I know this is probably not the best forum for this but I know the folks on here so they are the people I want to talk with this about :P

here is a strange story:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/volvo-held-liable-for-875-million-in-lawsuit-brought-by-yonkers-accident-victim-who-lost-his-leg-78519967.html

To summarize:
This guy bought a 1985 740 wagon, and while him and his neighbour were look at the engine with the hood up, the owner offered to start the car for the neighbour. The owner reached through the window and cranked the engine, forgetting the car was a manual. The car lurched forward and pinned the neighbour to a wall, and he had to have his leg amputated.

The article says that Volvo started installing an interlock that prevents this from happening (cranking the engine while it's in gear) starting in MY2000.

That's all fine.

I take issue with the article's tone really, as they make it sound like it was common practice to install this interlock, but the car was from 1985 when that was pretty much unheard of...

anyway, it's crazy to think that he got them to pay 8+ million dollars for not installing a piece of safety equipment that wasn't introduced for 15 years after that car was made!

(to be fair I'm sure they could have produced this interlock system in 1985, but I never heard of cars that old having such a thing installed, so I don't think it was common practice to be sure)