Ford Must Pay $2.5 Billion Over Crushed Super Duty Roof That Killed 2, Jury Says
Posted by HawtGarbage917@reddit | cars | View on Reddit | 427 comments
Posted by HawtGarbage917@reddit | cars | View on Reddit | 427 comments
democracywon2024@reddit
Yes if you crash a truck 80 feet down a hill you don't live.
Yes the roof could be more sturdy.
Nah, I don't think that's 2.5 billion.
Don't crash a truck down a fucking mountainside.
JesusChrist-Jr@reddit
According to the article Ford had years of reports indicating that the roofs were a problem. $2.5B is punitive damage for willful neglect that led to deaths, not specifically a value on two individual lives. I don't have enough info to form an opinion on Ford's culpability here, but a jury that heard the evidence felt that it was substantial.
Your reaction is reminiscent of the people who mocked the McDonald's coffee verdict without being informed. It sounded silly in a 30 second soundbite, but then you learn that there was a long documented history of complaints and injuries, and that the failure to act on them led to life-threatening burns, then it doesn't sound so silly.
costryme@reddit
Do people even read the article ? The 2.5 billion would be punitive damages, not for the family.
Dunkelz@reddit
No ones reading the article, so many are blaming the driver and thinking there's so responsibility by the car manufacturer as a result. Apparently losing control of your car in inclement weather means you deserve to die along with any passengers in your vehicle.
racsee1@reddit
If you fly 80 feet down a hill its not the cars fault if you die, its physics.
Dunkelz@reddit
If there's proof the car manufacturer reduced the strength of the roof to possibly 25% of what they claimed so they could make money, they absolutely deserve to pay out the ass. The bulk of the dollar amount is punitive and rightfully so.
arcangelxvi@reddit
Sure, but are there any vehicles sold that will survive an 80’ drop onto their roof? Standard rollovers are one thing, but the accident in question sounds pretty far outside of what anyone would consider a reasonable situation to design for.
spartansix@reddit
I would bet there are vehicles where the passengers would survive this. I saw a Cayenne that had a large tree fall from probably 40+ feet directly onto the roof, the impact blew all four tires and air struts but the tree did not enter the passenger cell. While the car was totaled and the roof was obviously dented, all four doors still opened and shut. When I told the dealer about this they weren't surprised as it had apparently been designed to withstand a rollover at autobahn speeds.
Volvo XC90 is another car that I think would fare pretty well here, the roof is designed to withstand 5x the weight of the vehicle (twice the US safety standard).
EicherDiesel@reddit
With some rough napkin maths a 80ft free fall will result in ~23m/s or 50mph terminal speed. Now that's bad, the speed frontal impact tests are done at is 35mph and there you have the full crumple zone to absorb the impact. Assuming the Volvo weights 2.5t and decelerates back to 0 in 0.2s on impact (way too slow, probably faster) that's ~290kN of force or ~29t. That Volvo would've been pancaked as well and even if it would have stayed completely rigid like a tank the passengers would have been dead from rapid deceleration (50mph to zero in an instant) anyways.
Rollovers don't even come close to a fall onto the roof from any height.
squirrel8296@reddit
So, the crash in the article wasn’t free fall for 80 feet. It was a rollover down a hill.
That being said, Volvo tests their vehicles in free fall by dropping them from a crane at 100 feet. The cars are pretty messed up, but it would be survivable.
spartansix@reddit
If you read the article, the F250 did not free fall 80 feet. It hit a culvert, traveled 80 feet through the air (close to ground level), touched down nose first, and then flipped on its roof. The accident was just a nasty highway speed rollover, they didn't drive off a cliff.
squirrel8296@reddit
Volvo actually tests their cars by dropping them from a crane at 100 feet up.
squirrel8296@reddit
Volvo does. Their standard series of internal crash tests involves dropping a vehicle from crane at 100 feet up.
costryme@reddit
The car was airborne for 80 feet, il did not drop from 80 feet.
Spooky3030@reddit
At that point, what's the difference? It was going fast enough to fly 80 ft. Don't know if you have ever tried to jump a 7000 pound truck before, but 80 ft is a long distance whether it is from a drop or a jump.
System0verlord@reddit
A lot of kinetic energy for starters.
Would you rather jump 6’, or drop 6’?
Detroitsaab@reddit
There is not a single vehicle produced today that would have survived that crash. You can't stop physics....
margoo12@reddit
Here we go again.
It wasn't 80 feet down a hill.
They hit a drainage culvert at normal highway speeds and flew roughly 80 feet, which is about 1 second of airtime at 55 miles an hour. Just enough time to have the vehicle roll in the air.
This could happen to literally anyone, as it's something that could be caused by a blown tire.
It was bad luck they hit the culvert. But it was bad engineering that caused their deaths. Any other vehicle that meets safety standards would have survived that. The f250 didn't, because it has less than a third of the structural integrity required to be considered "good".
RichardNixon345@reddit
It was a 20 year old truck.
And the 'standards' you're talking about are not standards - IIHS does not set any laws.
margoo12@reddit
It was a 2015. That's 10 years.
I wasn't talking about laws, I was talking about safety and the standards that the IIHS tests against.
The 2015 F250 tested well below the IIHS safety standard.
RichardNixon345@reddit
https://media.zenfs.com/en/columbus_ledger_enquirer_mcclatchy_articles_419/e7201c5b29af386d2775ac634c9241af
That's not a 2015. That's pre-2004 given that the Power Stroke badge is the one for a 7.3L.
LordofSpheres@reddit
There is some confusion relating to these vehicle pictures, largely because the court brief I can find shows both a 2002 7.3 crew cab F-250, from the Hill v. Ford case in 2014, and also pictures of the 2015 6.7PSD crew cab 250 owned by the Mills family and subject of this lawsuit. The PDF of the case brief includes relevant photos of the 2015 truck in the impound/junkyard.
Spooky3030@reddit
Bullshit. No vehicle landing on it's roof is going to survive an 80 fly.
XBOX-BAD31415@reddit
Absolutely!! Ppl be crazy here defending this shit.
hi_im_bored13@reddit
Right like sad for the family but how could have ford designed a truck that doesn’t kill when thrown off a cliff ??
Spooky3030@reddit
8000 pound truck flies 80ft through the air and lands on the roof. There is no way they could make that roof hold up without a full tubular roll cage in every single vehicle, and even then you would be lucky to survive.
Fit_Equivalent3610@reddit
Who do you think receives punitive damages if not the plaintiff?
costryme@reddit
Erm...the state ?
2naFied@reddit
It's shared between both. 75% to the state in liability cases in Georgia.
geoffs3310@reddit
I could live with 25% of 2.5 billion
aPerson39001C9@reddit
Nah I’d only settle for 30%
TheKingOfBreadstix@reddit
There was a time that $625m used to be considered a lot of money.
brownninja97@reddit
Barely enough for the down payment on a golf gti
Smash_4dams@reddit
Not even Forbes list material these days smh
y2k_o__o@reddit
my standard isn't too high, and I could be FIRE with 2.5% of 2.5 billion XD
Realistic_Village184@reddit
Georgia is also the highest percentage given to the state IIRC. Most states are much lower than that, meaning that Plaintiffs recover a large percentage of punitive damages assessed.
Honestly I don't see any argument why Plaintiffs should get more than, say, 10% of punitive damages. The rest should go to the state.
2naFied@reddit
Couldn't agree more. Billions in damages towards one or a few individuals is ridiculous if the state can actually spend that money on infrastructure that benefits everyone instead.
I'm Norwegian so I'm not sure what the money is actually spent on by the state though.
tugtugtugtug4@reddit
Well many (perhaps most) injuries are born solely by the plaintiff. If someone is maimed or killed by a defective product, why should the state (that presumably failed to regulate that only safe products be sold in its borders) get a windfall when the state suffered no injury?
Punitive damages in general are nonsensical. Civil lawsuits exist to make the victim whole. Punitive damages, by definition, are not to make the victim whole but to punish the offender. Punishment should be solely the realm of the criminal justice system.
Realistic_Village184@reddit
We have a big problem with nuclear verdicts in the US right now. A lot of states are passing tort reform to do things like institute punitive damages caps. There's actually a huge tort reform package that's being pushed in Georgia right now, incidentally enough.
A lot of the laws are really ridiculous. For instance, in Georgia, a defendant can't even present as evidence whether a victim of a car crash was wearing their seatbelt. It's just mind boggling.
2naFied@reddit
That tracks. I read people are getting insurance against uninsured drivers. Your country needs to ask for help from an adult I think.
Realistic_Village184@reddit
Uninsured motorist coverage has been a thing for a long time. That's not really emblematic of any problems. There are lots of reasons why another driver might be uninsured. For instance, a hit and run where you can't identify the other driver, someone who's underinsured, someone who was improperly insured through either fraud or an accident, someone who's in the country illegally and cannot get proper registration and insurance, etc.
The US is having a lot of problems right now, and I'm especially depressed with our current government, but honestly casualty insurance reform is very far down on the list of things we need to fix. Every country has problems, too.
costryme@reddit
I mean yeah. My original comment was mainly because the person implied the 2.5 billion was for the family, which is why I said it was punitive damages (with the majority going to the state, even if I didn't clarify ti).
2naFied@reddit
I wasn't trying to get you. I was just clarifying.
costryme@reddit
Yeah no worries, my reply was only half for you and half to clarify since I saw people didn't get what I was going for.
RazorWritesCode@reddit
I’m trying to get you 😡
Aggressive-Sea-5701@reddit
Me, too. Let’s get em!
Koil_ting@reddit
Fuck it, let's throw this fuckers vehicle down a mountainside with him in it!.
Aggressive-Sea-5701@reddit
Set it on fire first!
69edgy420@reddit
Username checks out
lafindestase@reddit
75% to the state, 15% to the lawyer, 5% for the lawyer to hand to lawmakers under the table.
Navaros313@reddit
Even 1000th of that is good money
ctjameson@reddit
Maybe double check that answer.
Ok-Response-839@reddit
Punitive means it's a punishment and typically goes to the state. Reparative means it's intended to "repair" damage done and goes to the affected parties.
