US Patent 7257473 Steering column switch system comprising an emergency operation function

A steering column switch system includes a device for recording the position of the steering column switch. The device converts the switching position that has been adopted by the steering column switch into a bit pattern. A decoding unit assigns a switching function to the bit pattern of the position that has been identified. Another device recognizes errors during the detection or transmission of the bit patterns. The decoding unit modifies the assignments between the bit patterns and the switching functions to be initiated as a function of the bit pattern errors.