It’s been more than a quarter century since suppliers made electronic parking brakes available for passenger vehicles and light trucks. Like other mechatronic systems, EPBs provide benefits unavailable to mechanical designs, including the ability for OEMs to tailor automated applications, adjustments and releases for safety and convenience. EPB auto-apply not only prevents potential vehicle rollaway hazards when drivetrain components fail, it can be programed to automatically apply anytime a driver exits an unsecured vehicle. Now, EPBs in heavy commercial trucks are getting their turn. In 2025, no fewer than five major Class 8 truck brands – Daimler Truck’s Freightliner, PACCAR’s Kenworth and Peterbilt, and Volvo Group’s Volvo and Mack – have announced that their new models are equipped with optional or standard electronic park brakes designed to prevent rollaways. For MY 2024, PACCAR’s European DAF brand unveiled its EPB with smart brake control as standard on the New Generation XF XG XG+ models.

In heavy trucks, EPB switches replaces the standard yellow and red airbrake knob. A review of Daimler Truck/ Freightliner’s fifth generation Cascadia notes: Easily maneuvered toggle switches with LED indicators eliminate the cumbersome push-and-pull of the “ketchup and mustard” pneumatic controls inside the Cascadia cab. Gone too are the loud bang and hiss from setting and releasing the brakes. The electronic park brake system eliminates air lines behind the dash.

And heavy truck EPBs are often integrated with other parking features. Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems, which supplies its Intellipark® Electronic Parking Brake to Freightliner, Kenworth, and Peterbilt is equipped with “advanced safety features,” such as rollaway mitigation, Smart Unpark™ (an automatic release feature), and Auto Trailer Brake Release, according to a Bendix press release.

These features are supported by unique interlocks that verify the vehicle is ready to be parked or unparked through sensors that monitor door position, seat belt status, and vehicle movement.

Like those designed for passenger vehicles, heavy truck EPBs can be configured to activate under different conditions. For example, Volvo’s EPB activates if the driver doors open while the truck is in neutral.  Intellipark activates the EPB when the system determines “that the driver does not have control over the vehicle when it is unparked,” the driver door is open, the vehicle speed is low or zero, the accelerator pedal is not pressed, and the foot brake is not applied. Before auto-applying, a visual warning is displayed in the instrument cluster alerting the driver to engage the park brake. If the driver does not intervene, the EPB is automatically applied and the system will illuminate a visual telltale instructing the driver to pull the EBP switch to acknowledge that a rollaway mitigation event has occurred, the horn will honk and an audible alert will sound until the driver does so.

Rollaway prevention is a major selling point of heavy truck EPBs.

An October 2024 trade press story about Daimler Truck’s North America Freightliner Cascadia noted that: “Rollaway prevention is the goal of an all-new electronic park brake that automatically applies the parking brake when a driver leaves the seat or opens the door without setting the brake.”

In June 2025, Volvo Trucks announced that among the “suite of digital and mechanical safety systems” was a “new electronic parking brake, standard on all new VNL and VNR models. The next-generation parking brake engages automatically if the truck is put in neutral and the driver door is opened.”

A December 2025 Mack Trucks video “Using the Electronic Parking Brake on Your Mack® Pioneer” describes its safety benefits:

“When you’re driving a big truck like the Mac Pioneer, control is everything, especially when it comes to stopping and parking. That’s why the Pioneer is equipped with an electronic parking brake or EPB, designed to give you peace of mind every time you park your truck… But here’s where the electronic parking brake takes things further. The EPB will automatically engage when the vehicle is at a standstill and the ignition is turned off or the driver or passenger door is open.”

Marketing for commercial truck EPBs’ rollaway mitigation features, manufacturers specifically note that they were designed to prevent a safety hazard resulting from human error.

In a June 2025 Commercial Carrier Journal story Dan Zula, Bendix’s brake control product group director, describes how the introduction of  software allows the vehicle to support the driver by monitoring “whether or not the human has forgotten to do something.”

“Where we had safety-critical risks before – maybe the driver forgetting to release the spring brakes before pulling away, and they could have an incident where the wheels got packed because they drove through it, or they forgot to apply the park brake when exiting the vehicle – we now have software involved monitoring a bunch of inputs, a bunch of conditions on the vehicle, and setting the park brake or releasing the park brake on behalf of the driver as a safety mechanism for a higher level of safety,” he added.

Kenworth’s Dec. 2025 announcement that it was offering an optional Bendix® Intellipark® EPB system for its heavy- and medium-duty models said:

“The Electronic Parking Brake system brings a new level of redundancy, simplicity, and assurance to our customers,” said Kevin Haygood, Kenworth’s assistant general manager for sales and marketing. “With EPB, drivers can count on an added layer of protection that helps to mitigate rollaway incidents. While this technology is beneficial for any customer, it’s particularly useful in vocational, P&D, and other applications that require drivers to enter and exit the cab numerous times per day.”

Similarly, Lisa McKenzie, highway product marketing manager at Freightliner, mentions that the driver may forget to set the parking brake due to fatigue. “We also have rollaway mitigation, which is huge,” McKenzie said. “Now, if your driver had a long day and forgets to set the park brake, the truck is now going to set it for the driver using a seat occupancy sensor.”

EPBs with rollaway mitigation is standard on DAF XF XG XG+, Freightliner Cascadia, and Volvo VNL and VNR models and available as a factory-installed option on Peterbilt and Kenworth Class 8 and medium duty models. It is hard to say how quickly Class 8 truck buyers will add EPBs when optional. Bendix’s Intellipark was first available for order or retrofit in 2019, and at the time, Rebecca Carter, Bendix product manager for specialty valves, was quoted in a trade journal article that the company “was already receiving ‘overwhelming interest’ in the technology.”

Supplier TRW (now ZF) debuted EPBs with automated features for passenger vehicles in 2001, marketing them as the more economical choice for interior space and per-unit cost. At the same time, TRW emphasized that EPBs were configurable to include significant passive safety benefits via an auto-application when the vehicle transmission was in a non-Park gear and the driver opens the door to exit. Yet adoption of EPBs through the U.S. fleet was slow.