Fit_Equivalent3610@reddit
Under Georgia law the family would still receive $625,000,000 of the award (minus legal fees lol), which is absolutely ridiculous. Saying it is not for the family isn't accurate (I understand the difference between compensatory and non-compensatory damages, but that wasn't the question).
Double_Minimum@reddit
Yea, no one ever expects Ford to pay this amount.
The idea is usually to make a point, and these amounts are almost always dropped drastically by the court after appeal. And when you know that, the idea becomes to make a point.
I would doubt that the $30.5 million amount will even stand.
tugtugtugtug4@reddit
Voting for a verdict you know is unsupported by law or fact because you assume it will get turned over is arguably a violation of your oath as a juror and could subject you to criminal prosecution or at least criminal contempt. Most jurors take their jobs more seriously than that.
The real answer is plaintiff's lawyers (and sometimes Defendants' lawyers) do their best (and they are very good) at picking the 12 stupidest people they can find for their jury. A good plaintiff attorney has never met a juror too stupid and ignorant.
MCShoveled@reddit
Dem lawyers of course.
kevinstu123@reddit
Who do u think? Govt - biggest robber.
Snazzy21@reddit
I don't care, its still an absurd lawsuit and the fact Ford lost is ridiculous.
Surviving an 80 foot fall is not a reasonable or practical design goal
costryme@reddit
Where did you read about it being a fall ?
ResIpsaBroquitur@reddit
And it's well-settled that a 10:1 ratio of punitive damages to actual damages is so extreme as to be unconstitutional. So, at most, the award should've been somewhere around $300MM (based on the $30M compensatory award, which is already incredibly high given the facts).
$2.5B is an absurd verdict and there's no way to justify it to make it sound less absurd.
bushmonster43@reddit
what's the difference between the M and MM you finance types like to use, always just called em both a million
ResIpsaBroquitur@reddit
M is short for million, MM is short for mille mille — i.e. thousand thousand. I usually use MM out of habit.
ThePretzul@reddit
This is why the awards in cases like these are reviewed (and often overruled) by judges after the jury has come to decision.
fullock@reddit
I'm an old curmudgeon at this point, but trying to idiot-proof cars makes them all look and drive the same and less livable too.
Strong roofs are definitely safer in a rollover, but they require thick pillars that hurt visibility, and the glorious giant coupes with no B-pillar are gone.
Rear visibility sucks due to very high trunks, we don't have three row seats in front anymore (you could fit 6 in a sedan in a pinch!). Bad visibility led to mandatory cameras because some people drove over their kids, and mandatory cameras led to tall dashboards.
No matter how much you try to idiot-proof something, nature will evolve a better idiot, so it's a losing game. At some point, cars became safe enough. In my estimate, that would be late 90's to early 2000's, and since then, they've become a bit too much like a padded cocoon. Yes, they required paying a bit more attention. It was on you not to drive over your kid, or on you to fasten your seatbelt, or up to you not to roll your car off a hill. There were no nagging "assist" systems either. I miss the huge variety of simple, reliable, affordable cars you could buy.
dumahim@reddit
It isn't about being idiot-proof. Ford took steps to make the strength worse to save some money.
FAFO, just like they did in the past. Their attempts to save some money is coming back to bite them in the ass.
pearljamman010@reddit
While that is lazy, cheap, and immoral on Ford, 800lbs difference in crush strength when you fall 80ft off a hill likely doesn't matter. Sure, Ford should pay for being dishonest and immoral. But I don't think the people would have survived, either. Not trying to sound unsympathetic, but I doubt any vehicle would survive that fall without casualties.
Now on the other hard, they definitely should be fined or forced to recall/fix the defective trucks without cost to the consumers. I'm not taking blame away from them for their shortcuts, just don't think 800lbs extra crush resistance would have saved them. Off a 10ft cliff? Maybe so.
mulletstation@reddit
https://youtu.be/auowgKnBtsY?si=8V5MtmJLqZBxSfUK
People in vehicles can absolutely survive falling that distance.
HGWeegee@reddit
my dad survived 70ft, albeit with his truck landing on the tailgate of his truck
Spooky3030@reddit
Sure they can. Do that same fall more than once. That is a miracle that they survived that.
ConsistentRegister20@reddit
They would have survived if they were in a Cybertruck.
margoo12@reddit
There was no hill. They hit a drainage culvert. They went 80 feet THROUGH the air, which is about 1 second of airtime at 55 miles an hour.
This is the kind of accident that could be cause by a blown tire. That's why Ford is getting punished so hard.
dontbeabanker@reddit
misrepresenting the crush strength is terrible, worthy of levying punitive damages.
“trying to save money” is the cost-reducing method which allowed any of us to afford cars.
RichardNixon345@reddit
Already thrown out.
Double_Minimum@reddit
In what way was it thrown out? Often the ruling remains, but the amount is drastically reduced on appeal.
I ask because that ruling from Ott is the precedent for this case and a class action suit.
It seems there have been more than 55 lawsuits against Ford over this, with ~40 some being settled for unknown amounts.
RichardNixon345@reddit
https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/11/07/17b-verdict-after-south-georgia-couple-killed-ford-truck-rollover-crash-tossed-out/
OpalescentAardvark@reddit
My 2006 Corolla hatch has so much visibility I know exactly where the traffic around me is, I can see people and things clearly and I have an excellent feel for the dimensions and "physical presence" of the car in every situation.
My 2020 Kona... there is literally no point turning my head to look in my blind spots when changing lanes because a can't see a thing out the rear windows, there's no visibility at all. I have to rely 100% on the wing mirrors.
I made a special effort to make sure the mirrors cover everything and practiced a lot as cars went by, to make sure I am aware of where things are next to me.
Reversing is 90% camera now. It's useful for that, but previously I just didn't need one, I could see everything. Rear hatch windows are way too small now.
It feels totally different to drive because I feel less "present" on the road. The Corolla forced me to be aware of driving a physical hunk of metal. The Kona, because visibility sucks and there's no "road connection" feeling, makes me feel very insulated inside.
Some people might like that, but I think there's value in being forced to recognise the reality of driving a hunk of metal around, not insulated from it. The people around you aren't.
a_modal_citizen@reddit
I don't think it's reasonable at all to expect the roof of a 4 ton truck to hold up under anything more than the most gentle of accidents, if that.
Drzhivago138@reddit
That's also because cars are no longer 80" wide on the outside. Nobody liked sitting in a 73"-wide W-body Impala with a middle seat only 6" wide.
How so? The camera mandate says nothing about where the screen needs to be. Most OEMs put it in the center stack simply because they already had a screen there.
psaux_grep@reddit
Most 90’s cars aren’t very safe at all in real accidents, and while we didn’t get 5 star crash ratings until Renault it’s basically new cars since 2003, but even then five stars isn’t five stars and a 2020 5 star car is much safer than 2005 five star car for both pedestrians and occupants.
Note that I’m saying cars, not trucks or giant ass. SUV’s that like to maim pedestrians to much larger extent.
For safety we are mostly moving the goalposts in the right direction, but not every change made for safety is for the better for other properties of the vehicles.
OptionXIII@reddit
In one generation, the Fiat Punto went from an NCAP 5 star safety rating in 2005 to a 0 star rating in 2018. These ratings definitely do not translate through the years.
psaux_grep@reddit
As long as you’re comparing cars of the same testing regime you can compare them.
Alternatively you can dig into the results and look at occupant safety as that’s what matters most when you and your family is in the car.
nondescriptzombie@reddit
It's 2025 and no one makes cars anymore, CAFE killed the car.
molrobocop@reddit
Similarly, with window-belts being higher and safer, it's not as comfortable to hang your whole-ass arm out the window.
Grabthar-the-Avenger@reddit
I'm an automotive engineer and this really isn't true. More developed countries than the United States have enjoyed continual improvements to both safety and commuting efficiency by adopting common sense regulations like restrictions on unnecessary size and things like speed mitigation tech and traffic calming infrastructure built both into roads and cars.
And they haven't experienced issues with commuters getting around like you're assuming occurs.
If you look at automotive fatality rates Europe has continued to improve while US fatalities actually started trending up ten years ago and haven't stopped because we basically stopped progressing automotive safety culture/regulations decades ago and have ceded it all to sales oriented automotive CEOs who routinely disregard solvable safety concerns coming across their desk because the American public lets them
For fuck's sake, it's the 21st century and the US is still largely using wildly expensive patrolling officers to "police" speeders when other countries just put cameras up to nail every speeder every time and called it a day. We're just idiots here.
trackpaduser@reddit
While the thick A pillars are a safety thing, most visibility issues I've had with modern cars (tiny side mirrors, small rear windows) are largely design related.
waterfromthecrowtrap@reddit
Reminds me I need to get around to picking up an e31 8 series before the non CSi variant prices get silly too.
marino1310@reddit
I think they’re saying the truck was airborne for 80 feet, not that it fell 80 feet. If they hit a ditch at highway speeds it makes sense for it to travel 80 feet before the wheels touch the ground. Or in this case, the roof.
System0verlord@reddit
Apparently it touched down nose first, and flipped onto the roof. So the roof didn’t even take the initial impact.
mackedeli@reddit
This honestly sounds exactly like the take I'd expect from a guy who has the username democracywon2024
carpundit@reddit
It’s not worth 2.5 billion and that’s not what the jury said. The damages were punitive, not compensatory. The jury was punishing Ford for knowingly producing weak roofs for more than 15 years.
xienze@reddit
Yeah Ford really should’ve designed their roofs to be able to withstand going airborne for 80 feet and landing upside down. Super common occurrence when driving.
carpundit@reddit
In fact, they were perfectly capable of doing that and chose not to. The jury found that Ford was knowingly building weak roofs. That verdict is almost certain to be reduced on appeal and Ford won’t have to pay anything like that, but the point is to punish the corporation for choosing to build weak roofs.
carpundit@reddit
I love Reddit’s tendency to downvote purely factual posts. 😂
“The sun rises in the east.” 👎
margoo12@reddit
For the record, 80 feet is about 1 second of airtime at 55 miles an hour. Not exactly hard to achieve, especially if you hit a drainage culvert.
xienze@reddit
Irrelevant. You're still bringing a truck to an abrupt stop, upside down, traveling at a decent clip. Make the roof out of solid steel if you want, senior citizens probably ain't surviving that.
fallinouttadabox@reddit
I did it twice yesterday
ConsistentRegister20@reddit
Unless the Truck is made by Tesla.
