There is a time and a place for punitive lawsuits; this is not one of those times.
As others have said, when the assisted portion of the brakes or steering fail, you still have mechanical means of maintaining control of the vehicle.
Lets say we make it a law that all cars must have an additional electric backup system for brakes and steering. Suppose manufacturers were able to implement both for the unbelievably low price of $100. That would mean every one of the 15.6 million new cars sold every year in the U.S. would cost $100 more. That's $1,560,000,000. Spread that out over the 13 people that supposedly died due to the lack of backup systems, and that amounts to $120,000,000 per person. It's simply not worth it.
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Originally Posted by Big time
I'm pretty sure large airplanes have a backup system to move the aero control surfaces, even if the engines stop running.
BTW large airplanes are supposed to be engineered to be a safe as known possible.
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Large aircraft have multiple backup systems to maintain power and flight control. Many have 3 separate hydraulic systems to move the control surfaces. Power for the hydraulics is primarily run from the main engines, but can be run from the auxiliary power unit (APU) which is also a turbine run on jet fuel. As a last resort, the ram air turbine (RAT) can be deployed to provide minimal electronics and hydraulics.
Even with all of this, planes are not built to be as safe as possible. They are built to be as safe as economically possible, which means there are many things that could be done to make them safer if cost weren't an issue.
Interestingly, 85% of all plane crashes can be attributed to pilot error. I suspect there is a similar statistic for motorists. If people are concerned for their safety, they should train themselves to be safe.