Even fewer manufacturers took advantage of the auto-apply option to mitigate rollaway anytime the driver attempted to exit an unsecured vehicle. More commonly auto-apply has been used in concert with functions such as Brake Hold, a convenience feature that allows the driver to remove their foot from the brake pedal while maintaining hydraulic brake pressure to keep the vehicle temporarily stationary, such as at a traffic light, or until the driver depresses the accelerator. Many OEMs designed their Brake Hold systems to automatically apply the EPB if the driver unlatched the seatbelt and opened the door while in Brake Hold – in recognition that the driver can lose awareness of the engine and transmission status when the vehicle is stationary, the engine is on, and the transmission is not in Park.

But few manufacturers have designed an automatic application of the EPB to prevent vehicle rollaway anytime the driver attempts to exit an unsecured vehicle. In calendar year 2013, Fiat Chrysler Automotive was the first automaker to implement a robust EPB-based automatic anti-rollway feature, Safehold. First installed on the MY 2014 Jeep Cherokee, Safehold automatically activates the EPB if the transmission is not in Park while the ignition switch is in Run and includes a manual deactivation feature. Similarly, the Bendix system activates the EPB when the vehicle is stationary, driver’s seatbelt unlatched, no inputs to the brake or accelerator, and driver’s door open.

Thirteen years after FCA implemented Safehold many passenger vehicle OEMs still use EPB auto-apply in discrete, narrowly defined scenarios that often don’t include driver exiting with the gear selector not in Park.

According to NHTSA’s latest estimates, in 2021, 210 non-occupants died and 1,435 were injured in rollaway incidents.

That EPBs with rollaway mitigation come standard in several Class 8 truck manufacturers’ models is a good sign that the commercial carrier industry recognizes that even professional drivers – tired or distracted – can make mistakes like any other driver, and that EPBs with automatic applications can prevent them from becoming costly and deadly.

 

 

 

 

In March 2024, Kia announced that it was recalling nearly a half a million 2020-2024 Telluride SUVs because the intermediate shaft and right front driveshaft may not be fully engaged. The company said that over time partial engagement of the shaft can damage the splines and allow the vehicle to roll with the transmission in Park – if the parking brake wasn’t engaged. Kia reported to NHTSA that it planned on notifying its dealers and vehicle owners in mid-May about the defect and that its dealers “will install updated Electronic Parking Brake (EPB) software to automatically engage the EPB to prevent unintended vehicle movement when the gear shifter is in the “P” (Park) position and the engine is turned off, or when the vehicle is stopped in any gear shifter position and the driver’s door opens.” In other words, Kia is preventing rollaway in the event of a mechanical defect, but the description of its countermeasure indicates that the company is also adding a driver exit strategy, which clearly addresses rollaway scenarios related to human factors, not just a mechanical failure. A “driver exit strategy” – the automatic application of the EPB and/or transmission shift-to-Park on vehicles with electronic shift selectors when the driver is about to exit an unsecured vehicle is an important and still underutilized safety feature. This is a BIG DEAL. 

Two years ago, we blogged about how technology has made rollaways easier to occur and easier to prevent. (Technology has Made Rollaways Easier; Technology Can Prevent Them) But the number of automakers who have adopted a comprehensive approach to preventing rollaways are still surprisingly low, given the presence and apparent success of systems that auto-apply the EPB and/or shift-to-Park.

While the continued widespread absence of “driver exit strategies”  is notable, it is more so  when an OEM adds the safety feature post-market, especially   when it’s done under the auspices of remedying a mechanical failure, like the defect Kia described.

Kia’s recall highlights several significant trends and it intersects with a longstanding safety hazard– rollaway – that continues to cause deaths and injuries that are easily preventable in a modern vehicle. These interconnected trends include:

• Defects remedied with software fixes. While it’s no surprise that today’s software-defined vehicles are getting more software defect remedies, these countermeasures are also being applied to fix potential hardware

• Human factors or Human Machine Interface (HMI) related defects require countermeasures as much as broken parts. While human factors are still commonly blamed on the driver, designs that allow, facilitate, or enhance the likelihood the driver can or will make an error that can cause harm, are just as relevant as fixing broken parts. Human error is a symptom of an inadequate design, not a cause.

• Fixing symptoms without improving systems’ safety designs. Vehicles have become increasingly complex mechatronic amalgamations that operate based on interpretations of the driver’s inputs and the environment. With well more than 100 million lines of code processed by a network of 100-plus ECUs relying on data from an array of sensors, fixing symptoms is not enough to prevent recurring hazards. Automotive designs need consistent systems approaches.

Vehicle rollaways, like other vehicle-related crashes and incidents that largely occur on private property, still often go undocumented in many states and police jurisdictions. However, beginning in 2008 NHTSA was required by a provision in the 2005 Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), to collect and maintain information about non-traffic crashes and incidents, which is done by the agency’s National Center for Statistics and Analysis (NCSA). Using a sampling system, NCSA applies statistical models to these data and publishes national estimates. In NCSA’s latest report from  April 2024, the agency published the 2021 data and a new five-year average, based on more complete figures for the previous four years. This analysis shows that rollaway deaths were on an upward trend from 84 in 2017 to 210 in 2024, a 150 percent rise over five years. There were 816 total rollaway deaths, representing a five-year average of 163 annual deaths, and 18 percent of the total non-traffic fatalities. Rollaways injured 1,428 in 2021. On average, there were 1,545 annual injuries from 2017-2021, representing 6 percent of the total of non-traffic crashes.

Kia’s recall is not the first time an automaker reprogramed vehicle software to remedy a potential vehicle rollaway:

• In 2008 Chrysler recalled MY 2008-2009 Dodge Challenger vehicles equipped with automatic transmissions and “Keyless Go” option., because the company stated its vehicles failed to conform to the requirements of FMVSS 114 – a driver could depress the stop/start button and turn off the engine when the vehicle was not in park, take the fob and exit the vehicle. Chrysler’s remedy was to reflash the wireless ignition module so that the vehicle engine could not be turned off, unless the transmission was in the Park position.

• In June 2016, Fiat Chrysler recalled 811,000 2012-2014 Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger and 2014-2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee with its infamous electronic monostable gear shift selector claiming its vehicles “may not adequately warn the driver when driver’s door is opened and the vehicle is not in PARK, allowing them to exit the vehicle while the vehicle is still in gear.” Chrysler upgraded the software to add an Auto Park feature that automatically shifted the transmission into park if the driver failed to do so upon exiting the vehicle. FCA later added the same fix for vehicles with rotary shifter — the RAM 1500 Pickup, Dodge Durango, and Chrysler 300 vehicles – via a Customer Satisfaction campaign. (Chrysler’s Shifty Shifters and the Wacky World of Defects)

• In October 2016, Honda recalled 2016 model Civics because of a software defect that could prevent the application of the Electric Parking Brake if it is applied immediately after turning the ignition to Off. Honda reported that no rollaways occurred due to the defect and it provided dealers with updated software to reprogram the 350,083 vehicles affected to eliminate the potential for EPB inoperability.