ShadyDrunks@reddit
Really confused how they determined the punitive damages. Did they consider this gross negligence? Masterclass lawyer
tyfe@reddit
fr, billable hours doing work here. $2.5b in punitive damages cause a car flew 80 feet and landed on the roof killing 2 senior citizens.
Grabthar-the-Avenger@reddit
Punitive damages large go to the State and taxpayers. In this case the argument would be that Ford makes $185 billion a year and that's the size of fine you need just to reach "stern talking to" levels of discipline.
tyfe@reddit
Ford does not make 185 billion a year.
Grabthar-the-Avenger@reddit
Can you tell me what number you get when you type "ford 2024 revenue" into Google? Because I see they're were working with $185 billion last year
RichardNixon345@reddit
How's that gross paycheck you take home working out for you?
Grabthar-the-Avenger@reddit
I'm sorry, are you guys actually so obtuse as to think punitive damages should be based on profit and not revenue for a company?
By that logic, a company that was negligent with safety and killed someone could end up paying nothing and receiving zero punishment if it had totally unrelated bad investments that year killing its profit. How is that rational?
Generally speaking, most people recognize why you would default to assessing corporate damages via revenue and not profits.
RichardNixon345@reddit
I bet you think companies have their market cap in the bank too.
__-__-_-__@reddit
Plaintiffs lawyers almost never have billable hours. There’s nobody to bill to.
tyfe@reddit
I mean, yea, technically you're right. But contingency hours rolls off the tongue less, and they record the hours worked on cases regardless of it's actually "billed" or not.
dumahim@reddit
There's probably some deeper math involved, but it has to be a big enough penalty so they still don't come out ahead in the end. They've sold millions of trucks and I saw one claim that their cost-saving efforts saved them $3.85 per truck.
forzababy@reddit
this is like that one lady who got drunk and stole her friends Supra and wrapped it around a tree live on Tik Tok going like 120 mph..
Family tried to sue Toyota for making a car that’s too fast.
Obviously it’s the cars fault. Not the alcohol or Tik Toks… or driving stolen car under the influence of alcohol while on tik tok…..That goddamn Toyota Supra!
Zestycheesegrade@reddit
Cool, now lets do guns.
SavagRavioli@reddit
Well tell Republicans to stop defunding mental health across the board, then.
Zestycheesegrade@reddit
How many times have the Democrats been in control of the Congress, Senate and president? And why didn't they do something about it? I get that Reagan abolished mental health facilities. Well state run ones. But I ask again. Why haven't the Democrats done anything to move the mark on facilities?
johnpaulbunyan@reddit
Reagan will still forever be the Drooling Draft Dodger
Zestycheesegrade@reddit
There’s no evidence that Ronald Reagan was a draft dodger. During World War II, Reagan enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve in 1937 as a private and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. However, due to poor eyesight, he was severely nearsightedd. Reagan was classified as unfit for combat duty. Instead, he served in the Army Air Forces' First Motion Picture Unit, making training and propaganda films stateside. This was a legitimate assignment, not an evasion of service. Claims of draft dodging often stem from political critics or misinformation, but Reagan’s military record shows he served as his physical condition allowed. Over 16 million Americans served in WWII, and many, like Reagan, contributed in non-combat roles due to health limitations, hardly dodging.
ca2mt@reddit
Okay, I told em all.
Advanced-Cycle7154@reddit
We need to ban Assault Supra’s!
molrobocop@reddit
Is a convertible top that thing that goes up?
roman_maverik@reddit
Toyota should have never violated the Gentlmans Agreement.
This is exactly what you get when you go over 300hp
Formber@reddit
Don't Camrys have like 300 horsepower nowadays?
KanterBama@reddit
The V6 equipped models did, I think it’s just a hybrid 4 banger now though, which makes like 230-ish.
Formber@reddit
Dang, they even got rid of the turbo 4 model? Wild how different the mid size sedan segment is now versus a few years back when I shopped them.
KanterBama@reddit
You might be mixing up the Accord and Camry, but coincidentally yes, the Accord did drop the 2.0t option. That was a sad day because those could make ~500 hp without opening the motor/trans and without batting an eye.
Formber@reddit
I'm pretty sure Toyota offered a 2.0t as well, but I could be wrong.
It was the Fusion with either the 2.0t or 2.7t that I was into back when they were on the market.
I wish sedans and hatches weren't disappearing. I miss them.
molrobocop@reddit
You're right. In the IS-200T. It wasn't a good engine due to the carbon fouling. And it didn't sell well against the 300.
OverlyPersonal@reddit
301 horsepower or 156 mph? Straight to jail.
Threedawg@reddit
No its not. Read the article
SavagRavioli@reddit
Or the family that got rear ended by a truck doing over 40mph distracted driving (family was stationary). Their Jeep Liberty caught fire and the child burned in the wreckage so they sued Jeep and won.
Or the family member of Paul Walker who sued Porsche for the crash that killed him (caused by rotted tires and speeding on a public road).
Dunkelz@reddit
How is it like it at all? This is a couple that lost control in bad weather, and the case is that he roof wasn't as strong as it should be to be considered safe. Comparing that to a drunk driver is wild.
S1rMuttonchops@reddit
This article is poorly worded and leaves out key information - they jump a distance of 80 feet after careening through a ditch. The article also leaves out that they only lost control because a front tire blew out after Pep Boys installed one with the wrong load rating. Pep Boys took 30% of the blame and Ford took 70% for the injuries.
This happened on Douglas Lake Rd near Bainbridge, Georgia. A very flat rural part of Georgia. The road is 45MPH and lined with shallow drainage ditches. 80 feet of travel is consistent with launching at 20-30 degrees at 40-45 MPH. They probably ran across one of the many driveways while still in the ditch. Most of the driveways are built upon a mound, making a ramp surface perpendicular to the road.
This article isn't clear, but other more direct sources state the truck only flipped after it landed. It "flopped" onto the roof.
To clarify - the family got $24 Million in compensatory damages while the $2.5 Billion is punitive. Some of the punitive damages go to the family while a majority go to the state of Georgia.
Pretty much all of the articles out there fail to paint a clear picture of the story and it is misleading the public.
Few_Highlight1114@reddit
Lmao reddit is so dumb. Bro the crash happened in Georgia. Can you please point on the map the vast mountains of Georgia? lol
The article even states that the truck got launched after it hit a drainage culvert. To go 80 feet you need to travel ~55 mph, which is a totally reasonable speed.
Badfly48@reddit
Oh IDK maybe Appalachia? https://exploregeorgia.org/region/northeast-georgia-mountains
Amesb34r@reddit
My first thought was:
Doesn't the Appalachian trail start in Georgia?
Bradtothebone@reddit
The crash happened in South Georgia, in flat swampland. No mountains for over a hundred miles.
Few_Highlight1114@reddit
Eh, my point still stands. There was no mountainside.
naturalchorus@reddit
.....I go camping in the Georgia mountains every year
Few_Highlight1114@reddit
Im happy for you brother, this accident didnt occur there
mishap1@reddit
Georgia has some mountains in the northern end but these two were driving down in Decatur County which is right on the Florida border near Tallahassee.
UnusualOperation1283@reddit
Surely being airborne for 80 feet had nothing to do with it. Whether or not the roof has a legitimate issue, I don't think this case was the correct one to file suit.
marino1310@reddit
Apparently it landed before hitting the roof. It flopped onto its roof and it collapsed completely
PBandC_NIG@reddit
Shit, Ford should start figuring out a roof support structure that will hold up perfectly even in the event that any other part of the vehicle was damaged following an 80-foot flight.
marino1310@reddit
It’s basically a rollover at that point. It’s not like the truck was dropped 80 feet
JackTheBehemothKillr@reddit
I am not sure if you are being serious or not.
In case you are, that energy doesn't just dissipate when it lands, and its suddenly a new impact when rolling over. It holds that energy, releasing some of it with every new impact until it comes to a complete stop.
marino1310@reddit
It loses a substantial amount of energy. Especially since it’s a horizontal jump, and not vertical. The roof is supposed to withstand these types of accidents, this is the most common type of rollover
JackTheBehemothKillr@reddit
You don't hit a culvert and somehow just fly 80 feet horizontally. Especially with the terrain shown in the crash pictures. Thats just not how any sort of trajectory works.
Also, what do you consider substantial?
A tripped rollover is the most common type of rollover, where the vehicle slides sideways and hits something. Nothing in any article on this indicates it was that type, they indicate that the lady just decided to go offroading at 60MPH
marino1310@reddit
At 50mph 80ft is about 1 second of air. Thats not all that long and seems about right for hitting a culvert.
JackTheBehemothKillr@reddit
You are doing bad math.
To travel 80 feet horizontally, all you have to be doing is driving along the road. To do 80 feet in the air, you have to have a trajectory. There has to be a vertical as well as a horizontal component.
In Earth gravity, all objects fall at a rate of 32.2 feet per second^2. Cut that in half for a level surface from launch to landing and pick a speed.
You seem to like 50MPH, lets go with that.
Say the culvert has a 15 degree angle from horizontal (cause if it had a 90 degree the truck would just smash into it, if it was flat it would have driven off and hit a tree or something.)
Y= 0.27x-16.087(x^2)
With y=80ft (actually, 83.5) you get a peak height of 5-1/2 feet into the air.
The more standard angle for Ga culverts was 25 degrees. At that point you get almost 15 feet of air.
Lots of assumptions in that, but its enough to show that you dont travel 80 feet horizontally and somehow roll at the end of it.
No truck or any vehicle is designed for a 6ft drop.
EterneX_II@reddit
The impact from being dropped for 80 ft is still felt by the other structural components, even if the truck lands on its tires.
marino1310@reddit
It wasn’t dropped, it flew 80ft. Thats about 2 seconds of airtime at 45mph. It hit the culvert and traveled that far horizontally, not vertically
JackTheBehemothKillr@reddit
My friend, do you know how much energy it takes to send an F250 airborn for two seconds?
