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Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

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Re: Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

#51

Post by olliej »

pdonis wrote: post #19
kube-system wrote: post #18

[deleted]

No, the at fault driver and/or their insurance would be responsible for paying their medical costs. The person who was hit doesn't pay their medical bills and then ask the insurance company for reimbursement. They file a claim with the insurance company to pay their medical bills directly. AFAIK all US states require bodily injury coverage to work that way.

This is not quite true - if your insurance policy does not cover the full amount you can be on the hook.

Of course if you don’t have insurance you’re kind of screwed, or your insurance doesn’t cover the full recovery costs you have to pay the medical bills and get stuck with them if the responsible party is under insured and lacks assets.

Accident created expenses seem like one of those things where if someone else is responsible for the costs you should be able to simply transfer all subsequent costs to them, rather than being stuck with bankruptcy or life long debt if they can’t afford to repay you.

Honestly there should be a transitive debt mechanism - but companies won’t like that because currently they can just force people to settle for some minimal payout knowing that they aren’t on the hook for anything that comes up down the road.

Re: Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

#52

Post by metalman »

gruez wrote: post #33
jordanb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not pedantry when it's the root of the problem. Cycling isn't dangerous, being on the street with cars is dangerous. Being on the street on a bike is dangerous, walking down a street is dangerous. Heck being in a compact car on today's streets with oversized/overweight vehicles is dangerous. It's important to be precise about the source of the danger because it correctly identifies the problem. There's a big pus…

>It's not pedantry when it's the root of the problem. How is this any different than "guns don't kill people, people kill people?"

the other one is that flying is safer than driving, and I can bloody well promise you that there is nothing safe about flying at all. Massive amounts of attention to the job, by very tallented people who are highly trained and supported, manages to do better.....statisticaly for flying, than the abomanable record of highway saftey. And bicycles are equivilant to ulralight aircraft.Been hit twice while biking, doored a guy in my van, watched a guy on a bike get dead under a city bus late one night, front wheel and then the back ones

Re: Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

#54

Post by ToucanLoucan »

gruez wrote: post #33
jordanb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not pedantry when it's the root of the problem. Cycling isn't dangerous, being on the street with cars is dangerous. Being on the street on a bike is dangerous, walking down a street is dangerous. Heck being in a compact car on today's streets with oversized/overweight vehicles is dangerous. It's important to be precise about the source of the danger because it correctly identifies the problem. There's a big pus…

>It's not pedantry when it's the root of the problem. How is this any different than "guns don't kill people, people kill people?"

I mean, that statement is also true. And a huge number of gun deaths involve the shooter and victim being the same person.

One would argue it's a similar situation even further in that the SUV/Truck also isn't the problem, it's the inattentive driver that runs a person over. If you have a vehicle with the worst safety ratings on the market driven through a crowded city by someone who is adept at driving, there will likely not be an issue, just like if you have a responsible gun owner going to the range every week to fire off a few rounds, you likely won't have an issue.

People are always the problem. The regulations at play are generally built around the idea that if you don't give fallible people access to things that are either dangerous when handled by those unprepared, like an oversized truck, or things that are just designed to kill when someone doesn't really need one, that you minimize the chances of something going wrong.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/saves...

Re: Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

#55

Post by AnotherGoodName »

nritchie wrote: post #13

As a bicyclist, I'm constantly told how dangerous bicycles are. Usually, I get a blank look when I explain, bicycles are very safe, it is the cars that are the dangerous part of the equation. Now I'll have to add fast billing ambulances to the list of dangers.

Self driving cars are amazing in SF. I cycle there I feel much safer when there’s a self driving car behind me. Waymos, zooxes and cruises never accelerate hard to suddenly cut a turn in front of me rather than waiting behind me to turn across the cycle lane. They never get angry when there is no cycle lane and I’m forced to take up a full lane for a stretch. They have cold machine patience and attitude and to get away from my own anecdote the statistics just plain say they are safer.

They are expanding the areas the self driving cars can operate in year by year.