• In 2020, Kia recalled 3,714 MY 2015 and 2016 Soul EV vehicles for potential damage to the parking mechanism and allow the shifter to be put in the Park position, but the transmission is not actually in Park. The fix involved reprograming the Electronic Parking Brake logic so that it would automatically activate if the power button is turned off when the gear shift lever is in the Park position.

• In March 2023, Ford re-flashed the EPB in civilian and police versions of the 2020-2022 Explorer with broken axle bolts to automatically apply when the driver places the transmission in Park.

 

 In the 2024 Telluride recall, Kia reported in to NHTSA that its North American entity began to identify customer complaints about the transmission failing to hold in Park, rollaways, grinding noises, vibrations or the inability to place the transmission in Drive or Reverse in April 2022. Kia claimed that during the course of its two-year investigation it found spline wear on shafts it had collected that were consistent with partial engagement, which it attributed to “suspected improper assembly by the supplier.”

Kia’s software fix applied to the entire population, even though it estimated that the problem affected only 1 percent of the vehicles. Further, Kia’s  May 2024 SC303 Safety Recall Campaign Technical Service Bulletin (TSB) to dealers, only provided instructions on the software update, not for  inspecting or repairing the intermediate shaft and right front driveshaft. The automaker did not release a TSB for the mechanical inspection and replacement until August. This repair was just for customers who complained of abnormal driveline noise on the right side while driving. Dealer techs were required to confirm that the vehicle had gotten the software update before proceeding.

Kia’s defect chronology does not shed light on why it chose to fix all the recalled vehicles with a more expansive automatic application specification for the EPB, but the 2020-2024 Tellurides, were already equipped with software that automatically applied the EPB, but under limited conditions: when the vehicle was in Auto Hold mode. Auto Hold is a convenience feature offered by most major automakers on models with EPBs that allows the driver to remove their foot from the brake pedal after bringing the vehicle to a stop and continues to hold the vehicle stationary by maintaining brake pressure for brief periods, such as at a traffic light, without the driver continuing to depress the brake pedal. The automatic brake hold releases once the accelerator is depressed to resume travel. Auto Hold is not usually a default or a retained mode; many models require the driver to depress the Auto Hold button at every key cycle. In most of these systems, the EPB is automatically applied if the vehicle is stationary in Auto Hold for more than a few minutes, or if the driver attempts to exit – signaled by unlatching the seat belt and opening the driver’s door – when the vehicle is stationary in Auto Hold mode when the shift selector is not in Park.

For example, the 2020 Kia Telluride Owner’s Manual says: “for your safety, the Auto Hold automatically switches to the EPB under the following conditions: The driver’s door is opened; the engine hood or liftgate is opened; the vehicle is at a standstill for 10 minutes; the vehicle is standing on a steep slope; or the vehicle moved for a few seconds.”

Kia’s recall states that it adds “updated Electronic Parking Brake (EPB) software to automatically engage the EPB to prevent unintended vehicle movement when the gear shifter is in the “P” (Park) position and the engine is turned off, or when the vehicle is stopped in any gear shifter position and the driver’s door opens.” [Emphasis added]

Thus, the software update uses the EPB to protect against potential rollaways due to mechanical or human failures – including anytime a driver is about to exit a vehicle that is not secured in Park.

The reasons why a driver may exit a vehicle without shifting to Park vary, but typically the vehicle is stationary, which can occur for a variety of reasons even when the engine is running and the transmission is in a drive gear. In addition, the lack of salient warnings alerting the driver of an impending hazard condition are the norm. Often, the audible alert is a chime indistinguishable from others associated with the door open or seatbelts unlatched, and the visual alert is a Shift-to-Park text message illuminated in the instrument cluster, out of the driver’s view as they exit.   

Suppliers have been marketing EPBs to automakers since the early 2000s – advertising them as weight, space and cost savers – and fully customizable. TRW, now ZF, was the first to introduce the EBP, which not only replaces the manual parking brake lever or foot pedal with a small switch, resulting in fewer mechanical parts and the ability to apply the necessary clamp load to hold vehicle in place – but that is now monitored and controlled via software located in a networked ECU. For nearly two decades, ZF and other suppliers featured the EPB’s potential as a passive safety feature that could be auto-applied in scenarios to prevent rollaways, including when the vehicle transmission is in a gear other than Park and the driver attempts to exit.

But the uptake for EPBs was initially slow, and outside of Auto Hold, OEMs didn’t specify auto-apply to protect against rollaway hazard conditions – whether the result of mechanical failure or human factors – instead continuing with largely ineffective warnings.

Today, the marketing report, Global Electric Parking Brake Market 2024-2030 in the US, by the Delaware-based Global Insights Inc., tallies 484 vehicle models on sale, and 26 out of the top 30 best-selling vehicles either get EPB as standard or at least as an option. Many of these same models offer Auto Hold or adaptive cruise control (ACC), another driver convenience feature which adjusts the following vehicle’s speed and distance to that of the vehicle in front. Many ACC systems are designed to automatically apply the EPB if the vehicle is at a standstill in that mode and the driver attempts to exit.

Outside of those two narrowly tailored scenarios, most automakers have eschewed realizing the EPB’s full potential in preventing rollaways. Some automatically set the EPB when the driver places the transmission in Park, or turns off the engine without selecting Park, or protect the exiting driver if the gear selector is in Drive or Reverse, but not Neutral. Few are designed to apply anytime the driver is about to exit an unsecured vehicle – regardless of engine or transmission status. The notable exception is Fiat Chrysler Automotive (FCA), which introduced the EPB-based rollaway prevention feature “SafeHold” starting with the 2014 Jeep Cherokee and its other models that don’t have electronic shift selectors. (Following its 2016 recall to add Auto-Park to Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep models, FCA has included the feature on virtually all of its models with e-shifters.)