Also, she hit a culvert and got launched. There will be a gravity component as well.
Nothing that is designed these days is built around such a crash. The closest you will get is rollover, and that's nowhere near what will be sufficient to survive this.
marino1310@reddit
The energy is already there since it’s traveling at 50mph. Weight doesn’t take into account at that point since the mass is already moving, the weight would only really effect how much it deforms the culvert before being launched
JackTheBehemothKillr@reddit
About a quarter of that is right.
Snazzy21@reddit
The f250 is a heavy ass vehicle, and you're probably turning over 3 or 4 times at a relatively high speed rate. If you want to survive that get a roll cage.
I think the tradeoff for visibility over can survive 80 feet of rolling will save more lives in the end
park_more_gooder@reddit
The NHTSA is going to make our pillars 3x wider and every vehicle another 400lb heavier for this one. Then the EPA will be like "why is your average gas mileage going down?" and force even more anemic, expensive, computerized engines on us.
StonePrism@reddit
Well seeing as the jury awarded them damages, you're wrong
NOISY_SUN@reddit
A random jury can award silly damages that are untethered to reality. This will be vastly reduced, if not thrown out entirely, on appeal. The parties will likely settle.
Goldmule1@reddit
Ford built a shoddy roof for their trucks for 30 years likely killing countless people and we think a verdict that holds them accountable for it is silly?
VitalMaTThews@reddit
Right… so my fucking construction vehicle that goes 5mph needs a fucking nascar roll cage?
Goldmule1@reddit
No it doesn’t. But a roof string enough to meet industry standards would be nice.
VitalMaTThews@reddit
Uh huh, and that would have 100% protected these dipshits who launched their pickup 80ft into the fucking air?
Goldmule1@reddit
It would not of no. Didn’t know building roofs up to industry standards meant you need to stop every fatality.
NOISY_SUN@reddit
Yep! That's not how the US court system works. Ford can absolutely build a shoddy roof for its trucks because there is no law or regulation saying that Ford must build a sturdy roof for its trucks. The Ford Super Duty, especially, is not subject to regular passenger vehicle safety standards, as it's mostly classed as a "work" vehicle.
Acceptable-Ad8922@reddit
This is grossly incorrect. Ford has a duty to build a reasonably safe vehicle, which includes roofs that aren’t “shoddy.” It also doesn’t matter if the vehicle is just a “work” vehicle.
Please leave the legal takes for people who actually understand the law.
RichardNixon345@reddit
Acceptable-Ad8922@reddit
I’m a licensed attorney and was using the other commenter’s language, hence the quote. Swing and miss, bud.
NOISY_SUN@reddit
Okay Mr. Esquire, please show us where Ford built the roof to a defective standard, or did not meet a regulatory safety standard.
Acceptable-Ad8922@reddit
The jury already did that. Industry standards are only a singular factor in Georgia’s risk-utility test for products liability actions.
It’s honestly really entertaining to get challenged by a bunch of people who think they know more than a literally products liability attorney. There’s a reason I had to go to school for 3 years and pass the bar to practice. Sit down.
NOISY_SUN@reddit
And surely this will all stand on appeal, because juries are the ultimate arbiter of product liability awards?
Your appeal to authority is entertaining, but hey, lawyers lose cases all the time
Acceptable-Ad8922@reddit
I’m a defense attorney for one, so your assertions are really funny. I don’t enough about the specifics of the case to know if the award will withstand an appeal. But that’s immaterial. You’ve moved the goalposts after repeatedly demonstrating you fundamentally don’t understand products liability law.
NOISY_SUN@reddit
You're being downvoted a bunch. In the Reddit court of public opinion, the jury ain't buying it
Acceptable-Ad8922@reddit
Yeah. I don’t really care because this sub is notorious for not knowing jack shit about the law. Hence this thread. The negative karma is worth calling out Google JDs.
sprottythotty@reddit
Leech to society
Chill_Vibe10@reddit
The key word is “reasonably”. I don’t think it’s reasonable to design for a vehicle to travel 80 feet through the air then land on its roof.
Chill_Vibe10@reddit
There is actually a regulation for roof crush strength. It’s called FMVSS 216. It does, however, only apply for vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating under 6,000 lbs. I assume heavy duty trucks exceed that weight rating, but Ford would be stupid to not design to that requirement as a minimum for all of their vehicles.
LordofSpheres@reddit
216 is basically defunct, as there is now 216a, which applies to all vehicles <10k GVWR (which would not include the F-250), excepting trucks built "in two or more stages... Not built using a chassis cab," i.e. an upfitter like AEV.
However, all of that is moot because the F-250 shares a cab with the F-150 and has since 2017MY I believe. So there is theoretically no structural difference in the roof.
BigCountry76@reddit
FMVSS applies to vehicles over 6000 pound GVWR with a different requirement. Below 6000 pounds the requirements for roof crush is 3x the unloaded weight of the vehicle. Above 6000 pounds it's 1.5x the unloaded weight of the vehicle.
Drzhivago138@reddit
There are minivans with a GVWR over 6K now.
Chill_Vibe10@reddit
Oh I know. They really need to update these regulations. Even small EVs are pushing 5000 lb. EV trucks are blowing was past that. These regulations were written at a time when it was assumed vehicles this heavy weren’t really designed as passenger vehicles. That assumption obviously is no longer true.
Drzhivago138@reddit
Most of the EV pickups are in Class 2B, though some Lightnings are in 2A with typical half-tons.
bikedork5000@reddit
If that's the case, bring a class action suit. Don't use one crash as a surrogate.
Goldmule1@reddit
Also, the fact that Ford chose profits over safety and likely killed countless people, but the point of contention in this sub is that the damages for their crime were too large and not that Ford deliberately killed people, which is why way too many companies get away with this shit in this country.
Goldmule1@reddit
I am sure that will be the outcome of this case. This case will provide the precedent for class actions.
idontremembermyoldus@reddit
This will likely be overturned, just like the last one (with 1.7B in punitive damages) was.
MeinKampfySeat@reddit
A jury let OJ Simpson walk free too.
PhiladelphiaLawyer@reddit
At best, juries are unpredictable. Lawyers are known to throw shit at a wall and see what sticks.
This could’ve been sympathetic plaintiffs or bad lawyering. Occasionally juries give money away because the facts are sad.
SloppyGoose@reddit
I don't think many cars would survive a 80 foot drop onto its roof right?
augustwestcoffee10c@reddit
I've known about this roof issue for 27 years. Went to insurance bodyshop damage class back in the late 90's. Instructor asked the class what you feel safer in, a sedan or a pickup truck. Everyone said the truck. Buzzer, wrong answer. Said the A-pillars that hold the roof up (at the windshield) of a pickup truck can't handle the weight of the truck and the roof will collapse down to the steering wheel. So why do they make them this way? Because they can. Pickup trucks aren't in the car category don't have the same safety required ratings as cars need to pass guv't regulations. So it's way more costly to make big bulky A-Pillars and since they don't have to make them safe, they don't. I was waiting for big law suit and here it is. Ford knew. GM knows, they all know. I'm all for the settlement, time to make them safe, who cares if they make them ugly, I'd rather live thru a bad accident.
Drzhivago138@reddit
That's impressive, given the Super Duty design in question here only debuted in January of 1998 for the '99 MY.
HGWeegee@reddit
Fwiw, January of 1998 is 27 years ago
Drzhivago138@reddit
That's what I'm saying--they apparently discovered the roof issue immediately when the truck was first unveiled. 1999 MY trucks didn't hit showrooms for a few months.
morpowababy@reddit
Somewhat interesting, perhaps related anecdote. I was traveling back through the rocky mountains after visiting family for Christmas. Got stuck in a really long backup in icy conditions through a canyon. When we got moving again I eventually saw a trailer with what looked like an upside down F250 with its roof completely caved in. I remember feeling bad for the occupants because there's no way anyone could have survived that. At the time I didn't think it was anything about that truck but with someone else pointing out some roof structural rating being low on those Ford trucks now I'm questioning that.
realheavymetalduck@reddit
I mean yeah it's literally an f250.
That's around 5,941 to 6,942 of truck that got sent 80 feet into the air and onto its roof. Regardless of the roof strength I don't honestly believe they would've survived.
marino1310@reddit
It didn’t drop 80ft it flew 80ft. Which is about 1 second of airtime at 50mph.
Midget_Cannon@reddit
One second or airtime is a stupid long amount of time.
Final_Winter7524@reddit
Yeah, doesn’t sound like the roof was the real issue here …
MontazumasRevenge@reddit
The roof actually is the issue. My brother was driving one of these and was involved in a rollover in South Florida while getting off the highway offramp. His roof was almost crushed flat. Somehow him and three guys riding with him managed to walk away from the accident.
xienze@reddit
There’s a difference between a roof nearly crushing you because of a rollover and a roof crushing you because you were launched 80 feet in the air before landing upside down. The implication here is that they’d still be alive if the roof had been stronger. I seriously doubt that.
marino1310@reddit
Jesus no one can read here. It’s 80ft through the air, not an 80ft drop. 80ft is like 1-2 seconds of airtime at 50mph
Final_Winter7524@reddit
Energy is Mass * Speed^2
The energy of an F-250 with two people inside traveling fast enough to fly for 80 ft is pretty substantial. Any roof without a proper roll cage will buckle.
marino1310@reddit
They were going 45mph at the time. And it landed on its wheels before flipping. This is a pretty standard rollover event
Agodoga@reddit
It didn’t launch 80 ft up into the air (how?!) it went forwards.
Agodoga@reddit
I read the article!!!!!!
MontazumasRevenge@reddit
I never said that they would be. I just simply said that the roofs on those trucks are notoriously weak.
Turbulent_Option_151@reddit
Why would anyone want to be in the business of building anything anymore. You get sued for anything that happens
Cute-Beyond-8133@reddit
if you can't be botherd to read the article that's okay i did it for you
GravyNeck@reddit
It sucks that these people died, but fuck this family. If you lose control of your truck and fly 80 feet through it isn't the auto maker's fault if you die. Seems like a bs frivolous suit
Rau-Li@reddit
And this kind of thing will only cause vehicle prices to continue ballooning out of control. We need affordable transportation. There has to be a reasonable level of safety, but there is always going to be a level of acceptable risk.
corn_sugar_isotope@reddit
yeah, I'm not going to be blaming that on regulations.
