Man, if this tragedy has taught me anything, it's that I need to SERIOUSLY reconsider getting a new RAM 1500 here in a few years. Those electronic shifters always worried me, and this more or less sealed the deal. I want to FEEL the vehicle go into park.
Two things got him, imo. That silly shifter that is hard to find the gears with, and Hill Start Assist, which holds brake pressure on for a few seconds on hills. He didn't get it into park, and it didn't move right away because of the HSA system, which held the brakes on for a few seconds, then released them.
Man, if this tragedy has taught me anything, it's that I need to SERIOUSLY reconsider getting a new RAM 1500 here in a few years. Those electronic shifters always worried me, and this more or less sealed the deal. I want to FEEL the vehicle go into park.
The one in the Jeep is already gone. No one liked it. It only lasted a year in the cars, and two years in the Jeep.
The RAM has that Knob still, I think. I can't believe buyers accepted turning a knob to shift gears in the first place.
I'm sure they will also be programmed to shift to Park if a door opens.
They could also reprogram the HSA to hold brake pressure if a door opens.
The fix is to reprogram the computer to shift to Park if a door opens.
That's the way it should have been programmed in the first place.
I don't get the design, but it certainly doesn't look like it would be hard to find Park or Drive on this thing. The thing where the shifter returns to the center position makes no sense, but how hard can it be to jam it all the way forward or all the way back?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUWVYrpd-3g
Sure looks like it's easy to mistakenly put it in reverse if you're not paying attention and as LTC8K6 mentioned, the hill assist feature would hold the vehicle in place as you exit and walk behind the truck. Fatal mistake.
The hill holder sounds like it may be the main culprit in this accident. Sounds very dangerous.
But I still don't see how, if you want to put the vehicle in Park, and you've ever done it before, you don't just push the shifter forward until it STOPS. I could see hitting Park when you want Reverse, but not the other way around.
Of course looking at the instrument panel and gear shift light to verify the gear position would be the wise thing to do, in this case P for Park.But in mid April, Jeep recalled 1.1 million vehicles equipped with ZF’s eight-speed automatic transmission because, according to the automaker’s recall notice,
“Some drivers... exited their vehicles without first selecting ‘PARK,’” ultimately causing the cars to roll away uncontrollably.
On the unusual mushroom-shaped gear shifter, a driver presses and holds a button and pushes the shifter all the way up to set the car in park,
after which the shifter centers itself again. But Fiat Chrysler said the Jeep’s shifter design didn’t provide drivers with sufficient feedback for them
to know what gear their car was in, and so some drivers just left the vehicles in neutral before exiting the car.
http://jalopnik.com/did-jeeps-recalled-gear-shifter-contribute-to-the-death-1782255715
Of course looking at the instrument panel and gear shift light to verify the gear position would be the wise thing to do, in this case P for Park.
When I park my car I just push the stick all the way in, no questions asked, no verification needed, it's in park, period.
yeah, push stick up all the way.
what idiot designed this?
looks like 3/4 way down is park???
so whats the space above park for?
Anton's new Chekov was pretty damn good. I think I even preferred his to the original.
yeah, push stick up all the way.
what idiot designed this?
looks like 3/4 way down is park???
so whats the space above park for?
I actually didn't care for his portrayal. New Chekov was too much of a prodigy. Old Chekov was just a dude, and sort of bumbling. He wasn't a wunderkind.
https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-medi...ogressive,q_80,w_800/f5cymq66nbcv3wo0dacp.jpg
What the hell are you talking about? It goes P-R-N-D, and that's the same on every single vehicle in this country (by law, which has been mentioned in these Chrysler articles). If there's a shifter of any kind used whether it's electronic or not, it has to follow this order. Park is ALWAYS the furthest up, always.
The fix is to reprogram the computer to shift to Park if a door opens.
if u look at the pic, the P is highlighted.
I assume its in park?
yet at the base, it looks like the shifter is in the middle of the plate?
so Chrysler designed the shifter for Park in the middle of the plate, instead at the top of the plate?