Mostly, automakers (and NHTSA) have clung to the idea that the driver is solely responsible for placing the transmission in Park before exiting. Automakers continue to argue this in litigation  – even as they protect drivers who make an error in myriad ways, from battery savers to automatic emergency braking to lane departure systems. Yet, somehow in today’s highly distractable world and vehicles sporting new shifter and ignition interfaces with a dizzying array of automation and highly populated information displays, getting out of a stationary vehicle without putting the transmission in Park is a hanging offense. Instead, NHTSA and many manufacturers want to rely on ineffective warnings  –  and in some cases, no audible warning at all – if the engine is running and the transmission is not in Park – when the driver exits.

Kia’s recall remedy provides good information for NHTSA, which is currently at work on a Congressionally mandated report about rollaway countermeasures. In February 2019, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Ed Markey (D-MA) sought to require the agency promulgate rules that would set a performance standard to prevent rollaway, via the Protecting Americans from the Risks of Keyless Ignition Technology (PARK IT) Act. The bill was eventually amended and folded into the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which was signed into law in November 2021. It required the agency to conduct an evaluation of technology to prevent keyless ignition vehicles from rolling away and present Congress with recommendations for further study or action within a year of its completion.  

Kia’s recall has shown that in vehicles with EPBs that weren’t initially designed with a driver exit strategy to protect the driver or a bystander from being injured or killed in a rollaway, it can be done in a (re)flash.

 

Late last month, Hyundai/Kia recalled nearly 3.4 million vehicles, warning owners to park their vehicles well away from structures – like a house or garage – because a leak in the ABS module can cause an electrical short and lead to a fire. Hyundai’s campaign involves 13 different MY 2011-2015 models for a total recall population of 1,642,551 vehicles. Kia is recalling more than 1.7 million vehicles encompassing 12 different models, covering model years 2010-2019.

(Korean-based manufacturers Kia Corp. and Hyundai Motor Corp. are part of Hyundai Motor Group. Both companies are involved in the joint design and development of vehicles sold globally under their respective brands. Hyundai Motor Co. owns 33.88 percent of Kia Corp., making it the largest investor in the company.)  

This recall is mega-sized, but it is nothing new. These two campaigns represent the 16^th and 17^th recalls from Hyundai and Kia for the same problem in seven years. They involve a common component by different names: in Hyundai vehicles, it’s called the Anti-Lock Brake System (ABS) module, while in Kia vehicles, it’s called the Hydraulic Electronic Control Unit (HECU). They have been manufactured by two different suppliers: Mobis and Mando. But 14 of the recalls, including all of those launched from 2020 to the present, involve components manufactured by the latter. They all share a common design configuration in that they are Powered All the Time (PAT), meaning even when the vehicle’s engine and ignition system is off, these modules still maintain a flow of electrical current. The recalls warn owners not to park their vehicles in or near a structure, because the engine or ignition doesn’t have to be on for a fire to start.

This is reminiscent of the Ford Cruise Control Deactivation Switch (CCDS) debacle, which eventually resulted in six recalls covering 14.9 million vehicles from 1996 to 2009. Ford, and later NHTSA, studied fires and thermal events involving this switch for eight years before it determined that a number of factors set off the chain of events that resulted in underhood fires: material fatigue, the orientation of the CCDS above the brake master cylinder, and the PAT configuration. The failure of the switch seals allowed for fluid intrusion, which could, eventually, lead to an electrical short and subsequent fire, including when the ignition and engine were off because the switch was always powered. Amid seven separate NHTSA investigations, Ford shifted the blame from defective switches damaged in the manufacturing process, to a systemic problem influenced by the switch’s position and the electrical architecture of the cruise control system, to an age degradation issue. The defect has been blamed for at least 1,500 fires – many in parking lots and garages – causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage, and is alleged to have caused at least three injuries and three deaths.

Similarly, Hyundai and Kia have been “investigating” and recalling defective ABS/HECU modules since November 2016, with the vast majority of campaigns launched in the last three years. These latest recalls for leaking ABS modules brings the total recall population to nearly six million vehicles. Roughly half of the recalls name moisture or brake fluid intrusion into the modules as the likely root cause, while the other half state the root causes were undetermined, even though some suggest there are signs that contaminants are leaking into the HECU. When Hyundai and Kia assigned blame, it pointed to supplier quality, including improperly sealed wire harness covers, or excess flux residue from the soldering process at the supplier, compounded by exposure to heat/humidity and deteriorating seals. But many of the recalls involving Mando modules concede outright that despite a prolonged joint investigation, they were unable to determine the cause of the short circuits.

Hyundai’s most recent Mando ABS module recall pinpoints the problem as defective O-rings:

Certain ABS motor shaft O-ring material formulations may be susceptible to physical changes over time due to varying factors, including vehicle ABS specifications and/or the presence of foreign contaminants in the brake fluid, such as moisture, dirt, and dissolved metals, which could affect sealing strength and result in brake fluid leaking onto the ABS controller PCB.

Kia’s version of the recall said that it really wasn’t certain why it was recalling so many of its vehicles. Its Part 573 submission to NHTSA said: “It is believed that a short circuit may result in excessive current within the HECU [Hydraulic Electronic Control Unit]. Exact cause of the short circuit remains unknown.”

In its mandated Defect Chronology submission to NHTSA, Hyundai asserted that its American and Korean engineers have been investigating this problem for four years, beginning with analyses of some overheated ABS modules it collected in 2019. (Hyundai did not mention the earlier investigation that led to a recall in 2018.) Then, beginning in the summer of 2020, as Hyundai and Kia were initiating several recalls into other models and model years for ABS/HECU-related fires, the lawsuits related to fires in this new subset of vehicles began to roll in. That August, Hyundai’s North American Safety Office opened a formal case investigation beginning with Elantra vehicles, and began to recover all similar ABS modules with thermal damage from American market vehicles. Throughout most of 2021, Hyundai continued investigating. In some cases, they found brake fluid in the switch but could not determine how it got there. In October 2021, Hyundai brought in Exponent and after nearly two more years testing and analysis, identified the cause as the O-ring degradation within the ABS module, which lost strength and deformed over time breaking the seals:

During this period, Exponent focused testing on the motor shaft O-ring material durability. In an update provided on May 9, 2023, Exponent reported that foreign contaminants were present in residual brake fluid found inside certain analyzed ABS modules. In an update provided on July 7, 2023, Exponent found the O-rings used in the subject ABS modules consisted of varying rubber material formulations determined through thermogravimetric (“TGA”) analysis. In an update provided on September 6, 2023, Exponent confirmed that certain material formulations used in the O-ring rubber could lose hardness over time. Additionally, the material could be affected by foreign contaminants in the brake fluid, potentially impacting sealing performance. Based on this information, HMC conducted a review of supplier manufacturing records and confirmed a material formulation change to one with increased hardness implemented by the supplier in September 2014 and February 2015 at the Korea and U.S. plants, respectively.

