Where is the sense in this:
"Where will it all end? In a ditch, probably, or else in the dock. Next month Porsche will be in court in America accused of failing to provide adequate training to a man killed while driving in a 205mph Porsche Carrera GT."
They sue Porsche for making a fast car, and the driver not know how to handle it...
Yet you can happily buy a gun and nobody goes after the manufacturers for the death caused?!
http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol...cle1358351.ece
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No you can't.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl...31/ai_56640775
http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/2443
http://www.cnn.com/US/9901/27/gun.lawsuits/
Litigation in the USA is out of control.
erm, madness, pure & simple.
This specific example reminds me of a BMW advert from 5 or so years ago - 'Power is nothing without control'. Never a truer word said (in relation to cars, before I get flamed)
The old saying "guns don't kill people, people kill people comes to mind". It seems unreasonable that anybody would expect guns or sports cars to be safe.
OIA. (Only In America)
I doubt that the family of the deceased would win. What constitutes a powerful car? If they won then every car manufacturer that sells in the USA would have to provide "training" and that isn't going to happen.
Fortunately you can't protect idiots from themselves. That's why we have the Darwin Awards.
"Reality is what it is, not what you want it to be." Frank Zappa. ----------- "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." Huang Po.----------- "A drowsy line of wasted time bathes my open mind", - Ride.
Make me Prime Minister, 1st new law...
1. You cant sue other people for your own stupidity.
Then before lunch close the channel tunnel, make it so its easier to get into Austrailia than England, make bin men do the same job they were doing 15 years ago, get rid of all the "PC" types...
I thought they had driving tests in USA? LOL
what about:
if you play with fire, dont cry when you get burnt
There is no need for any car to be doing more than 90mph, maximum. Speed limiters should be in place so that cars will not exceed overtaking speeds (~80mph). The limiter can be legally lifted when racing on tracks by trained specialists, but must be replaced when out on the road again. If not, the driver is breaking the law and hefty fines and stuff after.
According to that article, the case is over an alleged (and at least by that article, unspecified) "design defect".Originally Posted by joshwa
If they can make that stick, and that "defect" resulted in a buyer's death (or even injury) then shouldn't they sue? And be allowed to?
But, of course, they'll have to prove the "defect". And if the "defect" is merely that the power makes the car too hard to handle, then perhaps a case could be made that the car should never have been marketed with that much power. The lawyer is maintaining it is "tail happy", though.
Also, there's a difference between going after a gun maker because the owner used it in exactly the manner prescribed and it worked as designed and expected though the owner chose to use it illegally, and where a car kills or injures thorugh a "design defect" and in a manner unpredicatable by the buyer.
In much of the US, it's legal to own a gun, and even in some situations, to use it to kill someone. And in doing that, it's performing it's design function correctly. If it misfired due to a design or manufacturing defect, the makers could expect to get sued. If it's used and works as designed, then any liability for injury caused by an owner using it in an illicit manner should be down to the owner, not the maker.
In the same way, if you use a car (say a Fiat Punto or a Ford Focus) to deliberately run someone down, should that be the car maker's fault? If someone uses a kitchin knife to stab someone, is it the maker's fault? If they use a brick to brain someone, is it the brickmaker's fault? What about a cricket bat? And so on. In each case, the item in question is legitimate to own and use, and if used in a reasonable way, the owner should expect it to perform as designed and in a safe way, and the makers should not be held to account if the owner chooses to use them in a way calculated and expected to result in injury.
So, in this Porsche case, if a normal and reasonable owner would genuinely find that the car's power and handling characteristics make it uncontrollable, then I'd say Porsche have liability in either selling it without drawing owner's attention to that and insisting they do necessary training, or perhaps in selling it at all. After all, if it's that hard to control that it's that dangerous, it not only puts the buyer at risk, but also passengers and innocent bystanders as well.
I completely agree that the US is far too litigious, and that it's getting that way in the UK too. But it's also the case that often, when we hear headline news reports of casesthat seem farcical (like the woman that sued McDonalds over the coffer that was too hot), if you actually look at the facts of the case, a very different picture emerges.
I guess we'll have to wait for the actual case to see if this is just a lawyer trying it on for compensation, or if (like the McD hot coffee case) there actually is a sensible basis for the case.
These porsches are tested by experienced racing drivers at top speeds around private circuits. People who know how to drive cars at fast speeds. People who can give the engineers feedback on the handling of the car and for improvements. Now for a £50000+ car, handling quality isn't exactly something a German manufacturer is going to ignore. This is just a case where the guy drove past his 'own limits (or ability)' and got stuck and eventually got hurt. One muppet driver and all of a sudden the car manufacturer gets blamed. Moneygrabbing barsteward!
