Should Porsche Be Held Accountable For The Death Of Paul Walker?
Paul Walker died in a car accident on 30 November 2013. He was the passenger in a Porsche Carrera GT that was being driven at an “unsafe speed for the roadway conditions“ by his racing driver friend Roger Rodas. When Rodas lost control of the car which smashed into a lamp post and a tree, they were travelling at between 80mph and 93mph on Michelin tyres that were thought to be nine years old.
Since Walker and Rodas’ death, tears have been shed and emotional tributes have been paid. But as with some high profile cases in the past, law suits have also been made. And that’s happened no fewer than three times against Porsche at the hands of Rodas’ widow, Walker’s daughter and now, Walker’s father.
Being brutally honest, I’m sick of hearing about yet more legal action that’s being taken against Porsche because the car “didn’t have safety features which might have prevented his death.” If this is grounds to be suing Porsche, then why not go after Michelin, the lamp post and the tree that destroyed the car and took the mens’ lives? Hell, if I ever crash and lose a limb does that mean that I can call up Mazda and tell them that I’ll be suing them because my 20-year-old MX-5 didn’t have proper crumple zones? I don’t think so…
In my eyes, this new lawsuit does nothing but cast a dirty cloud over the tragedy. Poorly maintained cars get fragile, tyres perish, and people drive like idiots every single day. Bearing in mind that all of these factors were present on that fateful day, I don’t think that Porsche should be held accountable for their deaths.
What’s your view on this?
Comments
I’d like to hear what kind of argument the people who voted yes have… I bet they’re only Jack Nicholson fans
No clue who the Jack Nicholson is but i voted yes because Paul’s death could have been provetened if they had a better seatbelt because Paul was alive on impact and consious and burned to death being unable to escape. thats the argument the family are bring at the moment. Them originally trying for traction control or stability control or what ever is stupid and i personally think this is the only thing that porsche should be held accountable for
As much as I miss him and as much as I wish he was alive and I want something to blame it on its not Porsches fault it was driver error
Listen people, a car should NEVER set fire!?
Yeaaaaah because cars dont use flammable fluids.. oh wait they do!
And for heavens sake Paul Walker is probably rotating in his grave.. he loved cars and even if that thing would have had a Stability Program, he would have turned it of, especially if he wanted to have some fun.
His death sucks, the guy who was driving may have been an idiot, but sueing Porsche? Thats just plainly stupid. Who wants to live on a planet on which stability programs cant be defeated? I wont, and if you have any business at all of commenting anything on car throttle, you shoudnt say such stupid things.
Physicaly impossible. Even on F1 cars, where there’s a higher risk of creating a situation where a car could set on fire, there is still a small chance a crashed F1 car could set on fire. And they use kevlar fuel tanks and stuff like that. You have something extremely flammable runing around in hoses close to an exhaust with gasses at around 1000°C passing trough it. What do you expect?
Cars don’t kill people, people kill people.
And lampposts #suethestate.
and people kill cars
i try to speak for us all.
we all love paul walker, and it was rly sad how he went away. but a sewing rampage wont bring him back. what killed him was a failure of the driver. and by that i dont want to say its all rodas fault. it just happened, we’re all sad, just like his family, but we got to move on. this topic just brings feelings up again and again.
Like I said the last time it came up….Walker and Rodas owned the shop Always Evolving in California. Always Evolving owned the vehicle. That means the business is responsible for the safe operation if the vehicle, and that includes replacing old tires.
searching for downvoted comments
Being the enthusiasts they were, they certainly knew the risks of driving a powerful car without any form of traction control… The fault is theirs. Not Porsche’s. I understand that they lost a family member and they’re upset, but can’t they understand that they were driving 80-90mph and hit a lamp post? How is that Porsche’s fault?
Suing Porche isnt going to make your brother come back.
werent the tyres over 5 year old?
correct me when im wrong but manufacturers are slightly responsible for calling in supercars for maintenance every now and then.. or am way off here?
Nope, it’s the customers responsibility to bring the car in for maintenance. Manufacturers only say when the car should get maintenance done, but they don’t have to ring the owners to ask them to have the car serviced.