Bob Rouleau

Guys, I got taken to task by none other than the President of PCA for a casual remark I made about PCA insurance for Instructors. The PCA liability policy covers Instructors. PCA are aware of the concerns and potential risks we have as Instructors. Relax, we're covered. By the way, it also covers all the execs, organizers and volunteers at a PCA DE event.

Brian, in my region, I move Instructors who don't want to instruct into Black. It isn't a punishment, rather it's because the Red and Green run groups are staggered to allow hard working Instructors adequate time to debrief their students, and take a break before going back out on track. If the Red group is fairly full I move the ones without students to Black to keep things balanced.

Regards,

P.S. Tom, I hope you're reading this

BrianKeithSmith

I understand. That would be OK, if the passing zones were the same between black/red, but normally they are not. If that's the case, I just wish I could get the same event experience in Black, but normally I can't. Seems like all of my friends who move into Red say "I'll never go back to black".


Brian

hacker-pschorr

That is good info, thank you for sharing.
There is still one small problem, many of us participate with many groups, not just PCA. In fact, the person who sent me this e-mail is not allowed to participate in any PCA events due to the type of car he drives. It is good to know this questions has been answered for PCA participants, how about NASA, Alfa-Club, Speed Seekers, SCCA etc... Just curious since the Rennlist group is not limited to PCA.

macnewma

If you are concerned with liability, your best bet is to go directly to the only source where you can completely assuage your concerns. The only reliable source would be the specific sanctioning body. Whether it is with PCA, BMWCCA, NASA, SCCA or a private club, I would ask beforehand. I think it is a very legitimate question.

In fact, I would suggest you trust only the direct source of this information and inquire on a case-by-case basis. If you have further concern, I would suggest having your lawyer contact them for a professional opinion of the liability risk.

I do appreciate that you brought this up. It is something we should all keep in mind. Apparently PCA is one step ahead.

Bob Rouleau

For PCA members (this is in the members only part of the site you can read the PCA coverage for yourself at:

https://www.pca.org/members/library/...y_Coverage.pdf

If it isn't a PCA event, checking with the sanctioning body is good advice.

RJay

One thing to add here is that it isn't just liability around instruction thats a problem. As an club officer myself, I know the PCA insurance policy was recently amended to include a number of things that you might not have thought of. While the waivers etc characterize the general problem, there are other not immediately obvious perils. These are more around the societal ligitation. For example, as odd as it might sound, being sued for racial discimination in the case that someone claims they were not promoted to a higher run group because of rascist behaviour or a student claims that they were subject to sexual harassment from an instructor.

I frankly had never thought about this sort of thing as a possiblity, but in retrospect, its pretty obvious that the risk isn't just related to direct issues on track. I'm glad PCA actually was intelligent enough to recognise the problem and add this coverage. For those of you cheking this out the extent of coverage with other clubs, you might want to ask if they are covered against this sort of lawsuit as well.

pedsurg

Great but "sad" thread. It's good to see PCA is on the ball. Will have to check with PBOC and Chin. Whenever the issue of how out of control lawsuits (torts) is raised I always wonder when it became socially acceptable to no longer take reponsibility for one's own actions. And what do we do about those who don't.

Are those who sue, and those who represent them, allowed to participate in our driving events? Can they be excluded? Do we socialize with or provide care to the the winners of a multimillion dollar shakedown suits. Or do they buy a Porsche with their winnings and come driving with (against) us?

Apologies for the rant.

Jack

carreracup21

My flight instructor recently retired from the business because he couldn't handle the liability risk of what a student he trained might do years down the road. It's a shame because he was very talented and I will be less of a pilot not having him for my recurrent training. I agree with pedsurg. Those who don't take personal responsibilty for the inherit risks they are taking should be politely excluded.

APKhaos

I'm damn glad I did my years as a flight instructor at a time and in a country where the threat of speculative tort actions was non-existant.

Having knowledge of the details of some claims made against PCA, I can tell you that speculative law suits can border on the unbelievable.

RDL

This subject has come up several times within my PCA region and has resulted in a review by our region legal counsel. Yes, PCA insurance does cover the instructor. However the liability waiver signed by the student does not preclude the spouse from having legal options. This is an issue for Ohio and possibly only a few other states. Ohio does not consider the waiver signature by the participant as waiving a claim by the non participating spouse. We have brought this to the attention of PCA in the past. We are looking into requireing the spouse sign the registration form that will be modified to include the waiver information.
The issues of liability in my opinion, do need to be reviewed by legal counsel for each state. I personally hate the idea of people not accepting personal responsibility, unfortunately this is the world we live in.

Flying Finn

My thoughts exactly.

I'm glad to know I'm covered (never even thought about this kind of thing) but I just don't get this "if something happens to me, I must sue someone" mentality here in States. How has that been allowed to happen?

John Brown

Exactly right! At least the membership could know who brought action and then could decide for themselves to associate, or not, with such irresponsible folks.

Even now, the rumor mill indicates some klutz dropped his own car on his own foot at Parade and sued! And another falls out of a golf cart. They thought this was someone else's fault why? Supposedly years ago someone in this region brought action for some injury during some social event. For my part if I knew the identity of any of the three; I would avoid any and all social intercourse.

kurt M

People that sue other people are just that, people. You and me and him and her. You don't know who, when or why until something happens. There is no way to identify and exclude, besides that in itself would be grounds for a suit I am sure. All lawyers are groundless reacting blood suckers except yours.

Protection should be from the actions of others not yourself.

Larry Herman

It got much worse when lawyers were allowed to advertize. If they had it their way, you'd probably be able to sue your parents for your bad genes.

hacker-pschorr

I cannot find the article, but this has been attempted already. IIRC the case I read about was thrown out. We can be thankful the big 3 press groups didn't get their hands on the story.