It won’t be long before we have the 10th anniversary of the death of Paul Walker, who was involved in one of the worst fatal car accidents of our lives. Some celebrities have died under horrible circumstances, but few have had so much controversy about it. In fact, an author who wrote for The Drive was contacted by Meadow Walker’s attorneys about what they believed was wrong. What happened to the Fast & Furious actor, and what was the article in question that sparked a reaction from the daughter’s lawyers?
The death of Paul Walker and the lawsuit that followed A memorial at the scene of the car accident by Paul Walker | ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images
On November 30, 2013, Paul Walker’s family, friends and fans received devastating news. Walker had been in a terrible accident and died. The Fast & Furious actor attended a car show in front of the store he and Roger Rodas owned in Santa Clarita, California.
According to website All That’s Interesting, it was a fundraiser put together to raise funds for survivors of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. Rodas and Walker decided on a whim to go for a spin in a 2005 Porsche Carrera GT owned by Rodas.
After starting, the car accelerated to 90-100 miles per hour, but hit a curb not far from the shop, which started a terrible chain of events. The Porsche then hit a tree and a nearby lamppost before hitting another tree and bursting into flames. Employees and friends who saw the accident tried desperately to put out the fire while others tried to pull the men out of the car, but the fire was too intense.
The couple died at the scene. A few years later, after things had settled down, the actor’s daughter, Meadow Walker, attempted to file a lawsuit against Porsche over her father’s wrongful death due to design flaws in the car her father was in when he crashed. Two years later, Porsche was acquitted of any wrongdoing in that auto accident lawsuit, but the daughter received a $10.1 million settlement from the Rodas estate.
The drive article that caught the attention of Meadow Walker’s attorneys
The author of The Drive article, entitled The Truth Behind What Caused Paul Walker’s Fatal Crash, claimed that they were contacted by an attorney for Walker’s daughter seeking a wrongful death suit. He said case officials asked him to testify at trial that the Porsche Carrera GT was a dangerous car. However, the author says that the opinion was not his; rather, it belonged to the attorney who contacted him.
However, according to the update added to the article, representatives of this law firm contacted The Drive to express their side, namely that no one from this office had contacted the writer about the lawsuit. The legal experts were of the opinion that the author was not considered an engineer, nor did they have any degrees or references to weigh the case, so it would not have been necessary for them to contact them.
Beyond that update, the author said, “…in my opinion, the wrongful death lawsuit against Porsche is a greedy money-grabbing attorney.” They went on to explain that the families of Rodas and Walker had enough money to live on He didn’t think a lawsuit was necessary, and he didn’t agree with it either.
Could the tires have been the cause, as The Drive article theorizes?
The author of the article theorized that the cause of Paul Walker’s accident was likely due to the car’s old tires. This came from an experience he had a year before the accident when he took his modified C5 Corvette to an event in Las Vegas. When he arrived at the tram invitation, he took his vehicle for a lap around the track.
Once the car reached 45 mph, the vehicle would slide off the track onto the gravel. Not long after that it happened again. He didn’t pick up any injuries that day but speculates he could have if the situation was a little different. He found that the Corvette’s tires were six years old. They looked almost new but they were so old they didn’t have enough support causing him to lose control.
According to the author, the tires on the Porsche Carrera GT were at least nine years old. Since Rodas was an excellent driver, there should not have been any other reason for the fall than the old tires, as the author suspects. He may have exceeded the top speed, but the author believes that with a new set of tires the two friends would still be alive.
However, investigation into the accident determined that the cause was that the vehicle was traveling at an unsafe speed for the conditions at the time of the accident. The tires and their condition were not mentioned.
Paul Walker’s life was cut short the night he died in a serious accident in 2013. While investigators thought speed played a big part in the accident, one article author felt it was more due to the age of the tires than anything. Nevertheless, many fans miss the Fast & Furious actor sorely.
