Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkStar
Roger Rodas (born October 31, 1975 in El Salvador) was a race car driver and co-founder of Always Evolving, an auto parts business, from El Salvador. He started Always Evolving with actor Paul Walker.
Actually from everything you can google on Roger Rodas.... He's no Noob Either..
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I don't think that helps Porsche's case one bit. Graham Rahal was saying you must be a highly skilled to drive the car safely. Meaning the car was inherently unsafe
for a road car that can be sold to any Tom, Dick or Harry. A very good trial lawyer will present that statement from Rahal to a jury and ask them why Porsche would deliberately remove driver's assists, then follow up with Porsche's own test driver Walter Rohrl, a world class racing champion, who made a public statement that the car made his face turn white and that he urged Porsche to put in the driver's assists since it was car that would be driven on public roads and presumably where it would rain at one point another. Yet Porsche refused for the sake of selling more cars. If Rodas had switched off the driver's assists the case would be garbage. Unfortunately for Porsche, they decided to think in black and white and treat as a binary issue, all or nothing on driver's assists.
But the really, really big issue for Porsche is those seat belts.... and the decision to bolt them to the car in the way they did... on a car without the test driver-recommended driver's assists. The trial lawyer will have a very strong case that the accident itself was survivable since soot was found in his breathing passages but the unsafe seat belt design (easily proven) left him paralyzed from the accident, so he was effectively burned alive. Do you REALLY want to go a jury with that? In a very public trial where video cameras will most likely be allowed in court room since it's state court? That would be insanely foolish. Porsche already looks bad because many people, including former employees say the car is still unsafe for public streets. I heard one former sales manager say (on video) he would absolutely not ride as a passenger in the car when it was being sold on the floor. Another witness for the plaintiffs.
They'll also question the lack of roll cage (handy for safely anchoring seat belts) so common in their own RS cars over the years.
Secondly, and also directly tied to Walker being burned alive, the dubious choice of fuel lines that could not withstand a public street accident, when safe options were available to Porsche highly effective in keeping customers from becoming human flambe. The trial lawyer will have a whole day just on that particular part selection. It's like shooting fish in a barrel for a high-powered trial lawyer. And I have a pretty good idea which one is being contacted now to do the oral argument. He has probably close to a billion dollars in jury awards, plenty of dough to spend on very respected experts in the fields of auto racing and sports car safety to eviscerate Porsche's decision making, some of which has been contradicted by their own employees in past cases, so this trial lawyer will make them look either dishonest or incompetent, both bad in front of civil juries.
Said jury will likely take into account that driver error, or even recklessness made the accident possible in the first place. And you could well argue that Porsche need to make the case that one takes their own life in their hand when they drive over 55 mph but making that particular case, no matter how important, is virtually impossible without shining a light on the decision making that made this car more dangerous which will cause many prospective buyers to question what ill-advised decisions they're still making. For example... the center wheel locks on the Carrera GT, still sold on cars today that have had dubious on-track incidents featured on YouTube. It boggles the mind why they would take this kind of gamble in their biggest sales market. As far as the case itself, there is a very strong possibility that the jury could completely ignore the driver error issue simply because they're angry at Porsche's decisions on driver's assists, seat belts, fuel lines, etc., and chose to punish the company.