A young woman was driving a five-year-old American-made station wagon. She had been driving with the windows closed because it was raining.
She gradually became very drowsy and because of this she lost control of the car and crashed into an oncoming truck and was severely injured. Investigation revealed that carbon monoxide had seeped from the rusted exhaust system into the car through holes in the floorboards where a removable rear seat was located. Many European cars have ceramic lined exhaust systems to prevent this from happening. The increase in cost for Detroit to implement this design change would be negligible. The failure to warn about plugging the floorboard holes also provides a basis for recovery.