As much as I hate nanny state laws and acknowledge that self drivings not there yet I can see a future where humans are barred from driving. 40k deaths a year in the USA from humans driving and a fear of rightfully using the road for non driving activities due to poor human behaviour. I’m actually pretty hopeful we get there.

Re: Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

#56

Post by olliej »

esperent wrote: post #15
stefanos82 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was referring at the charging part while this person got HIT by an ambulance.

Aside from the crazy high bill, wouldn't a person whom this happened to get charged for medical coverage regardless of how it happened in every country without free healthcare?

Yup.

I think it’s more easy to consider when you think about what is in the bill. Like do you really want them invoicing the company that hit you with “reconstructing their wiener”, etc information.

Re: Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

#57

Post by adriand »

gruez wrote: post #33
jordanb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not pedantry when it's the root of the problem. Cycling isn't dangerous, being on the street with cars is dangerous. Being on the street on a bike is dangerous, walking down a street is dangerous. Heck being in a compact car on today's streets with oversized/overweight vehicles is dangerous. It's important to be precise about the source of the danger because it correctly identifies the problem. There's a big pus…

>It's not pedantry when it's the root of the problem. How is this any different than "guns don't kill people, people kill people?"

> How is this any different than "guns don't kill people, people kill people?"

In terms of guns, the reality is that people with guns kill people. An intent to kill plus an instrument designed to do so easily is often a lethal combination. People don't just kill each other more often when they have access to a firearms, they are also far more likely to kill themselves. [1]

The risk to cyclists and other road users also comes about by way of a combination of factors: poorly designed roads, lack of protected cycling lanes, lack of adequate pedestrian infrastructure, oversized vehicles, distracted drivers and so on. I suspect there are also a fair number of cases where cyclists/pedestrians make mistakes or engage in risky behaviour.

As a society, I don't think there is too much we can do in terms of altering people's behaviour. We can, however, do a great deal to alter the built environment to slow cars down and make things safer for other road users. Plenty of cities have made huge progress with this. There remain plenty that are terrible, and in my experience, many of the worst ones are in America. I think the last American city I was in was Vegas and my gosh, I would never want to cycle there. By contrast, I recently visited Montreal and was stunned by how good the cycling infrastructure was.

1: https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-owner...

Re: Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

#58

Post by [deleted] »

rconti wrote: post #25

It sounds like what's actually happening here is that the cyclist's auto insurance is picking up the tab, and in turn suing the ambulance company to get their money back. I always find this intersection of the auto and cycling worlds so strange. If he didn't have a car, he wouldn't have auto insurance, so I guess his health insurance would be covering the initial tab, and then suing the ambulance company to get their…

[deleted]

Re: Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

#59

Post by jordanb »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #55
nritchie wrote: post #13

As a bicyclist, I'm constantly told how dangerous bicycles are. Usually, I get a blank look when I explain, bicycles are very safe, it is the cars that are the dangerous part of the equation. Now I'll have to add fast billing ambulances to the list of dangers.

Self driving cars are amazing in SF. I cycle there I feel much safer when there’s a self driving car behind me. Waymos, zooxes and cruises never accelerate hard to suddenly cut a turn in front of me rather than waiting behind me to turn across the cycle lane. They never get angry when there is no cycle lane and I’m forced to take up a full lane for a stretch. They have cold machine patience and attitude and to get aw…

A waymo hit a cyclist in San Francisco a few months ago, by failing to anticipate that there may be traffic behind a turning truck and accelerating into it.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/7/24065063/waymo-driverless-...

Re: Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill

#60

Post by esprehn »

olliej wrote: post #38

I can see exactly how this happened: the ambulance drivers picked up the cyclist and drove to the hospital, which requires them to do a whole bunch of paperwork to ensure correct hospital billing, correct accounting for drugs etc. I would assume at that point computers took over and led to the billing. In an ideal world you’d say “well obviously the target shouldn’t have been billed by the ambulance”, but I’m guessin…

IANAL but as long as the payment is covering the personal injury then it's not considered income and isn't taxable.

https://www.irs.gov/government-entities/tax-implications-of-...

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