Genuinely, in road safety, the company typically considers and weighs the cost of fixing an issue, vs the cost of lawsuits in the event of death/injury.

One paper on the topic talks about the Ford Pinto fuel system design: http://users.wfu.edu/palmitar/Law&Valuation/Papers/1999/Legg...

The GM ignition-switch recall also sparked a similar debate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_General_Motors_recall

So it's not uncommon that economics outweighs risk-to-life in a lot of businesses.