Substantial-Limit577@reddit
There are a lot of reasons why prices are skyrocketing - but it is valid that regulations , and litigation are some of them. Auto companies have to factor in these into the prices, basically having to assume multiple of thousands per vehicle as litigation cost pre sale of vehicle. Combine this with rising costs to produce, and yes, desire for increased profits, and you get cars that are getting stupid expensive
Dunkelz@reddit
Blaming regulations while automotive companies rake in ever increasing profits is fucking wild.
Detroitsaab@reddit
Have you looked at Ford's and others profit per year. It barely grows.. Calling that ever increasing profits is fucking wild..
corn_sugar_isotope@reddit
I'm not blaming profits myself, I blame feature bloat..and girth. That their profits do not increase for it makes it that much more baffling..until I remember that most consumer, are..well.. uh. let's say, vulnerable?
opeth10657@reddit
How about their executive wages? I bet they keep growing, even faster than the company's profits.
Dunkelz@reddit
It's growing. That's definition of ever increasing. Stop trying to defend our excuse a corporation lmao.
Detroitsaab@reddit
Automotive profits, specifically Ford has basically been within 5% of the same number since 2004… that isn’t growing. Yea other corporations grow but automotive isn’t one of them…
Dunkelz@reddit
So 9% increase in 2022, 8% increase in 2023 and 3.5% increase in 2024 for a company whose gross profits are in the $20+ billion range isn't growth?
rsta223@reddit
It is growth, conveniently starting from a baseline that's right in the pandemic. They're basically the same now as they were in 2015-2018.
Glaesilegur@reddit
Lot's of useful idiots in the comments.
cubs223425@reddit
Glaesilegur@reddit
Got me there. But english is a second language so I got that excuse at least.
johnpaulbunyan@reddit
If not for emissions regs cars wouldn't be nearly as good as they are now.
NYPuppers@reddit
Well, uh, when companies have to pay 3 billion dollar per accident, or at least defend every case that claims this, and there are 100 million cars on the road... you should.
corn_sugar_isotope@reddit
So you changed your reasoning from increased expense for safety features, to the cost of litigation? Either way, I stand by what I said.
molrobocop@reddit
I don't feel it's too much to ask for Ford to be obligated to improve their super duty line. And they're sure as shit not "affordable transportation."
patlaska@reddit
Yeah, its called public transit lol
Rau-Li@reddit
In a few cities that's a viable option. In the vast majority of America, the public transit is insufficient or non-existent.
OrangePilled2Day@reddit
Literally because of the car companies lol. GM and Ford have made driving AND public transit worse to sell more shitty trucks.
patlaska@reddit
And you said we need it. Make it sufficient or existent, take commuter cars off the roads, win-win.
elon_free_hk@reddit
As society progress and cost of technology comes down in price, I expect we could have both.
Vehicle prices are on par with inflation. Trucks have gotten unbelievably expensive because of the features it packs (and not just safety features). On the other hand, trucks are also no longer a work vehicle but replaced the moving couch American land yacht that we used to have.
I’d argue that cars are still affordable. You could still buy a Corolla for 22k or 24k for the hybrid. The used car market was fucked during Covid shortage but it seems to be leveling out now.
RedditWhileIWerk@reddit
What have you seen in the last 5 years that makes you think anything is going to" come down in price?"
elon_free_hk@reddit
It is not. Prices for cars or essentials rarely come down. Inflation is a measure of the rate of increase prices. What we want is to tame inflation (so prices go up slowly), and increase wages.
The problem we have as a country is not only increase in prices (inflation), but wage stagnation as well. That’s the way we can move forward together.
RedditWhileIWerk@reddit
The only technologies I have seen become more affordable since 2020 are things like hard drives ($20/TB is amazing), flash storage, and a few other computer items (definitely NOT graphics cards though...whole other discussion).
Now that's just CRAZY TALK. But yeah, paying overinflated housing prices wouldn't hurt as much, if I were doing it with similarly-inflated wages.
Terrh@reddit
Computing stuff is actually getting more affordable at a slower rate than ever before.
$20/TB isn't that amazing, I got a 6TB drive for $58 at microcenter in 2019.
Ram is finally cheaper than it was a decade ago. But before that it would lose roughly 1/3 of its price a year.
RedditWhileIWerk@reddit
In 2019 no one was offering a 20TB HDD.
Terrh@reddit
Yes, but that wasn't a part of your post pre-edit. Or if it was, I missed it.
Also as I write this I'm awkwardly staring at a 20TB external drive from 2015 (it's 2 10TB's in raid 0) that I think I've used for 10 minutes total... Maybe not my best purchase.
Also A+ user flair, and I say this as someone that owns an EV... hybrids are better.
deleted_by_reddit@reddit
[removed]
RedditWhileIWerk@reddit
I could be making payments on a reasonable loan for a new car, even at today's prices, if I weren't having to throw away so much on a monstrously inflated mortgage. That's why I will never be able to afford a new car. It's not the car prices as such, it's the cost of housing specifically. Sorry but that "base" Toyota is still out of my price range.
AutoModerator@reddit
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Domojin@reddit
Wages increase to match inflation in the US?? Where are you from, Narnia?
Terrh@reddit
Some vehicle pricing tracks with inflation, some doesn't.
I agree that a base corolla for $22k is not unreasonable compared to how much everything else has increased... but, it goes in leaps and bounds and sometimes the increases are dramatic.
And just because everything else has increased doesn't mean any of those increases are "reasonable" inflation in general sucks.
Significant_Turn5230@reddit
"the companies who have been making record profits for the last decade will now raise their prices if we make them make the cars safer!"
Buddy, no. Cars get priced to maximize profits, if their expenses go down, they don't lower the price. If their expenses go up, that doesn't mean their customers can suddenly afford to spend more on a truck.
Multifaceted-Simp@reddit
It's probably not the family that thought of this lawsuit, this was probably a publicized accident, a lawyer saw it saw a billion dollar signs flash in front of their eyes and reached out to the family and pressured them.
cbf1232@reddit
If the industry standard is that a 4-to-1 strength-to-weight ratio is "good" then this truck is pretty clearly below the "good" rating.
Whether that counts as wilful negligence is the question...
MoirasPurpleOrb@reddit
This is really the entire argument here: if Ford knowingly misrepresented the roof rating.
Lucreth2@reddit
Knowingly misrepresented the roof rating huh... As if that's just, on the window sticker. The standard 4:1 that it's being compared to is just some standard for crash ratings If these trucks got a passing grade (which isn't even a legal thing, it's marketing as much as anything) while having that roof then the deception is strictly the fault of the testing company and not Ford's problem unless they sent stronger than normal trucks for testing or otherwise manipulated the numbers.
MoirasPurpleOrb@reddit
Note: I didn’t say whether or not they did, that’s just the crux of the suit.
Terrh@reddit
This reminds me of the similarly high $$$ figure (I forget the numbers, but it was a lot) a few years ago because of some bodyshop improperly repairing a roof panel on a civic. The people would've been dead no matter what in the crash, but because they repaired it a different way than specified they were found liable. It seemed ridiculous to me.
marino1310@reddit
The tire blew and that what make them lose control. Also the 80 feet is lateral, not vertical. Basically it hit a ramp and was airborne for 80 feet. Which sounds about right for 45mph. Also it bounced and flopped onto its roof, which is the part that’s pretty damning
Dunkelz@reddit
Lmao what? Losing control in inclement weather means you deserve to die due to a safety measure in your car being reduced by the manufacturer to make more money?
OrangePilled2Day@reddit
Losing control in inclement weather means you were driving recklessly, No one launches 80 feet in the air going 25 on an icy road.
molrobocop@reddit
Yeah. It's typically on a dirt road drive ven by them Duke boys!
margoo12@reddit
I don't mean to be rude, but are you fucking stupid? Blowing a tire at highway speeds is enough to do this. Ford is willingly negligent at best by putting out a vehicle with less than a third, nearly a quarter of the structural rigidity necessary to be considered "good".
Delanorix@reddit
Did you completely miss this part from the comment you posted on?
"The strength-to-weight ratio of trucks in the suspect class is 1.1, according to the lawsuit. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, meanwhile, requires a ratio of 4.0 to rate a vehicle as "good.""
Ford didnt lose because they are bad drivers.
Ford lost because it was proven they lied about their trucks.
ConsistentFatigue@reddit
What was their lie?
Yangervis@reddit
Sounds like this roof, and many others, were defective. The family didn't award themselves the money.
jdore8@reddit
Derrick Thomas a former Kansas City Chiefs player died while speeding on icy roads. His family sued GM & a jury didn’t award them anything.
ItchyMcHotspot@reddit
It's the automaker's fault if the trucks aren't compliant with safety regulations.
ktappe@reddit
I did read the article. I am trying to figure out how Ford should have known to design a truck to withstand hitting a culvert and going airborne for 80 feet. Show me a standardized crash test that would demonstrate survivability in such an unusual situation. Yes, Ford has a long history of fucking up (Edsel, Pinto, etc.) but I don't see this as one of those times.
lostboyz@reddit
Not any misinformation here, but just wanted to stress that IIHS is not a regulatory body and the vehicle meets all requirements. This is a unique aspect of liability in the US where you can make a product that meets all requirements and still be found at fault. In the EU regulations are a shield for the OEM from these types of suits. Pros and cons to each.
This is partially why there's an arm's race of adding safety features to vehicles, if someone can show in a courtroom that you're not keeping up with everyone else, despite being well above requirements, you can be found negligent.
MoirasPurpleOrb@reddit
Did the IIHS say the roof was “good”?
Was this based on faulty data from Ford or IIHS testing?
Those are the questions that matter that I didn’t see an answer to.
NuttingPenguin@reddit
The IIHS is a private testing company. The government one is the NHTSA.