This was a Carrera GT - so think more like 150+
But it isn't experienced racing drivers, that almost by definition know how to handle the power, that these cars are being sold to. It's anyone with a big enough wallet. And the "Moneygrabbing barsteward!" was killed in the crash.
And what about the risk to bystanders if a company sells a car that the average driver can't reasonably be expected to control?
Makers have to take some responsibility for the products they sell. And the whole point of a trial such as this is to find out if they were being responsible or not. And if they were, presumably they'll win the case. That isn't a good reason to say they can't even be challenged in court.
I'm sorry, but that line of defence goes out the window if the guy is breaking the speed limit. If he had car problems doing 50, then he would of had a case. But if he is approaching speeds that, although the car is capable of it, he isn't able to control, it is his fault, no-one elses. I see idiots on the motorways doing well above 90mph all the time in crappy Ford Escort's. Now, you trying to tell me that if one of those guys crash, they should be able to sue Ford because they couldn't handle driving at that speed?
EDIT: Also, the fact that it isn't professional drivers who are buying these cars is no excuse either. When you pay £150k+ for a car, you're not buying something to take the kids to school in or to go to Tesco's. The guy was buying a serious piece of kit when he should of bought an Audi A3.
In case you think that all sounds harsh, I'm just trying to be realistic. I didn't realise the guy got killed, but if he stuck to the speed limit he wouldn't of. It really is as simple as that. On the other hand, if his steering wheel had locked then that would be a case against the manufacturer. However, it happened to my cousin in his Golf, he took the company to court, and lost (I think.. I'll have to ask him again).
Last edited by madad2005; 12-02-2007 at 07:17 PM.
Try more than double that
"In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penises, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship."
I refer you to the bit in my first post where I saidI've added the bold emphasis.I completely agree that the US is far too litigious, and that it's getting that way in the UK too. But it's also the case that often, when we hear headline news reports of cases that seem farcical (like the woman that sued McDonalds over the coffer that was too hot), if you actually look at the facts of the case, a very different picture emerges.
I guess we'll have to wait for the actual case to see if this is just a lawyer trying it on for compensation, or if (like the McD hot coffee case) there actually is a sensible basis for the case.
Well, a bit of research shows up some interesting perspectives on the notion that it was the guy's own fault for not sticking to the speed limit.
For instance .... the crash was on the California speedway ... not a public road. He was there because he'd been having problems with the handling of the car, claiming it was "tail happy" and wanted to test it off the road. The crash occured because (allegedly) the track flagman sent a Ferrari out onto the straight just as the Porsche was coming round, and the Ferrari driver hesitated and then exited onto the circuit slowly. The Porshe driver (one Ben Keaton) swerved to avoid the Ferrari, lost control and slammed into a brick wall ..... killing not only himself but a bloke he'd met at the track that day and was giving a test ride to.
Now, the lawsuit (as always) is never quite as simple as news reports would have you believe, and all sorts of people are getting sued (including Porsche, but also the speedway flagman, the racetrack owners and operators, the Ferrari owners Club (who's event it was) and Ben Keaton's estate (for not warning the poor sod of a passenger that he was having problems with the car's handling).
The basis of the case against Porsche is that the car was defective :-
1) in that there were specific mechanical problems with THIS car that made it handle badly
2) in that there are design defects with the Carrera GT that make it handle badly (tail-happy)
3) in that the design on the GT is such that it is too hard for a driver without special training to handle properly.
And on point three, the legal argument is that whether the difficulty of handling of the car is a "defect" rests on whether the benefits of that design are outweighed by the risks.
If, for instance, the manufacturers of high performance cars are simply indulging in a specification war, with each trying to outdo each other, then it could be argued that the real benefits of having that much power are merely in the marketing, and the result is a design that presents an unaccaeptable and unexpected risk to buyers and .... as I said earlier (without having read anything of the actual crash) to passengers or bystanders.
And if it is established that there are no real benefits to the power levels, OR that the GT really has either a specific defect in this car or in the overall design, then what about the family of the PASSENGER, who's only error lay in accepting a ride from a stranger at a race track? If you do that kind of thing, you accept that it entails certain foreseeable risks, and you couldn't sue on the basis of those, but if there is a design fault ....?
I'm sorry, Madad, but I don't agree with you at all. As I said earlier, when you start looking into these cases, they often aren't as frivolous as headlines on trite news reports make them seem, and we really need to actually see the elements of the case and get some idea of the evidence before we can decide that such cases shouldn't see a court. After all, in this one incident alone (and it's far from the only one), two families have lost a loved one. If a design defect can be proven, then Porsche deserve to pay a heavy price for that.
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