The first trial in a civil lawsuit over liability for a suspected sudden car crash in Gangneung last December will be held more than five months after the accident.
The Gangneung Support Civil Division of the Chuncheon District Court will hold the first defense day of a case worth about 760 million won ($660,000) filed by the driver of the vehicle and his family against the manufacturer on Dec. 23.
The plaintiffs filed the civil suit in January, saying, “The accident was a sudden-onset accident caused by a defect in the car.”
They claimed that the car, a Level 2 autonomous driving vehicle, had a defect in the main computer electronic control unit (ECU) software, a design defect in not adopting an acceleration braking system (ASS), a defect in the automatic emergency braking system (AEB), and a design defect in having a roof that lacked the ability to withstand a collision.
In particular, it emphasized that the fact that the driver made at least two crash-avoidance maneuvers during the sudden acceleration proves that he was in control of the car and not due to driver error such as pedal malfunction. They also pointed to a loud bang and the spewing of white liquid as evidence of a defective vehicle.
As the driver’s 12-year-old grandson was killed in the accident, the claim also included punitive damages, as the accident constituted a serious civil accident under the Serious Accident Punishment Act.
To prove their case, the plaintiffs requested the trial court to examine the electronic data recorder (EDR). They sought to prove the unreliability of the EDR through the contradiction between the fact that the vehicle’s speed increased to 5500 revolutions per minute (RPM) at 110 kilometers per hour (km/h) five seconds before the accident, but “the speed hardly increased” and the EDR test results of the Bureau of Science and Technology that the driver “pressed the accelerator pedal.
At the time, Mr. A’s lawyer criticized the police investigation, saying, “The Bureau did not analyze the software, but only the hardware,” and that “they concluded that the vehicle was not defective and tried to frame the grandmother and exonerate the car manufacturer.” The sudden-acceleration accident is caused by a defect in the electronic control unit (ECU) software in the vehicle, which the KFTC concluded was “not defective” based on an analysis of the accident data recorder (EDR).
It also requested an acoustic analysis to reveal the difference in acoustic characteristics between the sound of the engine during normal rapid acceleration and the sound of the engine in the accident.
On December 6 last year, an accident involving a suspected sudden acceleration of an SUV driven by Mr. A, a man in his 60s, carrying his grandson, occurred in Hongje-dong, Gangneung City, killing his 12-year-old grandson.
As a result of the accident, Mr. A was charged with lethal injuries under the Special Traffic Accident Treatment Act and was investigated by the police in March.
Mr. A’s son, the father of the deceased child, said, “My mother has been injured in body and mind since the accident and has not been able to sleep.” “What is certain is that she is not guilty먹튀검증,” he said. “I hope that the law will be revised on behalf of helpless consumers who are constantly fighting with manufacturers whenever a sudden issue arises,” he added.
“Even if the police investigation concludes that the driver was negligent, we do not want our mother to be punished,” he said.
Meanwhile, as more than 50,000 people agreed to a petition to shift the responsibility for proving the cause of a defect in a suspected sudden-onset accident posted by Mr. A’s family on a National Assembly petition in February, the law is expected to be revised soon.