Paul Walker might still be alive today if he blurted out one word as his friend roared through Santa Clarita -- "STOP!"
Walker, a passenger in a perhaps malfunctioning and definitely dangerous car on a path to certain death, sat helplessly while the driver, his friend, Roger Rodas, possibly hit the accelerator and didn't stop. Paul Walker, a good guy, one of the boys, a sweet corn-eating, all-American actor who charmed everyone he met and who starred in a wildly popular franchise about racing cars, likely kept quiet when the car ramped up to extremely unsafe speeds on the 45-mph road where Rodas and Walker ended up dying. And it begs the question:
How many other celebrities have possibly been silent passengers?
Princess Diana, who was killed in Paris during a high-speed chase while being pursued by the paparazzi.
Zachary Hartwell, the passenger that Ryan Dunn killed while simultaneously killing himself. Dunn, traveling in a Porsche on a Pennsylvania highway at an estimated 130 miles per hour, lost control of the vehicle and crashed. The car almost immediately burst into flames, and like Paul Walker's accident, the bodies were burned to the point of having to be identified by the decedents' dental records.
There was Lindsay Lohan and the Porsche she mangled after rear-ending a tractor trailer on the Pacific Coast Highway in 2012. Her passenger/assistant lied and said that she was behind the wheel, while it was determined that Lindsay herself had been the one driving. That accident could have resulted in death, as well.
How many other celebrities had a dangerous penchant for speeding in vehicles? There was James Dean, who died in a similar accident in a similar vehicle -- a Porsche. How about the artist Jackson Pollock, who killed himself and his passenger while drunkenly speeding wildly?
The bottom line is that Paul Walker didn't have to die. Roger Rodas didn't have to be identified by the fillings he got in his teeth when he was 13 years old. Children wouldn't be without their fathers, families wouldn't be without their sons, and friends wouldn't be utterly heartbroken enough to sacrifice public image by breaking down at the scene of a horrific accident, grasping at the straws of in-your-face mortality for one last chance to say things that will never be conveyed.
Paul Walker could have said, "Hey, slow down." "Hey, let's not do this today." "Hey, there might be something mechanically wrong with this vehicle, how about we don't take this chance right now." Any one of those things could have been the thing that changed the course of events for a whole lot of people for the rest of their time on this earth, but poor Paul Walker didn't have a clue that when he got into the Porsche Carrera GT to take the last ride of his life that remaining silent would be the last mistake he'd ever make.
When is enough finally going to be enough? When it's you? Me? One of our family members, our lovers, our children? When is somebody going to finally step up and say "stop"?
RIP, Paul. You'll be sorely missed.
Read more: http://www.fishwrapper.com/post/2013/12/03/paul-walker-accident-death-autopsy-speed-factor-horrible-dead-roger-rodas/#ixzz2m03dEyIw
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