Based on this revelation about a materials change, Hyundai recalled vehicles from the 2015 model year and earlier.

Kia starts its Defect Chronology in 2023, claiming that in July it learned that Hyundai was investigating overheating ABS modules (HECUs in the Kia vehicles), and noticed that those modules were in many of its models. During the ensuing two and a half months, it launched its own internal investigation and found some similar overheating incidents and some leaky modules but, once again, was unable to pinpoint a root cause. But given Hyundai’s go-big recall, Kia apparently decided to do the same. Its investigation is less likely to blame pre-2015 Mando O-rings, because its recall population also includes vehicles from the 2016 to 2019 model years.

You might be thinking that they would address the enduring problems with its ABS/HECU modules by simply replacing all of the older modules with newly designed modules.

You would be wrong. Despite this obvious hardware solution, Hyundai/Kia have only offered module replacements in four of the early recalls. In three other recalls, the fix was to install a relay in the vehicle’s main junction box to prevent the risk of an ABS short-circuit while the car is turned off. Of course, that wouldn’t prevent a thermal event when the engine was running. However, in most of the recalls, including all of those from the last three years, the only remedy is the installation of lower-amp fuses, so that if there is an electrical short, it will blow the fuse rather keeping the module from overheating and igniting.  While that may prevent fires, if the vehicle is in motion when this occurs, it could force the driver to stop operating the vehicle, which could create a new danger.

What all of these recalls really appear to demonstrate is that the only permanent remedy is to replace the ABS modules with a design that functions throughout the vehicle lifecycle without leaks into the electrical unit.

But Hyundai and Kia aren’t doing that.

Working the Refs

In just two months, Hyundai is expected to emerge from the shadow of a three-year Consent Order it signed with NHTSA just before Thanksgiving 2020. Back then, the agency slapped Hyundai/Kia with a combined $210 million civil penalty, the largest in the regulator’s history, for lying (more politely called “inaccuracies” and “omissions”) in its communications with the agency and failing to launch timely recalls involving more than 1.6 million Hyundai and Kia models with the company’s Theta II engines. The engines were supposed to make Hyundai/Kia the leaders of fuel economybut instead suffered from manufacturing and design defects that caused lubrication problems and premature bearing wear that could lead to loss of motive power and fires. (Read about it here: Hyundai-Kia’s Billion Dollar Engine Problem that Broke the NHTSA Civil Penalty Barrier.)

The story is instructive for its similar trajectory of multiple years of rolling recalls and satisfaction campaigns to address a problem the “fixes” didn’t correct. Hyundai alleged that the engine problem began in 2011, when its Montgomery, Alabama, assembly plant changed the way it removed machining debris from the crankshaft of the then-new Theta II Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) engine. The warranty claims for excessive noise, an illuminated check engine light, and stalls began to rise as soon as the Theta II debuted in the field.

By 2015, the complaints accruing in NHTSA’s VOQ database began to concern the agency, which contacted the automaker, worried about the potential for high-speed stalls. And so in September, Hyundai recalled 470,000 Model Year 2011-2012 Sonata vehicles equipped with 2.4L and 2.0L Theta II GDI engines.

The defect involved the travel of metal debris generated during engine crankshaft manufacturing and left in the component’s oil passages, and travel, over time into the connecting rod oiling passages, restricting oil flow to the bearings,” which could raise engine temperatures and lead to premature wear of the connecting rod bearing, eventual failure, and a vehicle stall and a potential fire. The remedy was an engine noise inspection that required moving the vehicle to a quiet place and positioning a mobile tablet near the steering wheel to assess the engine sound, while an unexplained algorithm determined if the vehicle passed or failed the inspection. The failures got a new engine; the others got a new dip stick and an oil top-off.

During the following two years, Hyundai and Kia, which also had models with the Theta II engine, attempted to avoid a recall with extended warranties, even as Hyundai engineer and 26-year company veteran Kim Gwang-ho blew their cover. A member of Hyundai’s Quality Strategy team, Kim traveled to the U.S. in August 2016 to allege in a meeting with NHTSA that Hyundai’s recall did not cover the entire population of affected vehicles in the U.S. and South Korea, and that the problem was also related to the engine design. 

In March 2017, Hyundai and Kia finally announced recalls for a combined nearly 1.2 million vehicles describing the same defect as the 2015 recall. Two months later, NHTSA responded by opening a Recall Query to determine if Hyundai and Kia met its regulatory burden of issuing these recalls within five days upon learning of a defect.

On November 23, 2020 everyone signed the Consent Order agreeing that they hadn’t.

Under its terms, Hyundai and Kia had to spend a significant portion of the fine on internal process improvements. ($40 million and $16 million respectively.) Hyundai was required to “build and develop a fully functioning United States-based outdoor test laboratory and vehicle tear down facilities. The test laboratory will focus on safety field issues, vehicle inspections, and defect investigations.” Finally, Hyundai/Kia was required to hire a third-party auditor to oversee its progress. The penalty capped a five year period in which millions of Hyundai and Kia models were scrutinized under four different investigations, and were the subject of class-action lawsuits, extended warranty programs, a product improvement campaign, and 10 recalls to deal with defects that cause stalls and non-crash fires attributed to a variety of causes.

According to the NHTSA press release on the agreement, both companies were required to “develop and implement sophisticated data analytics programs to better detect safety-related concerns.” The Safety Record wonders what these new data analytics are telling them about leaking ABS modules.

And as Hyundai/Kia enters its seventh year of placing Band-Aids on ABS modules in the apparent hope that NHTSA doesn’t notice that their recall “remedies” may be as crappy as the modules themselves, may we remind you that Hyundai/Kia still has not launched a recall to fix their theft-prone, immobilizer-free models.

According to Hyundai/Kia’s defect chronologies, the defective ABS modules, have not caused any reported deaths or injuries. In contrast, the Hyundai/Kias with insufficient theft protection have touched off a two-year nationwide epidemic of criminality that shows no signs of abating, with steep car theft numbers and a horrific trail of crashes, injuries and deaths. The last two months alone have seen Hyundai/Kia theft news stories with headlines such as: “3 dead, 2 critical after stolen car ‘cut in half’ in crash with pole at MLK, Carey” (Las Vegas); “21-Year-Old Dead, Passenger in Critical Condition After Being Hit By Teens Driving Stolen Kia in Old Brooklyn” (Cleveland); or “12-Year-Old Seriously Injured After Smashing Stolen Kia Into a Utility Pole: Police” (Bridgeport).

