[ZTWsquared]

meford4u,Jan 24 2006, 06:23 PM Wrote:I got the point.  Your missing the fact this accident would have never occurred if a drunk hadn't gotten behind the wheel and rammed the rear end of their car.  That's the preventable side of this accident.  Not Ford.
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I didn't miss that fact - the point that I am making assumes that we are all in agreement that the drunk caused the collision - so let's move on.

The cause of the collision was found to be irrelevant however, because the women apparently survived the collision. I wasn't in the courtroom, but reading the story leads me to believe that without the fire and smoke, the women would have sustained non life threatening injuries. They were apparently conscious as the vehicle burned.

The court determined that this collision (regardless of how it was caused and by whom) was survivable except for the fact that Ford's design of the fuel tank included a known fault ... a fault that had a known fix ... a fix that was already designed and implemented in other similar vehicles (cop cars) ... and a fix that Ford could have chosen to publicize and otherwise make available.

Ford is being told to bear the responsibilty for the business decisions they made that resulted in two women who survived a collision, subsequently dieing from smoke inhalation and fire.

We hear a lot of wild stories coming from the U.S. about their litigous society and some of the whacko lawsuits before the courts there and some of the even crazier decisions ... IMO this isn't one of them.