^ There's already a messy trail for Porsche in the Courts. The previous suit by the family of the Rennlister who died at the oval track produced conflicting testimony by Porsche's own engineers of why the car was not designed with stabilitiy management (along with some of the GT 911's). The answers were not good ones, something along the lines of commercial need over safety. That's basically like opening up the check book from the witness stand. A better question would have been why the engines weren't tweaked towards more 'street-oriented' mapping making it a bit more manageable at low end. Too much cowbell for the average set of wrists..

p.s.
I went digging through some of the Rennlist threads to see if a previous owner of the car had chimed in and sure enough Graham Rahal was posting on it, it seems he's pretty upset about it all. I guess it makes you think that easily could of have been me.

What kind of litigation could these family proceed with? Suing for driving a car? Im not trying to be a smart as% and this is not an attack on your post but in all seriousness, what possibly could they sue for? A blown tire? sue for the fact that they were driving a 600 plus horsepower car and Porsche shouldnt build that fast of a car? THis will be interesting to see.

Litigation on this without a doubt will occur.

Another CGT crashed in 2006 at a track day event at California Speedway, the settlement was for $4.5 Million. The contributions to the settlement were about 49% from the estate of the driver, 41% from the track owners and the event organizers, 8% from Porsche, and 2% from the driver of the Ferrari that was claimed to have triggered the crash.

Tracy Rudl filed the lawsuit alleging the wrongful death of her husband, Corey Rudl, who was a passenger in the CGT owned and driven by Ben Keaton at the Ferrari Owners Club track day. Rudl was represented by attorney Craig McClellan, a former racer and a successful plaintiffs’ attorney from San Diego. As the CGT was traveling at about 130 mph on the straightaway, a Ferrari entered the track at a relatively slow speed. Keaton swerved to avoid it and the Porsche skidded into a concrete barrier wall, killing both men. The wall had been placed closer to the track than its original position, in order to enlarge the area behind it for use as a children’s play area during an earlier NASCAR race.

Discovery goes on and on but in the end it's going to get very ugly. It all makes you wonder why any car company would embark on selling such a vehicle.

I'm a believer in personal accountability. If you choose to buy a "dangerous" car, without stability controls, that's on you, not the manufacturer.

I don't undeerstand how people get large payouts for on-track accidents of any sort. When you enter any such event, you assume responsibility, even for other driver's boneheaded moves.

The concept of personal responsibility is unfortunately lost on most because of greed, laziness, and selfishness.

Why work when one can simply sue?

I am confident that there will be litigation and that, amongst other things, the plaintiffs will allege that the car was inherently unsafe for sale/use as a street vehicle; that the two segments of the tub were inadequately constructed; that the fire was due to negligent design/construction; that there was inadequate crush space, etc., etc. I suspect that they will also have little difficulty finding some 'experts' to support these propositions.

Even if the accident reconstruction reports clearly show that the vehicle was driven negligently and at a speed inappropriate for the road it was on, you will likely find a jury in the US that will feel sympathetic for two such nice young men and award millions. Afterall, a US jury awarded $2 million (as I recall) to a women who burned her thighs when she spilled coffee on them while opening the cup between her bare legs.

Why? There was no cautionary note that "cofffee is hot"! (That is why we now have these idiotic reminders on coffee cups). The real reason for the jury's decision, of course, is that MacDonalds has deep pockets and this poor, nice woman (who had great legs, I suspect) had to spend money she could not afford on only partially successful surgery on the disfigurement to those great legs. I am sure that some psychologist testified she is embarrssed to go out in shorts, or short dresses/skirts; that the most outstanding part of her figure was her legs and her sense of self-worth was inextricably bound up with the same. The poor girl was probably suicidal! What is worse, she will no longer be able to attract a 'leg man' - the type of man who dated her in the past. I mean, when Rod Stewart wrote the song 'Hot legs' he may have been thinking of her. Well, somebody has to pay and surely MacDonald's can afford it! Cha Ching!

Does anyone here actually believe that this will not end up in litigation? Does anyone honestly believe that Porsche will not ultimately pay out millions upon millions - likely to settle rather than try such a high profile case, whether or not they were negligent? Does anyone think they will be willing to lose in the court of public opinion, regardless of what may happen at trial?