This is just a small sample; there have been many more since February when NHTSA announced that, after eight deaths and 14 crashes attributed to stolen unprotected Hyundai and Kia vehicles, the Korean conglomerate would launch a service campaign to apply a software fix and a decal to vehicles without immobilizers. No apparent investigation, no recall.

In June, Cem Hatipoglu, NHTSA’s acting associate director for enforcement, responded to a demand by state Attorneys General that NHTSA exercise its authority to compel meaningful action, by saying that NHTSA wasn’t inclined to take any action other than monitoring the situation. He wrote: “At this time, NHTSA has not determined that this issue constitutes either a safety defect or noncompliance requiring a recall,” noting that the compliance test “does not contemplate actions taken by criminal actors to break open or remove part of the steering column and take out the ignition lock to start a vehicle.”

This is true even though FMVSS 114 was promulgated for this precise reason: to prevent casual thieves from quickly hot-wiring a vehicle for high-speed joy rides that end in tragedy. That’s why Safety Research & Strategies has petitioned NHTSA to strengthen the anti-theft compliance test provision. (You can read about it here: The Amazing Shrinking 114 )

 

Editor’s Note: This blog has been updated to reflect the software update recall initiated by Mercedes-Benz and posted by NHTSA on Jan. 10, 2022.

In August, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened a rollaway investigation into the Mercedes Sprinter vans with e-shifters that automatically move the transmission into Park when the driver leaves the seat. Used by Amazon’s delivery service providers, these vans have been sprinting away – with the shift indicator showing Park, and sometimes with the parking brake applied, too. Just before Christmas, Mercedes delivered a temporary fix with a Grinch-y rant against drivers. But, the preliminary evidence points to a long-established mechanical source of rollaway – a defective park pawl. Blame the driver is the manufacturers’ rollaway go-to, but will it make the investigation go away?

In 2021, Amazon Logistics – the fulfillment arm of the online retail behemoth – delivered more packages than FedEx – 4.2 billion parcel shipments in 2020, according to an analysis by Pitney Bowes. And all those billions of dish racks, books, clothing, 50-lb. bags of dog food – and every other household necessity, personal obsession, and impulse purchase – reaches America’s front doors via an army of drivers manning Amazon’s fleet, consisting mostly of Mercedes Sprinter vans.

By all accounts, the life of an Amazon delivery person is short and brutish, composed of 10-hour shifts humping as many as 40 packages an hour, while an Android device called a “rabbit” maps your route and tracks your execution to ensure that you are keeping up the pace. A December 2020, first-person, day-in-the-life-of-an-Amazon-delivery-driver story published by Business Insider, reported that a driver gets in and out of that van 200 times a day. A Reddit forum for Amazon drivers paints a fairly miserable picture of the experience – low pay, zero respect and push-to-the-breaking-point level of productivity expectations – which is apparently why the position has such high turnover.

Given the number of stops a day a driver must make and the relentless pace of delivery, Amazon needed a van that would provide good protection against rollaway, the long-time safety hazard of unintended movement in a vehicle with no driver. Rollaways can occur when the engine is on, or off, and can be caused by mechanical and software failures, or by design-induced human error.

The 2019 Mercedes Sprinter van appeared to deliver – with an electronic shifter that provides one of the most comprehensive automatic shift-to-Park algorithms The Safety Record, which has pored over scores of service literature and owner’s manuals, and examined dozens of vehicles, has ever seen. (We’ll get to that in a moment) An electronic shifter replaces the mechanical connection between the gear selector and the transmission with software that sends electronic signals from the gear selector interface to an electronic control module which relays the request to the transmission. In a 2019 Mercedes Sprinter, the shifter is a steering column mounted stalk behind the steering wheel that is pressed up or down, depending on the gear. Park is a button on the end of the lever.

 

Mercedes Sprinter vans – particularly in the 2019 model year – were rolling away with enough regularity to catch the attention of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Office of Defects Investigation (ODI).

In early August, ODI opened a Preliminary Evaluation of 19,000 2019 Mercedes Sprinter vans. The Opening Resume described the potential defect as: “MY 2019 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 2500/3500/4500 vans, configured for use as Amazon delivery vehicles or ambulances, roll away shortly after being shifted to Park using the Auto-P function.” The investigation is based on 11 consumer complaints in NHTSA’s Vehicle Owner’s Questionnaire (VOQ) database, representing eight crashes and one injury. A broader search turns up a total of 19 such reports. They have narratives like these:

The delivery driver placed the van in park on a hill and engaged the emergency parking brake.  While the engine was still running the delivery driver took a minute or two to locate his package and proceeded to step out of the driver door while the van was still running.  Just as he was stepping out of the van the driver heard several loud clicks and the van proceeded roll away and was stopped by a large tree branch that caused damage to the roof of the van.  I have had several of these vans roll away some causing significant damage to the vans, other people’s property and 2 drivers have been hurt as a direct result of this same problem.

Here’s another, with a more serious outcome:

The contact’s client was utilizing a 2019 Mercedes- Benz Sprinter 2500 for work. The contact stated while the vehicle was in park, the driver exited the vehicle however, it rolled backward, flipped over, and crushed the driver’s legs. There were no warning lights illuminated. The driver sustained road and chemical burns and medical attention was provided.  A police report was filed. There was no report of a fire or airbag deployment. The vehicle was towed to an independent lot. The local dealer was not contacted. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure and inspected the vehicle where the black box was retrieved. The contact mentioned referenced NHTSA Action Number PE21019 (Power train). The failure mileage was 965.

