PogueMoHone

Remember this happened at a track where normal, average drivers don't go. Both had a higher degree of sensitivity to the risks involved than a normal driver. This had nothing to do with the car, other than it was being demonstrated (as I understand it).

Alex,

Would you just go drive the car?, then we can give serious weight to your (so far) "theoretical" opinion about it!

Bob Rouleau

Alex (et al) when I drove a CGT on the track, it exhibited no evil handling quirks. I would characterize the CGT as an understeering car, just like every other modern Porsche. Perhaps the CGT had a different alignment, or perhaps a faulty alignment (many GT3's arrived with improper alignment)? How many bumps does it take to knock the alignment out? Not many on a GT3 as many of us have discovered.

To be fair, I did not lift and swerve at a buck fifty in the CGT, so I have no practical experience with the likely circumstances of the accident.

Sadly though, I think Alex's prediction is right, a sympathetic jury will find everyone guilty to some degree and Porsche has the deepest pockets.

I will reiterate what I said in my first post in the long-long thread:

In America, there are no bad drivers, only bad cars and very good lawyers".

Best,

jeff522

Its already been done.It was breach of contract and emotional distress.

Bob Rouleau

Nick - the way I see it, women should come with a lot of warning labels and perhaps God should be required by federal law to change certain specifications.

"Caution - may lead to divorce and grave financial loss"

"Caution - may lead to a loss of libido"

"Caution: side effects
- fifty percent of marriages end in painful divorce
- may lead to reduced time spent enjoying personal hobbies.
- may lead to reduced spending on sports cars/boats/bikes and other non home related items.

Crazy Canuck

They burst onto the European ski scene in the seventies, flying down the most challenging hills with a kamikaze flair. Within a year of competing on the World Cup circuit these fearless Canadian boys were beating the Europeans at a game they'd never lost. Dave Irwin, Ken Read, Dave Murray and Steve Podborski were the Crazy Canucks – young, wild, and skiing as fast as they could.

I admired them growing up as a kid of the 70s watching them on TV.

Tobacco and alcohol are heavily taxed. No huge awards to cigarette smokers or alcoholics as of yet but I did find it disgusting to walk into the cancer ward at the hospital while visiting my dad and seeing some cancer patients outside taking a smoke with their IV carts on their arms - and no my dad never smoked nor did he drink anything more than moderately. The US style of litigating everything and everyone hasn't crossed the border yet. Our legal system is a bit different.

A ruling did come down last week though that you would probably find revolting:

Update: Canada high court rejects social-host liability

In a ringing reaffirmation of personal responsibility, the Supreme Court of Canada has unanimously rejected an attempt (see May 2) to hold party givers financially liable for a car crash caused by a drunken guest:

"A person who accepts an invitation to attend a private party does not park his autonomy at the door," wrote Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin.

"The consumption of alcohol, and the assumption of the risks of impaired judgment, is in almost all cases a personal choice and an inherently personal activity."

Unlike tavern owners, said the court, social hosts can't monitor their guests' drinking, may be inebriated themselves, and aren't trained to detect whether departing guests are intoxicated.

Moreover, "the law does not impose a duty to eliminate risk.

"It accepts that competent people have the right to engage in risky activities," said the judgment. "Conversely, it permits third parties witnessing risk to decide not become rescuers or otherwise intervene."

1AS

Mike,
I do concede your point, in that my premise is based on reading and to an extent conjecture. I will remain silent going forward until I have the opportunity to drive one. AS

38D

I don't think my view would change at all. Suing the driver is at least somewhat reasonable, as in my opinion, he was clearly driving to fast for his own ability. Suing the car manufacturer is just absurd. If the chassis has disintegrated, it might be a different story. Unfortunately, many of those so vehemently arguing against the safety of the CGT are far too emotionally involved to really be objective.

Henning964Turbo

Hah, something like this can only happen in the US.
In Europe(or at least Norway), it wouldnt have made it to court.
Here you cant blame everyone or anyone if you do something silly, stupid or wrong, and you are the obvious one to blame.

And, here looser pays in court. Cant imagine anything else.

Irishdriver

OK now I see where you are coming from, you think many buyers are clueless and need to be protected from themselves. How patronising and arrogant of you. The car companies obviously don't think the same way as they produce exciting and challenging cars.

You think it is a recipe for disaster. Car companies obviously don't as they know how mad the US legal system is and they would not take such a risk if they actually KNEW what you claim they KNOW.

How do you know they KNOW. Don't tell me it is any more obvious than the fact that a 600hp cars needs respect.