Brad

^ actually that McCoffee case was a little more complicated than that. THat particular McDonald's was nuking the coffee and handing it over at temps well beyond what would be considered safe for a mobile hot beverage. I recall the surgeon who had to perform skin grafts on the old lady saying he'd never seen burns that bad from a simple coffee spill.

I think there will indeed be litigation if they can find evidence that there was some manner of malfunction. But if there was no malfunction, and this was just a case of too much HP with too little electronics nanying (for a road car), there will still be a legal action.

Also, the pricey lawyers for Porsche will know that they have already been convicted on the charge that their's is the brand that killed (another) famous actor. What they spend fighting the case will not be worth simply writing a check to the families. It will simply re-inforce a notion amongst many that Porsches are dangerous and a $80-$100K Jaguar or Merc is more forgiving and life-continuing. From a business point of view getting out the laywers to fight to the death, for years, is not conducive to sales.

Agreed perfectlap - precisely why I expect that there will be a lawsuit and that it will be settled. As far as the MacDonald's case is concerned, I still find it hard to believe that anyone would open a cup of coffee between their bare legs and not realize that it was hot. Coffee made with a french press is just a couple of minutes past boiling, as is percolated coffee. I don't care how much they nuked her coffee, I mean, do we really need warnings that "coffee is hot"! Keeping in mind that McDonald's cups are cardboard and not styrofoam, the outside of the cup alone is enough to cause burns if held for any period (which is why some people ask for double cups). What about tea? Don't they pour boiling water in the cup with a tea bag? Whether the plaintiff was an old (but either negligent or stupid) woman, or a young one with the same traits, I still think their verdict stands for the same proposition: juries who have sympathy for a plaintiff will tend to award them money due to that sympathy - and large amounts of money if the defendant is perceived as having large pockets.

If memory serves the old lady was willing to settle for as little as $20K in medical expenses (she spent a week in the hospital undergoing skin grafts and had burns to 20% of body) and a court-appointed mediator pegged settlement at like $200K. McD's refused both offers to settle (they spent way more on lawyers anyway -- go figure) and marched into court. In the end the jury gave the old lady $3 million! Sometimes you have to know when the math does not make sense no matter what the lawyer dudes are saying. Which is exactly what will happen in the case of the car that killed another young handsome actor.

It happened in California, the lawyer state. Somebody sneezes and you can sue and win $3mil here. I'm sure every personal injury and wrongful death attorney in the state is descending on these two families like flying monkeys on Dorothy. Porsche has deep pockets and they will surely extract the necessary funds for their clients... less the customary 30% fee of course.

It is after all the home of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals lol. They've shown over the years the common sense proclivity of a duck.

Given the "Earnings Potential" of the deceased, my guess is this will undoubtedly rise to another level entirely. I pity those who will get ensnared.

As far as the family of the driver is concerned, I would think that in order to be successful in any litigation they would have to prove that there was a mechanical malfunction with the car that caused the crash and driver's death. As for the passenger's family it is a completely different scenario. It is clear to me that if speed was a factor in the crash, the driver was the one operating the vehicle at the unsafe speed. Don't forget that "they" were not driving the car. Only one of them was the driver. Unless the passenger was reaching over and pushing the throttle or grabbing the steering wheel, I can't imagine how his family would not recover in a lawsuit against the driver. Driving a car at (presumably) double the speed limit is probably negligence per se. Failing to keep the vehicle under control and failing to stop it before the collision is negligence on the part of the driver. Since when does getting in a car with somebody give them a license to drive like a maniac and kill you? Is it any different than if the driver were intoxicated, crashed and killed his passenger?

A first look at the crash site from an engineer who does accident investigations offers a few clues to what happened:

I do talk to a white-haired man with small, even white teeth, who's been strolling around the site with a few inches of tape measure sticking out of one fist. None of the newspeople is paying any attention to him. He's an engineer who works in a building nearby. He came out here the first day and took pictures. The engineer's son is a "pro drifter," and he came out, too, and it was pretty clear to both of them what had happened. The whole story's written on the pavement, the engineer says. He asks me not to use his name, says it wouldn't be right for him to go on the record spouting off, that it might muddy the waters if there's ever an official investigation.

