> The point at which we decide that a defect is serious enough to transfer liability is quite case-dependent. If you knew that the throttle was glitchy but hadn't done anything to fix it, yes. If it affected every car from the manufacturer, it's obviously their fault -- but if you ignore the recall then it might be your fault again?
In most American jurisdictions' liability law, the more usual thing is to expand liability, rather than transferring liability. The idea that exactly one -- or at most one -- person or entity should be liable for any given portion of any given harm is a common popular one in places like HN, but the law is much more accepting of the situation where lots of people may have overlapping liability for the same harm, with none relieving the others.
The liability of a driver for maintenance and operation within the law is not categorically mutually exclusive with the liability of the manufacturer (and, indeed, every party in the chain of commerce) for manufacturing defects.
If a car is driven in a way that violates the rules of the road and causes an accident and a manufacturing defect in a driver assistance system contributed to that, it is quite possible for the driver, manufacturer of the driver assistance system, manufacturer of the vehicle (if different from that of the assistance system) and seller of the vehicle to the driver (if different from the last two), among others, to all be fully liable to those injured for the harms.