KHTS Radio Santa Clarita Radio – Santa Clarita News
A judge ruled in favor of Porsche Cars of North America Monday, saying the German car maker was not at fault for the death of actor Paul Walker and race car driver Roger Rodas, according to CNN.
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Kristine Rodas, the widow of Roger Rodas, brought the suit against Porsche saying that the Porsche Carrera GT driven by her late husband lacked several safety features that could have prevented her husbands death.
Two separate lawsuits filed by Walker’s father and his daughter Meadow Rain Walker are not affected by the decision made on Monday by U.S. District Judge Philip S. Gutierrez.
In her lawsuit against the sports car giant, Meadow Walker claims that Porsche failed to install an electronic stability control system to protect the car from swerving and used “side door reinforcement bars that lacked adequate welds and consisted of material weaker in strength than what is used in popular mass-market cars, such as the Honda Civic, which is designed and built to be operated at speeds much slower than the Carrera GT,” according to the suit.
“Meadow will continue the fight to hold Porsche accountable for selling a defective product that kills,” said Jeff Miam, the attorney representing Meadow Walker, in a statement.
Get live news updates about Santa Clarita by following KHTS on Facebook and KHTS on TwitterWalker and Rodas were killed on Nov. 30, 2013, after hitting and a light pole and a tree in a single-vehicle collision in the Valencia industrial park.
“(Roger Rodas) was driving a red Porsche Carrera GT at an unsafe speed, approximately 100+ mph, in the No. 1 eastbound lane on Hercules Street, approaching Constitution,” according to the coroner’s office report.
Investigators found no conclusive evidence suggesting that the car failed mechanically, causing it spin out of control, according to CNN.
Walker was in the Santa Clarita Valley for a toy drive to benefit his nonprofit organization Reach Out Worldwide or ROWW and was the passenger in the Porsche Carrera GT that Rodas was driving.
Walker is best known for playing Brian O’Connor in the “Fast and Furious” films. He had filmed part of “Furious Seven” before his death.
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Good decision on the part of the judge. Don’t waste anymore of our taxpayers money on this. You cannot hold a car manufacturer responsible for the negligence of the driver.
The only place a vehicle should be driven 100 MPH is on a race track or course. How can someone think they can blame the car manufacturer for a person’s irresponsible act. He was old enough to know better than to do such a stupid thing. It is just fortunate no others were injured or killed.
You should look into the number of deaths that have occurred as a result of this particular Porsche model. It is astounding. Porsche was aware they had created a death mobile. Losing control of the vehicle is cited repeatedly. Also, additional investigation uncovered the fact that the speed driven was actually 30 mph below what was reported here. Think of the many victims that new they could not fight the mighty Porsche. When they are finally found guilty it will bring justice to the many other deceased from this exact car.
Joni. The articles I’ve read say the car was doing 58 mph. The speed limit is 45mph. It’s clear they were accelerating to go uphill. It’s a wide 5 lane road there in the industrial park. Where the short length of skid marks started there was a puddle of fluid on the driver’s side; it looked like power steering fluid. Pictures of the crash show the front wheels turned hard left, like Ray Rodas was trying to steer away from the curb. Ray was a professional race car driver with many years of experience. It’s not to say that something can’t happen even with the best drivers;it can. If the car was doing 100 mph it would have easily gone the embankment. The tree that stopped the car was about 4″ in diameter-pretty small. I also saw a video where the passenger is trying to stand up and get out, but then falls back down in the flames. It looked like he was trapped and could not get the seatbelt undone. Pretty disturbing!
I agree with Ashlie. There are numerous articles and videos on this exact model of Porsche crashing. I agree, it is astounding how many there are. Porsche is a huge company and would fiercely fight anything that would potentially damage their reputation though, especially when it involves a high profile person.
In any case, RIP Paul Walker.
Hello, this article and numerous other articles by KHTS commonly have grammatical and factual errors. For example, in the fifth paragraph, there is a sentence that says “after hitting and a light pole and a tree”, which is very incorrect grammar. Also on a recent article about the Newhall Incident, it was stated that this year is the 36th anniversary when it is the 46th, which was thankfully corrected in today’s article about the incident. Whoever writes the KHTS articles need to pay attention and do a better job.