There's 41 documented injuries, but hundreds more incidents reported. From my CBS link:
Out of 800k+ vehicles. Even if you triple that the percentage is minuscule in the big picture.
And the fact of the matter is, even one injury that can be attributed to a lack of design foresight is one too many.
If that were the case we'd have literally nothing man made. Engineers and designers can't account for the actions of billions of people. No planes, boats, staplers, you name it. Heck who was the knuckle head who made paper so thin you can get a paper cut?? That's ridiculous thinking.
Here's a comment from another forum I go to from someone who happens to be in Industrial Design:
It quite literally breaks the first rule of usability, which is "visibility of system status." You cannot tell what gear the car is in by looking at the physical location of the stick. Just...WHY? WHY IS IT A NEW FANCY FEATURE??? They BROKE it trying to make it fancy. Who the eff cares if it's spring loaded, even my skinny minny mother can change gears on a regular car.
Obviously that person has never driven a GC with this shifter because otherwise they'd notice that the selected gear is lit up on the shifter and displayed on the dash.
He also wasn't pinned against just a "brick wall." He was pinned against a mailbox next to a gate. It's quite easy to assume that he quickly got out to A) check his mail or B) open the gate.
That's exactly what I was saying. It's been discussed a lot on two Jeep forums and those with the issue - not some speculating industrial designer - who have actually described their scenario were almost always in a hurry. Conceivably this could have happened in any type of vehicle.
So if you're in a hurry and you need to get out to check something, but the vehicle is still rolling is that a fault of the designer or operator error? Oh, and let's not forget about this contraption called the parking brake.
It's an freak and unfortunate accident that likely could have been prevented. Like Stout said, it's likely going to be an unfortunate Darwin incident