Paul Walker’s Daughter Suing Porsche; Nobody Wins
Nearly two years ago, a bit of bad decision making ended with a Porsche Carrera GT stuffed sideways into a lightpole, on fire, with the bodies of Roger Rodas and Paul Walker inside. This would be the end of both the Fast and Furious star and his friend. Anytime something like this happens, the family of the deceased tends to lash out in every direction attempting to find some fault. In this case, it appears that the fault is being placed on Porsche’s shoulders, as Paul Walker’s daughter, Meadow, has officially filed suit against the company. The suit claims that it was not errors in judgment that caused the death of these two men, but a lawfully unsafe vehicle design.
The crux of the lawsuit rests on a few pieces: lack of traction control, inadequate side crash structure, poor seatbelt design, and a flawed fuel system design. Oh, the entire case also rests on the unproven theory that Paul Walker didn’t die on impact, but burned to death in the fire.
I appreciate that Meadow Walker is grieving still, and that she wants some sort of closure or fault to be found, but I think she is barking up the wrong tree. Traction control was not legally required in the U.S. until 2012, so I feel that any judge should immediately throw that claim out the window. The Dodge Viper from 2008-2010 had nearly identical horsepower and top speed numbers, complete with zero electronic traction nannies, and I don’t see anyone throwing around law suits when those get crashed. And that happens a lot more than someone stuffing a Carrera GT.
Then it comes to the faulty design stuff. The lawsuit claims that Porsche built the car poorly, and with no real regards to safety. To make this claim, the lawyers are again using fuzzy tactics by claiming the car was going at a relatively safe speed. They claim that their studies show the car was only going around 70 mph when it spun, and only about 50 mph when it collided with the pole. A proper crash structure would not have sustained that much damage at such a low impact speed. The problem here is that the original investigation, which involved help from the Porsche engineers that designed the thing, concluded that car was travelling at nearly 100 mph when it crashed. I don’t know how much the lawyers in this case understand physics, but an increase in speed provides an exponential increase in forces applied. If you crash any car fast enough it’s going to snap into pieces.
Finally, Meadow’s lawyers claim that if Porsche had installed cutoff fittings that would prevent fuel leaks in the event the lines snapped there would be no fire, and Paul Walker would still be alive. That seems like a stretch to say that a company should be held accountable for a death because they didn’t use a very specific part, that is not required by law, that would prevent a fire in a very particular type of accident. Also, there is still the fact that they have to prove that Paul Walker was actually alive after the impact to start with.
Meadow, if you ever read this, I want you to know that I am deeply sorry for what happened. That said, this is not the result of some faulty design or evil corporate corner cutting. Two guys who loved cars where having fun and got a little reckless. It is sad, but it happens. I know you want closure, but this lawsuit will see nobody win but the lawyers and their bank accounts. The best you can hope for is a settlement that will see Porsche claim zero fault anyways. At worst, you will spend time in court, reliving that terrible moment over and over again, only to have a judge claim that Porsche had nothing to do with it.
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