MoirasPurpleOrb@reddit
The point being is that if it’s misrepresented, whether by a regulatory body or a private company, there may be a case.
aggro-crag@reddit
This is where I got confused with the jury’s ruling. If it meets all requirements, why is Ford at fault? (Especially when falling 80 ft. Nothing is gonna survive that). Unless Ford was specifically advertising “this vehicle has the safest roll-over standards of any heavy duty truck!, etc, I can’t see why they’d be liable.
Me_Air@reddit
They made it weaker to save a few bucks, literally. Ford’s MO
TheReformedBadger@reddit
Assuming the figure I saw above is cotrect, it’s Roughly 4M/year for as long as they were using that body.
lostboyz@reddit
There can be a ton of factors beyond the requirements. Completely hypothetical, but if they found any emails talking about it and making decisions not to improve it for cost that can always play a factor with juries. I didn't dig that deep in this case, but the jury doesn't pick the number they basically have a worksheet they fill out that goes into a calculation. Many times it's vague what the threshold is/should be for cases like this.
RichardNixon345@reddit
A private group that does not make regulations. They shouldn't have even been allowed to be used as evidence.
Hunt3rj2@reddit
They don't, but even the minimum standard for LDPC roof crush under FMVSS is higher than 1.1x. It's now 3x the static weight when it used to be 1.5x. Heavier vehicles get an exemption from this 3x standard but if we keep going down the road of making obscenely large pickup trucks family cars then a lot more people are going to die from roof crush in rollovers.
burtmacklin15@reddit
Subject matter experts can be used in as witnesses in court cases.
RichardNixon345@reddit
An expert on NHTSA rules, sure. If a policeman got on the stand and said his personal standard for acceptable punches to the head was 3, he'd be rightly laughed out of the courtroom, and so would the lawyer if they tried to claim that was a regulation.
burtmacklin15@reddit
Nope, the expert does not have to comment on current regulations.
They are free to argue that something may or may not be safe using data and their own analysis.
Whether the jury accepts this is another story.
DavoinShowerHandel1@reddit
Just because someone doesn't make regulation doesn't mean that they can't be a subject matter expert, I might even argue the opposite.
I'm not saying they're a definitive source on the matter, I know nothing about them, but saying they don't make regulations isn't a good reason to not use them as evidence.
biggsteve81@reddit
At the same time there are many lawsuits over the theft issues with Hyundai/Kia vehicles, when regulations still do not require immobilizers to be installed in vehicles.
Cappuccino_Crunch@reddit
Not to mention there are laws that actually limit the payout and it's usually absurdly low
a_modal_citizen@reddit
So an F250 roof is expected to hold 28,000 lbs in order to be considered "good"? Good luck with that...
GrammarPolice92@reddit
*their, for fuck’s sake.
harebreadth@reddit
Thank you for your service
popsicle_of_meat@reddit
Is this as close as we get to a "requirement" or roof strength? Meaning, there is no actual requirement, just a rating of "goodness"? If that's the case, and there is no requirement or minimum safety margin threshold that Ford went below, then I don't see how any of this is a fault of Ford. Is it weaker than maybe it should be? Sure. But there's no hard safety requirement or law that says it must be a certain strength. It's all vague "safety ratings".
N3ptuneEXE@reddit
This is the third time they have tried this case with huge punitive damages. They will probably get reduced if I had to guess. But everytime they try the case after the appellate court corrected “error” the jury award has gone up.
Solomon7@reddit
Thank you!
guy-anderson@reddit
With a truck as heavy as a F-250, I can't imagine what it would take to make the strength of the roof "good".
Maybe the legal outcome of this is making it illegal to sell these massive trucks as consumer passenger vehicles in the first place?
velociraptorfarmer@reddit
So now when everyone asks why A pillars are so goddamn chunky and visibility is terrible, this is why.
JPSofCA@reddit
And thus, why we don’t read the articles…because, nothing really happened.
TheBackpacker@reddit
Thank you for your service 🫡
GrammarPolice92@reddit
*their, for fuck’s sake.
trmoore87@reddit
Look, I'm all for people getting compensated when bad shit happens.. but $2.5 BILLION? come on now.
MortimerDongle@reddit
The $2.5 billion is in punitive damages, not compensatory
trmoore87@reddit
Gotcha. It was $30m compensatory. That sounds about right.
Mydickisaplant@reddit
Not really. He flew 80 feet off a mountainside. This was no one’s fault but the drivers. He killed himself and the passenger.
margoo12@reddit
I don't mean to be rude, but are you stupid? Did you even read the article? The woman who was driving hit a drainage culvert, which acted like a ramp. No mountain involved.
This type of accident can be caused by a blown tire at highway speeds. Something perfectly normal and common in North America. The reason why the punitive damages (not the 30m awarded to the family) are so high is because ford knowingly and willingly manufacturers a vehicle that has less than a third, close to a quarter of the recommended structural integrity for its roofs.
Mydickisaplant@reddit
It’s an 80 foot drop landing on the roof. Any expectation of survival is nothing but absolute lunacy.
Ford should not be paying a dime for this.
margoo12@reddit
80 ft through the air. Your reading comprehension sucks.
verdegrrl@reddit
No insults. Thanks
Cheap-Worldliness291@reddit
Blown tires are caused by not replacing your tires or bad road conditions. In which case they themselves, or those who do the road maintenance are liable, not a private company.
OrangePilled2Day@reddit
You gotta be their lawyer doing all this damage control for 2 people that killed themselves.
marino1310@reddit
Dude their tire exploded because the pep boys installed the wrong tire. How are they killing themselves here? Have at least some respect for the dead
margoo12@reddit
Two people that probably would have survived of they were driving pretty much any other modern vehicle.
We don't know what caused them to lose control of their vehicle. Sometimes shit happens.
Mydickisaplant@reddit
Lmao. You believe that vehicles should be able to withstand 80 foot drops while landing on the roof? And you’re asking if I’m stupid?
Jesus Christ. Were you dropped as a child?
margoo12@reddit
80 ft though the air. Which is about 1 second of airtime at 55 mph.
Yeah. You're an idiot.
Confident_Season1207@reddit
More than likely they didn't stay in their lane because the majority of pickup drivers are too stupid to keep it in the lines
WingerRules@reddit
Ford can get fucked. The stability control, traction control, pre collision assist, and power steering has all failed on my current generation Ford Escape THREE TIMEs. All safety issues.
StrangeSmellz@reddit
Can you read, my son?
NOISY_SUN@reddit
Juries just make up whatever. It always gets thrown out on appeal.
lordtema@reddit
It wont be $2.5b. There will likely be state laws limiting the amount, and the amount will get appealed. Probably ending up with like a million or two after lawyer fees or something in that regard.
21MesaMan@reddit
Interesting outcome — I was part of a mock jury last year about this very issue, though the case we were presented was from Oregon, the outcome was similar — guy lost control of truck, skidded off the road and rolled, roof collapsed and he was left a quadriplegic. The majority of our mock jurors sided with Ford.
Overlord1317@reddit
In this thread: People who didn't bother to read the article or are completely clueless as to what actually happened in this case.
airfryerfuntime@reddit
Ford isn't paying a cent of this. It'll just get kicked down the hill on appeal. 2 billion in punitive damages because they launched a truck down the side of a mountain? Get the fuck out of here.
Agodoga@reddit
It didn’t go down a mountain.
airfryerfuntime@reddit
Mountain, culvert, same thing.
Agodoga@reddit
It didn’t drop 80 feet, it went forwards.
ktappe@reddit
99% of the time I'm on the consumer's side in cases like this. US industry has a very long & detailed history of trying to save a buck anywhere and anyhow they can.
BUT:
* She's the one who lost control.
* The truck flew 80 feet??? How the fuck fast was she driving for that to happen??
* $2.5 Billion?? With a "B"?
It is verdicts like this that make life hard for the rest of us who are actually harmed through no fault of our own by greedy business. It makes the public doubt the veracity of any lawsuit filed, which sucks, because most of them are indeed valid. This one doesn't at all seem like it was.
Ok-Chef-5150@reddit
Great now ford will have to make titanium roofs and a F-150 will cost 200k because so old people can’t drive.
tonyromojr@reddit
GA is a known judicial hellhole so I'm not surprised. Crazy jury payouts have been a problem in GA for a while now.
https://www.judicialhellholes.org/hellhole/2023-2024/georgia/
https://pro.stateaffairs.com/ga/politics/kemp-tort-reform-georiga-2025
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=a3ca1707-8a5e-43eb-923a-1f206bb57af6
https://georgiarecorder.com/2025/01/31/kemp-backed-lawsuit-overhaul-seeks-to-limit-large-verdicts-but-without-explicit-damages-caps/#:~:text=A%20previous%20legislative%20attempt%20to,be%20driving%20rising%20insurance%20premiums.
Nitrothacat@reddit
It was a 2015 F250 involved in the crash yet they used three pictures of the body style that ended with the 2010 MY. Great job R&T.
Drzhivago138@reddit
It gets better: every source reports that it was a 2015, but the picture some other articles have used of the supposed vehicle involved is clearly not. More like a 2004. This was the vehicle involved.
piercerson25@reddit
Thank you, this really slims things down.
ryguy32789@reddit
Jesus Christ, how recklessly were they driving?
RaphaTlr@reddit
Airborne for 80ft then landed roof first.
bunnysuit-jabroni@reddit
80 ft?! I need people to think about how fucking far that is. Were they going like 110 mph?
OrangePilled2Day@reddit
That's why all of these comments are so baffling. They flew SIX STORIES in the air. Does anyone really believe they're surviving that in any passenger vehicle?
to11mtm@reddit
They were Airborne for 80 feet. They did not get 80 feet high.
It then depends on how they land.
I mean, here's a fun example where a cop car launched off a vehicle doing a TVI, went airborne for a bit, rolled over on landing (which is, from what others said in thread, what happened to the ford truck) and the police officer survived.
RaphaTlr@reddit
Tbf, even a Volvo would probably be fatal in the same crash and they set the standard for roof crush and crash safety. But Ford has been sued for weak roofs even in simple rollover crashes, which should be survivable and sometimes aren’t due to roof collapsing. So the claim of weak roofs is valid but in this accident I think negligence was primary.