The engineer does accident investigations — deep-sea shipwrecks, air crashes. That's what this reminds him of, he says, an air crash. We walk up and down for almost 40 minutes and he shows me things about the site. Telltale signs. The boarded-up second-story window in the building behind the crash site, broken by a piece of the car — the starter, everybody's saying. This is how you know how fast they were going. For the starter to have broken a window 120 feet from where the car hit the pole, the engineer says, the car would have to have been traveling at 120 mph or more. Basic physics, the engineer says.

We walk down the hill, and he shows me the Carrera's tire marks on the pavement, tells me about the difference between a skid and a scuff. A skid is the kind of transfer of rubber that happens when a car is stopping; a scuff is what you get when a tire is locked and juddering sideways across the pavement. These are scuffs, the engineer says. From the scuffs, and the way the two tracks converge on the pavement, and a red-paint scrape-mark where the low front spoiler on the GT might have clipped the curb, it's pretty clear the car was in an "evasive slide" when it hit the pole. Like what you might do — and I say "might," as the engineer took pains to — were you a skilled driver trying to avoid hitting something while traveling at over 120 mph.

The engineer holds his cell phone out flat, turns it in the air, shows me how the mass of the car would have brought it around. He thinks the pole hit the driver's side first, then spun the car into the trees. Which means the notion that Walker died instantly — in the crash, not the fire — may be wishful thinking.

"Morbid ****************," the engineer says, when I ask him if he has noticed the collectors on the hillside. Not to mention that this is still technically a crime scene. The engineer says he saw the police taking a few measurements that day, but he hasn't seen anybody take a picture of the paint scrape on the curb yet. The engineer thinks that, as a car guy, Walker would want people out here, figuring out what had happened.

"He understood the physics of cars, and I think he would expect car enthusiasts to come out here and analyze it. And learn from it. So it doesn't happen again. It certainly has changed the way the drift kids are thinkin' right now. They're all scared ****************less. Young kids, they've got a drift club here in town. It's a wake-up call for them. They use this guy's lifestyle as a role model. So that's a big event for these car enthusiasts. Especially my son — he's pretty upset right now. You feel a kindred spirit, like you're connected to the guy. It's had a traumatic effect. I mean, look at this — were you here yesterday? There were like a thousand people here yesterday."


Dead Man's Curve: The Scene at Paul Walker's Crash Site and the Way We Mourn Now - Hollywood Prospectus Blog - Grantland

The local fast 'n furious crowd was blocking traffic on I-295S tonight. Maybe 50 of them, flashers going, driving 30-40mph and revving engines. Figured it was in "honor/memoriam" of PW, and stupid me for calling them out on their bull**** of blocking all three lanes. :rolleyes:

"Porsche Carrera GT Dangerous Vehicle Product Liability Lawsuit"

Only in America, my friends, only in America!

Life is full of dangers. You climb a ladder, you break your neck. You walk a tightrope over the Grand Canyon, you splatter. You watch Fox News, you go brain dead. You buy a fast car, you crash and kill yourself.
I'm sick and tired of these shady lawyers trying to make a buck of the stupidity and misery of others.

My thoughts exactly! It's outright disgusting!
Roger Rodas killed Mr. Walker, not a darn machine. Ok, that's speculation as it could have been mechanical failure, but I think the point is obvious.

When someone is shot and killed, their family doesn't sue Smith & Wesson.
I'm a patriot, but the American people have become something that I want no part of. Social media and mass media are the worst..."guilty until we decide your not", Nancy Grace mentality :mad:

I reassure you that it has nothing to do with the USA mate - stay proud. Canada, China, The United Kingdoms, all have the same appetitive and means to fight for their rights. Heard it's tuff in other place of the world as well :/

I truly believe in the Justice For All system or similar.... what I can't bear are those rats roaming around (the dead in this case) trying to make money off other's miseries. That is the saddest part imho

You are right. I was posting angry. I just found out that I got an 89.75% in my geography class and I'm not happy about that, lol :o
0.25% away from an "A". Grrrrrr....