Or, if you prefer, you can watch a typical incident:

Rollaway is a longstanding, and diverse problem — recalls and investigations going back to the 1970s show that the root causes range from broken parts, like pawls and rods, to the effect of new technologies, such as keyless ignitions and new electronic transmission gear shift designs, on driver behavior. In the last several years, The Safety Record has been reporting on this safety problem and the solutions – you can read about them here:  

Technology Has Made Rollaways Easier: Technology Can Prevent Them

The Persistence of Rollaway

The 2019 Sprinter, a vehicle predominantly used by delivery expeditors, is the first model year of the third generation of the van, and the first year to use the e-shifter, a design found on many other Mercedes models. In 2018, Amazon announced that it had ordered 20,000 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans that would be leased by its Delivery Service Partners – a program for small business owners to deliver packages ordered through Amazon. Amazon Sprinter vans have an auto-shift-to-park function that automatically moves the electronic shifter to the Park position, if the driver attempts to exit without first securing Park, regardless of whether the engine is on or off. Auto-shift-to-Park features first emerged as a safety measure on passenger vehicles with e-shifters that used non-standard shift controls – like buttons, rotary knobs, and Monostable stick selectors that always return to the center position after gear selection. These new shifter designs lack the mechanical detents and consistent PRNDL sequence that most drivers were used to. This has led to drivers misjudging the gear position and exiting the vehicle without securing it in Park, followed by NHTSA investigations and recalls to implement a failsafe, such as an automatic shift-to-park feature.

Further, if the Sprinter van is not in Park and the driver opens the door, or unbuckles the seat belt or gets out of the seat, the e-shifter moves to Park. That covers all of the components of driver exit. That last condition – driver leaves seat – is determined by a driver seat occupant detection sensor, a design feature that is atypical for in these designs. While Automatic shift-to-park features in the U.S. fleet work under a variety of conditions – some only activate if the driver has turned the engine off, some don’t work if the transmission is in Neutral. Most use the combination of seatbelt unbuckled, no brake application, and the driver’s door open as the markers for driver exit. But, the Sprinter design with its driver occupant detection sensor as the trigger seems to acknowledge the realities of an Amazon delivery driver’s day.  

The Sprinter is also available with an optional Electronic Parking Brake (EPB). EPBs are an increasingly common feature that can be configured to automatically activate under whatever conditions the automaker chooses. Again, some only activate when the engine is turned off, or when the brake hold mode is manually activated, a convenience feature that holds the vehicle at a temporary stop – like a traffic light – without requiring the brake pedal to be depressed, and then releases when the accelerator is depressed to resume travel. Other manufacturers automatically apply the EPB to prevent rollaway. For example, 2014 model year Jeep and Chrysler models added “Safehold” that will engage the EPB automatically if the transmission is not in Park, the seat belt is unbuckled, the service brake is not applied and the driver’s door is opened. The commercial version of the 2019 Ram ProMaster 2500 van, a rebadged Mercedes Sprinter – also used as Amazon delivery vans – have a mechanical shift lever and an automatically applied EPB. Others with auto-applied EPBs include Ford, GM, Volvo and Mercedes – in other models.

The Amazon-configured vans have an old-school hand-operated mechanical parking brake.

So how is this happening? Drivers are reporting that the transmission was in park, and some maintained that they pulled the mechanical parking brake lever, too. Despite Mercedes’ thoughtful approach to rollaway prevention using vehicle electronics, the problem appears to lie with its mechanical components. According to David Bizzak, a Monroeville, PA-based mechanical engineer who has examined the failure mechanism in several Sprinters, the park pawl, which locks the transmission to prevent vehicle movement doesn’t consistently maintain engagement in the ring gear. This design was intended for use on lighter vehicles, but the heavier Sprinter vans appear to put greater forces on the tapered park pawl, and that added friction can force the pawl out of engagement when under load.

“This transmission has been used in Mercedes’ car line for many years, and to our knowledge there isn’t a rollaway issue with their passenger cars,” Bizzak says. “We believe it may be possible that the heavier weight of the Sprinter van creates a situation in which this disengagement of the park pawl can occur.”

In addition, says Bizzak, the parking brake requires a lot of clicks – like 10 – before it is fully engaged.

It’s difficult to know where NHTSA’s investigation is at. The only documents in the public file are the Opening Resume, and an information request to Mercedes, asking for things like its communications with Amazon, and an explanation why FedEx, which also uses Sprinters, is not having the same problem. We do know that NHTSA was present at an inspection that Bizzak also attended in April 2021 where this park pawl problem became evident.

In the meantime, on December 15, Mercedes filed a recall Part 573 Notice of Defect and Noncompliance report in which it blamed a rare condition it calls a “park lock system error” that could only result in a rollaway if the driver does not put the vehicle transmission in Park and set the manual parking brake. (NHTSA acknowledged the recall on January 7.)  The remedy involves installing revised software in the ESP control unit on the recall population.

The defect could affect as many as 48,000 of 2019 to 2021 Mercedes and Freightliner Sprinter vans, built on Platform 907, between June 05, 2018 and November 30, 2020 with a manual parking brake and a 7-speed automatic transmission that was manufactured between May 1, 2018 and October 31, 2019 in the Hedelfingen transmission plant in Germany. How many out of the 48,000 are so afflicted? Mercedes guesses it’s at 1 percent.

Mercedes mentions two problems: A “rare and temporary park lock function error” it identified during testing, and it “a separate factor” that can contribute to the park lock function error “or enhance the related rollaway risk: the ‘Park Lock Support’ (‘PLS’) function.” The PLS is part of the ESP Control Unit, not the transmission, which “applies continued brake pressure after the vehicle is stopped and the gear selector is placed in ‘P.’” Mercedes could not isolate that cause of the failure, “despite its intensive investigation, multifaceted testing, analyses, and evaluation.”

The PLS applies brake pressure after the transmission is put into Park, so it almost functions like an automatically applied electronic parking brake. The recall notice does not explain how long the PLS is active after putting the transmission into Park, or why it is even necessary for the vehicle to apply hydraulic brake pressure after the driver or the vehicle automatically shifts into Park.    

Or maybe, the PLS is more like a brake hold or hill hold – driver convenience features found on many vehicles – which, if activated, allow the driver to take their foot off the brake while at a temporary stop, like at a traffic light or on an incline. Brake Hold / Hill Hold features apply  hydraulic brake pressure to the wheels and typically release when the driver depresses the accelerator pedal and resumes travel. Brake Hold / Hill Hold systems requires a running engine to power the hydraulic brake pressure; it is meant to be temporary, and in most vehicles with the feature, the Brake Hold mode only lasts between three and 10 minutes. In many vehicles with an electronic parking brake, the Brake Hold / Hill Hold will automatically apply the EPB after a specified time period, to hold the vehicle in place, or if the driver shuts off the engine and attempts to leave the vehicle while it is being held stationary in Brake Hold Mode.