OrangePilled2Day@reddit
I'm in agreement here. I think Ford probably does have weak roofs on these trucks but this also doesn't sound like a crash where anything short of a fully-caged vehicle had any chance of occupant survival.
RaphaTlr@reddit
Where’s a rollcage spec Porsche when you need one?
margoo12@reddit
Normal highway speeds. A blown tire could have caused this.
RichardNixon345@reddit
With especially poor driving and poor reactions. Given that the driver was in her 70s, that's not hard to correlate.
margoo12@reddit
64 is not in her 70s. Where are you getting your information? That's twice in a row you've been incorrect with basic details that you could find in the first couple paragraphs of the article.
RichardNixon345@reddit
Are we really gonna pretend a 64 year old is any more reactive than a 70 year old?
Wiggles69@reddit
She was closer to 60 than 70. Regardless of what her reactions were, we can really nail down facts like her age.
Nitrothacat@reddit
An older HD diesel truck is pretty easy to wreck. I got to drive a ‘14 F250 6.7 recently and with how bouncy and heavy it was, along with the heavy diesel up front and huge torque output that thing would be so easy to put in a ditch compared to a half ton gas truck.
Dangerousfox@reddit
The picture of the older truck you brought up could be from a similar case the article references near the end. Near identical details, truck rolls over and kills elderly couple driving. That one was settled in 2022 and in Atlanta, and was supposed to have Ford pay $1.7 billion.
Drzhivago138@reddit
Either way, most of the cab structure remained the same from 1999-2016. And the 650/750s are still using that cab.
SockeyeSTI@reddit
The last one you linked is a newer (2011+) king ranch with a diesel. Either an f250 or 350.
idontremembermyoldus@reddit
Looks like an '02-'03, as it appears to have the black 7.3 door badge.
SockeyeSTI@reddit
There was a post in one of the truck subs a couple weeks ago where a guy rolled his newer (2018+) ford like 3 times and it looked unscathed. He had to post new pics of the rear corners at the top of the cab to prove it because people didn’t think he actually rolled it.
04limited@reddit
Gotta shit on the 6.4 one way or another
WingerRules@reddit
Ford can get fucked. The stability control, traction control, pre collision assist, and power steering has all failed on my current generation Ford Escape THREE TIMEs. All safety issues.
olov244@reddit
yeah, now we'll have to build vehicles to withstand a 10 story drop test and they'll weigh twice as much
f this timeline, I want another
marino1310@reddit
It wasn’t dropped, it flew 80ft. Which is like a second or two of airtime.
Cheap-Worldliness291@reddit
So?
marino1310@reddit
That’s very different from being dropped 10 stories, this was basically a rollover event, which a truck should survive
RichardNixon345@reddit
And then the people cheering for that standard will complain they can't see out of the car and that it costs $50k for a coupe.
SleeperMuscle@reddit
If the flames from the engine fire don’t ignite you should watch out for the roof!
Chokedee-bp@reddit
I’m not convinced going airborne for 80 feet is ever recovered to be survivable. That lawsuit sounds like some straight up BS. Kind of embarrassing our courts have these results.
AnuthaJuan@reddit
Operating costs
mhammer47@reddit
This happened in on a small rural road outside Bainbridge, GA. There's no cliff involved. It happened in the early afternoon. Who knows why they left the roadway and went into the culvert. Medical emergency? Trying to avoid wildlife? Alcohol? Either way they probably went at substantial speed given the launch distance.
I think the jury awarded the damages because it was shown conclusively that Ford knew that the roof wasn't very good. The legal argument Ford puts forward is that their roofs were within spec and street legal and that they're under no obligation to meet third party experts' subjective standards regarding safety, only the official standards created by the regulators. I think Ford is on pretty solid ground there, but juries can easily be swayed in these types of situations.
to11mtm@reddit
It is really weird how many replies use a 'cliffside' analogy all while defending Ford in this. The turf feels plastic.
marino1310@reddit
From what I’ve read their tire blew because pep boys installed a tire with a far too low load rating.
xt1nct@reddit
People in here need to learn to read.
The settlement is high because ford knew their roof was weak and haven’t done shit about it. The number is high to force the automaker to actually fix the issue.
oxfordclubciggies@reddit
I'm pretty sure nearly 3 tons of truck flying 80 feet would have crushed the roof no matter what the safety rating was.
marino1310@reddit
80ft is only about a second of airtime, it wasn’t dropped 80ft. It’s basically a standard rollover
BigCountry76@reddit
There is a NHTSA roof crush standard. If it meets that there isn't much for the lawsuit to stand on. IIHS standards are above and beyond the legal requirements for vehicle sale.
Ford already got a $1.7 billion judgement for weak roofs thrown out, I don't see why this would be different.
iroll20s@reddit
If the article is correct at 1.1 it wouldn't have met it any year the truck was produced. The lowest would be 1.5. Assuming they used the same methodology in place when the truck in question was certified.
Powerful_Abalone1630@reddit
The roof crush test ratings are not from a government agency. The IIHS is an independent nonprofit.
iroll20s@reddit
That's what I'm talking about.
BigCountry76@reddit
I obviously don't know all the details of the case and how they came to that 1.1 number, but the fact that Ford has already gotten roof crush lawsuits on super duty trucks thrown out less than 3 years ago leads me to believe that the truck meets the test conditions.
iroll20s@reddit
Its also possible that the case used a max option model to generate that 1.1 so the truck was as heavy as possible and the certification was with a stripper model. I wouldn't put too much weight on other cases getting thrown out, but I don't doubt the award will be reduced significantly on appeal. Comparing it to a 4.0 standard is nonsense any way you cut it.
OhSillyDays@reddit
Congress doesnt work to update standards and congress ignores voters. So people are doing what does work, sue. Because courts are how governing happens in the USA.
I see what you are saying about standards, but it standards are heavily outdated and probably reflect what ford wants to build tobsave money rather than ehat is safe for buyers.
I feel like this is just another example of how congress has failed us.
BigCountry76@reddit
Then sue NHTSA for not updating standards. You can't sue a company for complying with regulatory standards just because you don't like them.
RiftHunter4@reddit
The fact a jury found Ford liable is pretty damning. Dying in a car crash rarely has much to do with the manufacturer, so if they convinced a jury and judge, they had to have good evidence.
The article also mentioned that this isn't the first lawsuit over Ford's roofs. Apparently, they appealed another but that case is still required to be retried.
ycnz@reddit
It's pretty damning for the US judicial system.
RichardNixon345@reddit
It's more like juries are not expert and neither are judges.
beta_particle@reddit
Damn, you've foiled our entire legal system 🙄
RiftHunter4@reddit
Yeah and most people would not think Ford had anything to do with someone dying in a rollover unless there was some legitimate evidence to it. Ford should have the advantage here but the multi-billion dollar company still lost the case.
NitroLada@reddit
Why do they need to do anything about it if it meets govt requirements for roof crush standard?
xt1nct@reddit
Idk because they got sued and lost. Just a guess.
NitroLada@reddit
It'll get thrown out
162630594@reddit
I would think going fast enough to fly 80 feet before landing on the roof would be such an extreme case where any roof would collapse.
But I guess this lawsuit is implying that most modern cars that have that 4.0 strength to weight ratio would hold up in this case?
marino1310@reddit
That’s like 1 second of airtime at 50mph
Motohvayshun@reddit
All Ford has to do to appeal is to recreate the crash. No car is surviving that upside down. That not where a cars structural strength is. It’s down low, because that’s where most of the kinetic energy would be dissipated.
balthisar@reddit
You've never seen the stacked Volvo ad? That's all about roof crush, and that's from sometime in the 1980's.
While it's possible that no car would have survived this particular crash, there's a lot of investment in roof crush (that's the actual term), the use of ultra-high strength steel, boron steel, etc., in the roof pillars.
Again, it's likely that nothing would have survived this type of incident. I'm simply disputing the statement that there's no structural strength there.
turbo-autist_420@reddit
This may be news to you, but stacking cars statically on top of one another is totally different than falling 80 feet off the side of a cliff.
balthisar@reddit
Um, congratulations for completely ignoring the context of the discussion. Please stop eating crayons, for crying out loud.
Few_Highlight1114@reddit
Hold up, youre telling me theres some dudes out there who's job is building a ramp to launch a vehicle, and make it go upside down to land on its roof?
How do you get a job like that? lol
ahhter@reddit
Doubt they'd go that far - probably just drop it upside down from a crane. Still fun, though.
squaad@reddit
This is just as bad as the defamation lawsuit against one of trumps friends. This is stupid
Moynia@reddit
Yeah fat fucking chance lol
I dont think they would have survived that even in a roll caged race car lmao
RBeck@reddit
It's a weight savings thing, if you want a vehicle that can be dropped on it's roof, buy unibody instead of frame-on-chassis. Or install a roll cage.
Quake_Guy@reddit
Foot wide A pillars coming soon, in other news pedestrian fatalities continue to increase.
I sat in an old early 80s 3 series recently, the visibility out the front was like sitting in a Cessna 172.
molrobocop@reddit
Not like you can really see anything within close proximity to the hood and fenders of an F-250 anyway.
I do miss my old 3rd gen prelude though. You say low in it, plus the hood line was sloped nicely downward. Engine had to be tipped rearward during the design-phase to make it fit the body lines.
Rivers33@reddit
DOPE TO SEE MY WORK UP HERE! Thanks for posting it u/HawtGarbage917
Even though it's CLEARLY Good for the subreddit I'm not allowed to post it because I wrote it.
hawksdiesel@reddit
NO BAILOUTS!!
Goldeneagle41@reddit
The ruling will be appealed and somewhere down the line the punitive damages will be greatly reduced.
carsilike@reddit
Ford should invest in better quality frames
ThickIndication5134@reddit
If I landed my car on its roof after falling 80 feet, I wouldn't expect to survive. How is this Ford's fault?
temporalwanderer@reddit
...
...
Are there any 7000lb vehicles that can be tossed 80 feet without crumpling?