That's going to hurt the GPA. Back on topic and I'm out of this one ;)
I'll let the experts handle it.

I got a kick out of them twice mentioning that lawyers are experts at determining the saftety of vehicles. My a$$.

+ 1

As tragic as it is, same goes for personal accountability for getting in any car as a passenger. trust is great, but doesn't absolve you of the responsibility for your own actions. Meaning, Paul Walker would be alive today if he just said "No thanks".

I remember the controversy and limits when motorcycles were required to not exceed a specific horsepower per CC. Or even the requirement to were a helmet if you ride a motorcycle (I always did and felt anyone that didn't wear a helmet had no right to complain about the injury they received when their head hit the pavement). I don't see ANY difference in this than a high performance car without traction control.

Legislation and limits are not the answer. Personal responsibility is. Most people will not assume responsibility for their own actions. It's somethings else that is the cause, someone else is he cause, etc. For my view, it's simple, from the day you are born it's about choice. You make your choices and accept the responsibility for them.

It is not the manufacture's responsibility as they did not force you to buy it. You made a choice to buy it (whatever it is) and use it. Similar to the the old adage ... "It's not guns that kill people. It's people that kill people."

People don't kill people, do they?! Doesn't sound natural with our instinct anyway.....

I live in a country where any sort of weapon is highly prohibited and nobody dies mate. 1.4billion and growing healthy ;)

Taking responsibility means 'suffering' is involved and north americans are taught that 'there are ways around that'- like drugs, for example. Maturity has never been so scarce.

Maturity = no thanks
Common Sense = yes
Experience = yes
Sport cars = Yes!
Race bikes = Yes!
Drugs = old school

Back on topic, I'd be interested to know what's written in little characters on that Dealer's release contract when you sign-off a purchase on a 'performance' street-legal vehicle - such as a CGT. Anybody knows?

Yeah, you're probably right. When you get paralyzed in an accident caused by a drunk driver, you should accept personal responsibility and realize that you chose to drive on that street at that time and if you would have taken a different route you would not have been injured. Too bad for you. Or when you are electrocuted by a defective toaster you should accept the responsibility that it was your decision to have toast with your eggs and just live with the consequences. Or when you are poisoned by tainted chicken, just accept the responsibility and realize you should have eaten beef. I guess in your perfect world it would always be the fault of the person who is injured or killed. After all, they could have made a different decision. I'm just glad I don't live in your world.

Ethics, chance and the law- hmmn. We're gett'in down to it now.

I realize that this stuff hits pretty close to home for you Link and I am certain that Walker's attorneys will win a significant settlement from both Rodas estate and Porsche. From all the preliminary evidence it looks like they were going roughly 100 mph over the speed limit on that street. Any time you are 100 over and you hit a fixed object, bad things happen. I suspect that this car did not get there by itself and it could have easily been any high performance sports car. Someone had to pull the trigger and at this point it looks like Rodas.

You right wing nutcase lunatics drive me crazy!!! Personal responsibility, Bah! Dont you get it? So exactly who put a parking lot NEAR A TREE!!!! Who sold concrete to make a surface that was easy to go fast on IN A PARKING LOT!!! Who made the gasoline with the energy in it to propel the car, with NO regard how it might be used?!?!?!?!? MY GOD! THINK OF THE BABY HARP SEALS!!! Who planted the tree? Did they have money? Don't even get me started on the car company, I KNOW they have money. Somebody has to pay , and pay big, right? That's justice, and there isn't any justice until a lawyer gets paid. Oh yeah, and as an aside, Paul Walker is still dead, so is Nelson Mandela, so lets all just move along, nothing to see here...

Hmmmm, sounds more like left-wing, nut case, lunatic, guns kill everyone by themselves magically, let's protect everyone from everything with MORE LAWS, big settlements send messages, thinking.....:rolleyes:

Maybe leave politics out of this? Is this Obama's fault or the fault of the person driving wreckless?

