An 83-year-old Hartland man died early Monday morning after the 1986 Jeep Cherokee he was repairing suddenly launched forward and struck him in an auto parts store parking lot in Highland Township. The man had been working on the vehicle when it surged unexpectedly, according to the Oakland County Sheriff's Office, which said he was rushed to a hospital but did not survive.
The crash happened just before 8 a.m. Saturday in the 3500 block of West Highland Road, according to WHMI. The man was taken to McLaren Oakland Hospital, a 318-bed Level II Trauma Center in Pontiac, where he later died, per the Oakland Press. Deputies and a Highland Township Fire Department crew responded to the scene and administered emergency medical care before he was transported.
Behind the wheel of the Jeep was the victim's own daughter, a 59-year-old Highland Township resident who had started the vehicle at her father's instruction, WHMI's reporting shows. The Oakland County Sheriff's Office said the vehicle then launched forward and struck the man. Sheriff Mike Bouchard called it a family tragedy on many levels, according to the same report.
Investigators Weigh Mechanical Failure Against Operator Unfamiliarity
The Oakland County Sheriff's Crash Reconstruction Unit is investigating whether a mechanical issue or unfamiliarity with the Jeep's manual transmission contributed to the crash, the sheriff's office said. Notably, alcohol, drugs and speed were not factors in the incident, per the same account.
The mechanical puzzle may hinge on the vehicle's age. Early manual-transmission Jeep Cherokee XJ models built starting in 1984 lacked factory-installed clutch interlock safety switches, meaning the engine could start and engage the drivetrain in gear without the clutch pedal depressed, according to technical archives maintained by NAXJA. Modern vehicles typically include interlocks or neutral safety switches specifically to prevent that kind of unexpected start.
Sheriff Urges Basic Precautions Before Starting a Vehicle
The Oakland County Sheriff's Office is using the tragedy to remind residents to take basic safety precautions when working on or around vehicles. Officials said vehicle maintenance requires communicating, securing the vehicle, and making sure everyone is clear before starting the engine, and that anyone starting a vehicle should verify an automatic transmission is in park, or a manual transmission is in neutral.
The sheriff's office also recommended setting the parking brake before beginning work and using wheel chocks when appropriate. People unfamiliar with a particular vehicle should not attempt to start it until they understand how to safely operate it, officials said, and anyone working on or around a vehicle should stay out of its potential path while the engine is being started or repairs are underway. Bouchard said lessons from tragedies like this one can help prevent similar incidents in the future.
Those guidelines echo long-standing federal safety research. The CDC's Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation program has emphasized that before starting a vehicle undergoing maintenance, operators should engage the parking brake, chock the wheels and confirm the transmission is in neutral or park, according to CDC Stacks. Separately, the CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has reported that motor vehicle-related incidents remain a leading cause of work and repair deaths nationwide, contributing to more than 21,000 fatalities between 2011 and 2022.
A Busy Stretch for County Crash Investigators
Highland Township contracts with the Oakland County Sheriff's Office for local law enforcement rather than maintaining its own police department, a structure shared by several townships across the county, according to Wikipedia. That arrangement is why sheriff's deputies and the department's Crash Reconstruction Unit — rather than a local police force — handled the response and investigation.
This is not the unit's only recent case. Investigators were also examining a fatal early-morning crash in Independence Township that killed a 24-year-old Pontiac man days earlier, as Hoodline previously reported. The Sheriff's Office and Highland Township Fire Department have a history of coordinating on serious calls in the area, including a multi-day joint water recovery search for a Hartland man in nearby White Lake Township in 2018.
Unintended vehicle movement of the kind described in Saturday's crash is a hazard federal regulators have tracked for years. Over a 10-year period, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened 18 formal safety investigations and monitored 93 manufacturer recalls tied to vehicle rollaway and unintended movement, according to research from Safety Research & Strategies, Inc. The Oakland County Sheriff's Crash Reconstruction Unit has not yet said whether it has determined a specific cause for the Highland Township crash.