The conclusion is that there should be a legal case to prove people are clueless and the car company was wrong to credit them with intelligence. Let's screw the car company at the same time as they obviously should have asked you or some other like minded lawyer before releasing any powerful sports car.

Three cheers for the Canadian judgement quoted above and lets hope that Nick can some day see the difference between tobacco companies who hid a known health risk, illegal drug pushers and honest companies who build products that demand a little skill to get the maximum from them.

Nick

US courts have for the most part refuse to find host liability in excessive drinking situations. This has been the law for over 50 years. I am glad the Canadian court have finally decided the issue.

The critical question in all these cases deals with unreasonable risk and NOT ANY RISK! The question the jury will decide should the case get that far is whether the CGT posed an unreasonable risk to the driver. There are many theories against the CGT which I will not articulate here.

The jury will have to decide if any of them posed an unreasonable risk and whether Porsche should have taken action to safeguard against those risks. Remember juries are typically composed of the general public and NOT LAWYERS. If there is an award people like yourselves are giving it.

Irishdriver, do you really believe Porsche did not know the CGT is a handful to handle so much so that its best factory driver insisted on some safeguard before selling it to the public?

1AS

I think the alcohol contribution is called "Contributory negligence" I had a patient once who slammed into a train that rolled backward across a dark intersection. The railroad was negligent for letting the freight car loose, but my patient was totally bombed, so the judgement was reduced for his "contributory negligence". Driver error may be a mitigating factor in this case. AS

gabbagabbahey

I wonder what the chances of any engineers or otherwise analytical thinker making the jury selection by the plantiffs lawyers in lieu of grandmothers etc.?

Will / can Walter Rohl be subpoenaed to testify?

Eggplant Cab

Nick
I do agree if the manufacturer makes a car that is unsafe (say Pinto or exploding tires like the Firestone saga), make them pay.
How do you suggest a manufacturer make it safe? Like Mercedes with the SLR? Sure Paris Hilton would love it but I sure wouldn't buy one. The unfortunate truth is that enthusiast drivers want edgy cars to explore their limits. Otherwise we'd all be driving a Prius cos it makes sense.
You seem to want to punish the car maker for having a ultra performance car that can kill a driver if they are not good.
The Ferrari F40 incident in Australia is a prime example. The japanese guy could afford shipping his car to Australia for the race but couldn't drive to save his life and killed 3 other people in the process. Is it Ferrari's fault? Even Ferrari said just cos you can buy a ferrari doesn't mean you can drive one.
You ask why can't they help prevent accidents? The only real way to do it is to not sell the car. Don't put a gun in an idiot's hand and all that. The Lambo Countach and Ferrari TR were 2 cars I grew up with. I did go karts and junior racing but when I drove those things, I was intimidated enough (well there was also the dad would kill me thing) not to push the limits too far.
The CGT passed all the TUV and DOT mandated safety tests. The driver of that illfated CGT crashed to avoid collision with another car. Was it a marshall problem? Or was he not looking at where he was going?
Not to mention high speed emergency manuvuers are inherently dangerous. Lawsuits are useful but many times it's just too much finger pointing away from the cause.

Irishdriver

The jury will have to decide based on the arguement posed to them....considering the number of irrelevant statistics, emotional ranting and misrepresentation being done by some of the selfrighteous guardians of the common public the jury do not always get the honest facts on which to make a decision. One known weakness of the jury system is that if the arguements get technical a jury of the common people cannot be guaranteed to understand.
Anyway, it seems in the US the quality of your lawyer is the measure of the justice you will get. Ask OJ.

Now if Walter insisted that things be added - and they were - your case is even weaker - specific action was taken to make the car more benign. What more do you want?

..the sad point is that once you have started you will keep going until you have proved that the carrera GT was not benign enough. Porsche should have written 400 pages of disclaimers that said you should not do anything to lose control under any circumstances.

In England they refer to the Nanny state where the state is taking too many choices away from the citizens. In the US it seems there are a few lawyers who abuse the moral obligation to safeguard the common good by identifying a very select set of rich targets on which to exercise their moral outrage.

The number of Carrera GTs is less than 1300. The number of carrera GTs in America is only a fraction of this. The number of carrera GT owners in the US who don't know what they have (and therefore, according to Nick, their car poses an unreasonable risk to them) must be a much smaller fraction of this number - unless all Americans are Stupid (class please discuss this point).

So going on a Witch hunt after Porsche is not going to persuade any of the current owners to give up their cars. Production has stopped so it will not change the cars. It is not going to stop owners going to a track to enjoy their cars.

So what is it going to be achieved except money for lawyers and a restriction of choice for the US people?

Bob Rouleau

Irish Driver - Bravo, well done!