I have a friend with an Excursion (automatic, diesel). One night at about 2AM it decided to jump out of park, roll down his driveway into the highway and come to rest against the curb. Another vehicle barely missed it but careened into a pole. The driver sued and won $14K. Not sure if Ford payed or my friend. But I bet he wished he had a manual after that.
Yeesh. Hopefully ford paid.. or the company who manufactured the parking pawl.. or the garage that did its safety inspection.. that's just crazy. Were so G.D sue happy here it boggles my mind.. sht happens.
My father was killed in an accident at work. He was a truck driver. Last big snow storm of the year he was on his way home through boxboro mass on i-495, 2 cars got jumbled up with each other in front of him and he jerked his rig to the right to try and avoid bowling them over. He ended up jumping a guardrail with two full trailers and well.. yeah.
Lawyer at the time was really pressing my mother to sue the person who's fault it was. She didn't. It was a blizzard. Shit happens. They already had the guilt I'm sure... they don't need any more on their plate.
Funny thing was, my father always told everyone to STAY ON THE ROAD in situations like that. If you hit a car.. so be it. NEVER do what he did. Over the million+ safe miles he drove, he saw quite a few awful accidents that wouldn't of been nearly as bad if the individual driving wouldn't of tried to avoid whatever they were about to hit.. and just hit it.
Of course... everyone he told that didn't drive a 40 ton rig.. he saved at least two lives doing what he did that morning.
It's been 14 1/2 years since that day.. and while I'm finally to the point where I'm "over" losing him much too soon.. whenever I think of his selfless decision to not obliterate those two cars I get right fat and welled up and start to cry. Like now. Excuse me while I go smoke a thousand cigarettes.