S1rMuttonchops@reddit
Most of the articles on this story are sensational and misleading, which is causing a lot of misconception and speculation. Here are a few clarifications with receipts:
This was a tragic and avoidable accident which the victims could have done very little to avoid. Considering the truck flipped after landing on the ground, I think it's probable the roof would have failed in a similar manner if the truck simply spun out on the shoulder and rolled.
It's so easy to get a clear idea of what actually happened from the law firm's press release that I am shocked by how bad the news articles are. Bad journalism has everyone blaming a little old lady who didn't deserve to die.
There may be more nuance to find in the case filings, but I didn't take the time to look
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Eggith@reddit
I do find it slightly amusing that the lead for the Mills' Family counsel shares the name of a Local Chevrolet dealer chain.
But seriously, is it possible for someone to fly 80 feet through the air in a truck that heavy and not end up dead or borderline dead? I could understand if this tipped over at a reasonable height and they ended up dead, but 80 feet is a long way to drop 6100lbs.
Powerful_Abalone1630@reddit
It wasn't an 80ft drop. The car hit a culvert and was airborne for 80ft and flipped over. I didn't see any estimates in the article of how high it might have been.
Eggith@reddit
Yes, I know, I read the article. I think this was a case of me typing things out incorrectly.
johnpaulbunyan@reddit
This sort of thing destroyed light airplane manufacturing in the 80s. 'Pilots' would fly themselves into mountains and Cessna would be successfully sued for $50 million ... if Ford legit covered up defects fine but I would be surprised if that was why these people died, after THEY lost control of their vehicle.
THEREALCABEZAGRANDE@reddit
That's just patently absurd and obviously a decision made by people who have no concept of the engineering challenge, or if we're being honest impossibility, of what they think it should be. It's not like the roof on these trucks is light or weak. A 4x s/w ratio is DESIREABLE, for passenger cars, which are significantly lighter and smaller than a heavy duty truck and therefore where its MUCH easier to hit that 4:1 target. To hit a 4 to 1 target on an 8000 lb truck with that much roof square footage, the pillars would have to be 18 inches in diameter and you'd be adding a minimum of 800 lbs to the truck. This was an outlier, extremely high energy crash that no reasonably designed vehicle is going to survive. Did the truck pass safety standards of the time of manufacture? Yes? Then this case even going to trial is absurd.
daxelkurtz@reddit
Judgment gonna be vacated faster than a burning Waffle House
mini4x@reddit
went airborne for 80 feet damn...
CookieMonsterFL@reddit
I feel like a key missing piece isn't that the car fell 80ft but it rather traveled 80ft? From the images i've seen, it doesn't look like the truck fell off a cliff, its next to the road in a ditch.
If anything, it'd appear they hit a birm in the ditch after losing control which launched the car 80ft forward (probably not 80ft vertical) and then crushed when it landed on its roof.
Otherwise the jury verdict makes no sense beyond the unreasonable assumption to blame simply because a roof should never collapse in any scenario.
AwesomeBantha@reddit
80ft forward sounds a lot more reasonable here, plenty of videos out there of cars sending it over railroad crossings and getting quite a bit of airtime without going terribly high
I_like_cake_7@reddit
Does anybody seriously expect any vehicles roof to survive an 80 foot fall? The two people who died in this accident were fucked as soon as they lost control of the truck. A stronger roof would not have saved them.
cbf1232@reddit
They travelled 80 feet horizontally
I_like_cake_7@reddit
I still don’t see how that would have been survivable. No car is designed to be airborne for 80 feet and land on its roof without extreme damage.
cbf1232@reddit
Assuming they were travelling 55mph, that's almost exactly 1 second in the air. This works out to a maximum height off the ground of 4 feet, with a bunch of horizontal skidding.
I_like_cake_7@reddit
Perhaps you are right.
kneedown318@reddit
I guess I'll try not to take my truck off any freestyle ramps
BearBearington262@reddit
The trick is to land it on its wheels and not the roof. I can draw a picture if I can find a crayon I didn't eat....
TrafficOnTheTwos@reddit
Ridiculous number, obviously not going to stand.
paclogic@reddit
$2.5 BILLION - c'mon what kind of court decision is that ?!?!
like slipping on a floor in Starbucks and saying you want the company.
that verdict won't be paid out - that's for damn sure !
if will spend eternity in the courts.
elon_free_hk@reddit
ITT: How to make a comment from reading the headline.
It seems like the law suit is in the spirit of Ford knowing the roof was weak but didn’t address it. For the armchair vehicle engineers in the thread, maybe we should review the Ford Pinto case.
I would be curious to see comparison of the super duty against other brand’s heavy duty pickup roof strength.
Those who argued about “BuT iT wAs wItHiN ReGuLaTIon”. Sure, but regulations and rules are written in blood. I would be disappointed if whoever made this statement is also an engineer, because they clearly forgot about the Fundamental Canons from NSPE code of ethics that was taught to every undergraduate engineer student in this country in an accredited program.
Far-Wallaby-5033@reddit
That is not a sustainable verdict
nevergonnastawp@reddit
Wot?
Bradtothebone@reddit
A whole lot of people in here keep acting like the 80 feet was a vertical fall. If the truck was going at 70-80mph on a highway, 80 feet is less than a second of airtime. This seems like a pretty standard rollover accident and there’s no reason it should’ve completely crushed the cab to the point of both occupants dying. People survive far more severe rollover crashes every day in other vehicles, ford just made an unsafe truck.
Lordofwar13799731@reddit
They went off a cliff. That's the definition of a vertical fall. They didn't roll and were in the air while spinning for 80 feet over a second, they flew off a cliff and landed directly on the roof. They were fucking dead no matter what car they were in. If it hasn't been a Ford, their bodies might have been in slightly better condition.
Bradtothebone@reddit
Do you have some source to say they fell off a cliff? Because nothing in the article says that, and there are no “cliffs” within 100 miles of the county where the crash happened. The article just says “they were airborne for 80 feet”
Lordofwar13799731@reddit
Ah you're right it appears, I'll delete my other comment. I read the article and misread where it said "the truck hit a drainage culvert and went airborne 80 feet and landed on its hood" as "went 80 feet down it airborne and landed on its hood."
I thought it was some big ass drainage ditch and they got launched and then fell all the way down it.
Acceptable-Ad8922@reddit
Nothing more frustrating than seeing a bunch of Google, JDs giving absolutely dull takes on the law. This thread…
DocPhilMcGraw@reddit
So I looked up about the strength to weight ratio of the roof that they were talking about and found a TFL source from 2016 that shows how the IIHS tests it.
The test involves taking a steel plate and crushing the roof to a point in which it is crushed 5 inches. They then measure the force in which this would have occurred in relation to the weight of the vehicle. So the 4.0 ratio that they say is considered “good” is the vehicles roof being able to withstand 4 times its weight. For example, if a vehicle weighs 5000 lbs then withstanding 20,000 lbs of force would be good.
It would seem that when Ford switched their bodies to all-aluminum, this strength to weight ratio improved pretty significantly. Part of it being that the weight of the vehicle is less due to the savings from going to aluminum.
But also what struck me is that if you look at the graph in the source article you will see that even a Ram 1500 and a reg Sierra crew cab were both given strength to weight ratios of around 3. And that’s just the regular non-HD version of these trucks. So I have to imagine that the HD versions of those trucks were likely lower than 3.
I also am not a physics major, but I am sure someone who is could calculate what the force would’ve been on the roof of that truck in that scenario.
Drzhivago138@reddit
And that aluminum cab was designed for the 150, so it already had safety structures needed for that weight class.
superdude4agze@reddit
$2.5Billion is just big headline jury number, Georgia has laws that limit the maximum punitive damages to $250,000.
pembquist@reddit
While pickup trucks these days are designed to look burly I always think they look kind of fragile, sort of like they are over inflated sheet metal balloons. Are pickups still considered a different class of vehicle to passenger cars, with lower saftety standards? If thats the case since they are marketed as basically cars with benefits maybe that double standard should be done away with.
Drzhivago138@reddit
HD models definitely are. Strictly speaking, you don't even need to have airbags once the GVWR is over 10K (1 ton+). The OEMs just put them in there because they use the same cab as the 3/4 tons.
RequirementLeading12@reddit
Why is Reddit so defensive of these big corps that fuck over consumers every chance they get? Lol.
Ghost_of_P34@reddit
Reminds me of the scene from Fight Club where Ed Norton explains his job.
04limited@reddit
Trucks are made to haul. Don’t know if any heavy duty(class 3-8) truck is safe. They all fold in accidents. Not a single truck cab holds up other than having physics on your side and pure luck.
You want something safe buy a crossover like a Ridgeline.
ls7eveen@reddit
Using images and slow-motion reels of crash test dummies and advertisements of speeding cars kitted with the newest safety features, industry narrowly frames road death as a problem we can solve with technological innovation. To its credit, this emphasis on safety technology has led to the installation of a number of impressive devices. Nonetheless, in terms of addressing the 1.35 million deaths that occur on the road every year, many scholars question the evidence behind the "safety technology will save us” argument. Road death data supports these scholars, in particular the data showing that places with access to the same technology have radically different outcomes. Iceland and Luxembourg have more than twice as many fatalities per capita as the United Kingdom and Singapore, where driving is less necessary. The famously car-de-pendent United States is four times as dangerous as Norway. The low-density U.S. states of Alabama and South Carolina are over four times as deadly as higher-density Massachusetts and New York. City comparisons are equally jarring. Sprawling Melbourne has twice the death rate of compact Dublin. Dallas has twice the fatality rate of Philadelphia. Atlanta is at least four times as deadly as Barcelona. The odds of dying on the road reflect different levels of car dependency, regardless of the kind of car a person rides in - or is hit by.
moistlyunpleasant@reddit
That's going to get appealed like a mofo. "Best we can do is $1.2 mil"
Final_Winter7524@reddit
With these kinds of punitive damage rulings, maybe Elon fanboys should rethink whether or not they really want Tesla to launch unsupervised FSD. A single freak accident could get really expensive. After all, if it’s „unsupervised“, then the driver can’t be at fault anymore. It must be the system.
BigCountry76@reddit
This is most likely going to get appealed and reversed just like the $1.7 billion dollar judgement against Ford 3 years ago that the article points out.
nuttageyo@reddit
80 feet???