In either case, Mercedes is doesn’t disclose how it’s resetting the PLS parameters, but the essence of the system suggests that it is creating an EPB-like system using the hydraulic brakes to ensure that the vehicle will remain stationary for some unspecified time – likely the amount of time it takes an Amazon delivery person to hop out of the van, deposit a package on the doorstep and be on the way to the next stop.

The Safety Record has questions why these specific vehicles and these specific transmissions? Had Mercedes already implemented a mechanical or software fix to prevent these rollaways in the vans after Nov. 30, 2020, without filing a Part 573 within five days of deciding that there was a problem with the 2019s?    

Mercedes maintains that the driver has to follow “parking instructions” – in other words, put the transmission into park and get all 10 clicks on the parking brake lever to prevent a rollaway. Why does it matter whether the driver or the vehicle shifts the transmission into Park? According to the Mercedes service description, the Park Lock function is agnostic on the subject of how the Park position is achieved:

Park pawl control, general 

The park pawl is used as an additional safety feature for the parking brake and its purpose is to secure the vehicle to prevent it from rolling away inadvertently. 

The park pawl essentially consists of the parking lock mechanism and the electrohydraulic components located at the rear of the transmission housing. There is no mechanical connection whatsoever between the park pawl components of the automatic transmission and the DIRECT SELECT lever (S16/13) (“Park-by-Wire”).

The park pawl is engaged and disengaged purely by electrohydraulic means, either by operating the DIRECT SELECT lever or depending on various factors such as opening the driver’s door whilst the drivetrain is operational.

 

Is it really the application of the mechanical parking brake that would prevent the rollaways? Is it realistic to think that Amazon deliverers will take the time to set the parking brake scores of times a day with enough force to hold the vehicle and without running afoul of the rabbit on their phones? Why did Mercedes bother with such a comprehensive auto-park algorithm? If the parking brake is the primary park feature, why is this manual design used rather than an EPB that can ensure full clamp load and provide automatic application?

A week later, Mercedes issued a temporary fix and “an important safety reminder.” The former is an update to the PSM module which would sound a horn if the driver leaves the seat without the parking brake engaged. Mercedes says this was tested on some fleet vehicles and is effective.

The latter is one of the nastier blame- the-driver statements we have seen from a manufacturer – and we’ve seen a few. For example, in the late 1970s to early1980s, Ford JATCO transmissions that were experiencing Park-to-Reverse were linked to 306 deaths. In 1977, NHTSA initiated the first of several investigation into the root causes. It found two design flaws and evidence that Fords were at least 12 times more likely to experience Park-to-Reverse than GM or Chrysler vehicles. Ford denied that there was any technical or mechanical defect, and placed the blame on drivers:

…Ford has submitted data to NHTSA data, views, and arguments to establish that no such defect exists. Ford believes that these submissions demonstrate that unexpected vehicle movement is the result of drivers’ inadvertent misplacement of the gear selector lever, can and does occur, though rarely, on all manufacturers’ automatic transmission-equipped vehicles, and is not attributable to any defect in the vehicle design or construction. When unexpected vehicle movement incidents do occur, as they can on any automatic transmission-equipped vehicle, serious consequences may result. Ford believes, however, that such incidents can be avoided if before leaving the driver’s seat, all drivers observe three commonsense steps to make sure the vehicle is securely immobilized. These steps are: 1) properly engaging the transmission system in “park,” 2) setting the parking brake, and, 3) shutting off the engine.

More recently, Chrysler took a swipe at customers who bought one of its products with a Monostable e-shift design. The T-handle style shifter that was located on the center console between the driver and passenger, which looked like a traditional mechanical shift lever, but was activated by depressing a button on the handle and moving the handle rearward or forward – but the handle always returns back the centered/neutral position, which made it easy to misjudge the gear selection.

In April 2016, FCA recalled 811,146 MY 2014-2015 Jeep Grand Cherokees, and 2012-2014 Dodge Chargers and Chrysler 300s, to stave off a NHTSA investigation that was gathering steam.  NHTSA had tested the shifter and found that “the monostable gear selector is not intuitive and provides poor tactile and visual feedback to the driver, increasing the potential for unintended gear selection.” The remedy was the installation of an automatic shift to park feature. The recall notice scolded drivers for failing to heed FCA’s crappy warnings:

FCA US has determined that the existing strategies built into these vehicles to deter drivers from exiting the vehicle after failing to put the transmission into Park have not stopped some from doing so. Drivers erroneously concluding that their vehicle’s transmission is in the PARK position may be struck by the vehicle and injured if they attempt to get out of the vehicle while the engine is running and the parking brake is not engaged. FCA US has therefore determined that the absence of an additional mechanism to mitigate the effects of driver error in failing to shift the Monostable gear selector into PARK prior to exiting the vehicle constitutes a defect presenting a risk to motor vehicle safety.

Mercedes’ statement is more obnoxious by several orders of magnitude and makes the others look subtle. (Read the entire statement.) Here are some of the best parts:

We note that recently there appear to be drivers of Amazon’s Sprinter fleet who continue to refuse to follow important safety guidelines. Most importantly, each and every time an Amazon Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van is parked, the driver must properly shift the vehicle into “park,” set the parking brake per the instructions in the owner’s manual, and otherwise obey all local laws (e.g., turn the wheels to the curb when parking on an incline, etc.). These rules must be followed every time a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van is parked — there can be no exceptions. Following these rules is critical to prevent vehicle roll-aways, and the risk of serious personal injury and/or property damage that accompanies them…. we continue to observe instances of drivers buckling their seatbelts improperly, in an effort to try to “trick” the system into thinking the driver is properly using his/her seat belt. For example, seatbelts are pulled behind seats then buckled or otherwise buckled outside of the proper normal fashion around the seat occupant. This not only is illegal under applicable local law, it also is terribly unsafe, and must never occur, as it can result in serious injury.

Mercedes went on to say that it has been begging Amazon to implement this horn honk.

Hmm, why wouldn’t Amazon want their branded delivery vehicles to be honking all the time, waking up napping babies, interrupting Netflix shows and generally annoying their customers? Will Amazon’s drivers follow those safety rules, including setting the manual parking brake every time with enough force to prevent rollaway, while under constant pressure to meet their insane schedules? Videos of these deliveries show that some drivers, racing to meet deadlines don’t close the van door as they dash out to leave a package.

The better question is: Why doesn’t Mercedes put a more robust parking pawl in these delivery vans loaded with packages?