I really don't believe that car was going 100 mph at the point of impact. This wasn't a normal car, it was an as close to racing car as you may ever see short of something like the P1. Such a car hitting anything at 100 mph would have disintegrated. People forget that most of that damage was done by the fire after the crash. And indeed the fire left it a rubble but the wheels were still attached to that car and the tub looked to be relatively whole, the occupants still strapped in. I said it from the start, the impact did not kill both of those guys, this was a survivable crash for at least one of the guys. The one who didn't take the brunt of the light pole impact the door side.

I don't believe the 100mph thing either. 45 is closer.

At 100+ that car would have continued into those shops!

That's all true, those guys exercised free will in getting into a inherently dangerous car.

But this isn't an analog issue. You're certainly welcomed to put all of the blame on one party but I think that's a little too convenient for Porsche's sake. Everyone knows that high powered sports cars are dangerous, but does everyone know when they are in a yet higher level of danger because of safety compromises made for the sake of profit?

They exercised extremely poor judgment in selling this car as a production road car without taking some life-saving precautions. For starters they knew well ahead of the release that this car was not for novices yet no qualification was needed. They had every reason to believe that this car behaves like so many illegal for the street racing cars, and that sooner or later someone would turn the car into a heap. They recently acknowledged with the GT3 launch in press interviews that safety was prime motivation for moving to electric steering of high performance car, the old school steering fluid is highly flamable in the event of crash a simple spark could turn it into fireball. Yet they still chose to have the CGT fuel tank that close to the drivers, and still chose not to add some flavor of stability management or recalibration of the engine/throttle to make it more docile in green hands. This is a recipe for an accident that is survivable but the occupant(s) still get burned to death.

Did Paul Walker know he could be burned alive because of the peculiar crash-worthiness of this car? We'll never know.

I can't say that I agree in the least with any of those statements...
 

people purchase these cars for attention and to some level, the inherent danger in driving them. They want them to feel as raw and visceral as possible. They will continue to do so whether or not they have the driving skills to pilot such a vehicle or not and I do not think it is up to the government or the car companies to decide if you have the "right stuff" to own an exotic of this level. Truth be told, lots of kit cars built by amateurs are probably just as dangerous and even more poorly engineered and I do not believe anyone is complaining about them. The car could probably use some form of traction/stability control but then it would be another computer guided missle like the GTR. The fact is the CGT is one of a dying breed of true super cars. How many times have people trash talked the F-40 because it is so primal...they do not because that is what makes it so unique.

I'm sure we will find out soon enough. A back-of-a-napkin calculation of the forces required to break off the starter motor and hurl it 120' into a second story office window suggests 100mph+ to me... but I could be wrong. :)

I certainly don't want anyone telling what I can or can not buy. Porsches fault? Give me a break. You can do as much or more damage with guns, speed boats, wave runners, motorcycles. I'm almost certain that if it was in our price range and available more than half of the guys on this fórum would have the same car in their garage .

Yes. Yes I would.

Amen to that...
 

I would pay someone to drive it for me I think so I could drive behind it just to hear the exhaust note. (the engine sounds good from the inside too but the exhaust....:D) Better yet, I might just buy two of them so I could chase the other one and listen to the exhaust note or buy a mountain with a tunnel cut through it.

I'm in total agreement, 45 mph is completely laughable.

Here's a video of a pair of Carrera GT's screaming around the streets somewhere in Cali, watch how easily they break traction. Imagine how quickly they could bite you in the arse, they would without a doubt be a handful to drive. The sound they put out is indeed intoxicating but watching these two clowns drive them through city traffic like that is pretty poor form.

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/bxXb9JYYFfI?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

They are sure driving like a bunch of asshats. Easy to see how quick one can lose it in this car. In this video if they had lost control it would be total their responsibility. I could see that being the case in Paul's situation. If your cruising at 45 and hit it for a couple seconds your going to be going pretty fast.

The traffic in this video reminds of why I no longer live in LA. Lasts time I was out there I was driving my E55 and I felt like a gorilla caged up. All the power but no way to use it.

Funny, the exhaust from the CGT made my dogs go ballistic.

Wow. When the video started both my dog and cat went crazy.