California family: they sued BMW after teen dies in a locked car

Great!

This should give you a hint what works and what doesn't (e.g., a one sentence question is garbage).

Don't be an idiot.

There's an entire story leading up to one question.

Did you read the article? BMW admitted that the design of that 1997 BMW wouldn't have allowed the girl to get out on her own after her brother locked the car from the outside. That design was changed in 1999. So, their suit against BMW is legit.
Their suit against the school district sounds legit as well. Schools have a responsibility to notify parents of unauthorized absences of students, and in this case, that doesn't appear to have occurred.

Yes, on first reading the headline, I said what you said. But after reading the details, they definitely have a case.

the article also states their own lawyer said "I found the 1997 handbook, it clearly states that if you lock the car from the outside, the occupants cannot get out. The problem is that this was a 16-year-old car and my clients didn’t have the luxury of having the handbook.”

So the family lawyer admitted the car performed as designed, and exactly as was stated by the manufacturer in the owners manual. Nothing malfunctioned. He basically undermined his own case, saying "the problem" was it was an old car and the owners didn't have the "luxury" of having the manual. An owners manual is not a "luxury", it's a readily available item. I'm not really sure how the manufacturer is responsible for the owners of a 16 year old car not being familiar with the operation of the car and not owning or reading the owners manual.

It's called a design flaw.

Owner's manuals are available for free from bmwusa.com.

I should specify because people may be as stupid as the people that are suing:

They are available in electronic format for free.

the design is only if you lock it and remove the key with the lock still turned. Its called double locking. My e30 does this. If you just turn the key and return it to the stright position before removing it like a regular car it will open from the inside, but if you turn the key to the right, and remove it while it is still turned to the right, it double locks it to where you can't pull the handle or pull the lock up.

OK...so a 17 yr old kid leaves the motor running in the garage just to keep warm since its 5 degrees outside.... his little sister with him dies of carbon monoxide since they did not have the keys to get into the house from the garage... they were waiting for their mom who had the keys to get home. tragic situation.. he thought he was doing the best thing to keep her warm but the fumes killed her... so in this case do you go sue the car manufacturer??

This was not just a feature of BMW, but of a number of cars with alarms and remote locking. Anyone with a key fob locking mechanism ought to know that this is one potential design for the locks.

I think clsboy brings up a great point. There are lots of ways to improperly use a car that will result in death. The manufacturer is not responsible for all of those deaths.

Also, this is not a "design flaw" anymore than a toaster running on electricity and having slot where you could stick a metal fork is a design flaw. People need to take responsibility for stupid actions and not assume that manufacturers will be able to cover every contingency (they can't). The more we rely on manufacturers to magically predict our stupidity, the more complacent we get the more common these types of things will be.

well said!

My car a 2004 3 series have the same system, its working perfect and will keep intruders out, unless they want to crawl through the window after breaking it. I live in Europe and Im sure even the new models have the same system here.
BMW and other manufactures can not be blamed for everything, people must sometime do some thinking for themselves.

"He confirmed that 1997 model BMW vehicles were equipped with a power lock system that enabled persons inside the car to unlock the doors if they had been locked from inside as well, but not if they were locked externally. He said the design was intended to address “a theft-prevention issue.”

“We didn’t envision the situation where someone would lock somebody in the car from the exterior,” he said, adding that the design of the locking system was changed in 1999."

As always, in the US it must be someone else's responsibility even if this was caused by her family member locking his sister inside the car from the outside. While BMW, and even perhaps the school district, may have partical blame for this unfortunate accident it doesn't totally alleviate the driver from blame.