electric-cars-might-not-green-think/ https://www.wired.com/2016/03/teslas-electric-cars-might-not...