To avoid liability, a manufacturer must design and manufacture the product so that it is reasonably crashworthy, or, stated another way, the manufacturer must include accidents as intended uses of its product and design accordingly.
Per Gaudio, a crashworthiness claim requires proof of three elements: first, the plaintiff must prove that the design of the vehicle was defective; second, at the time of design an alternative, safer and practicable design existed that could have been incorporated instead; third, the plaintiff must identify those injuries he or she would (or would not) have received if the alternative design had instead been used.
