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Fatal Collision Makes Car-Sharing Worries No Longer Theoretical

nytimes.com

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Re: Fatal Collision Makes Car-Sharing Worries No Longer Theoretical

#71

Post by greyboy »

gcb wrote: post #47
olex wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Germany, and not all of this is entirely true. Liability insurance isn't strictly unlimited, the coverage limits are just very high - e.g. in Germany, personal damages are covered with a minimum of 7,5 mio. euro (with a maximum limit of 8 to 15 million per person, depending on the insurance company), and total damage is mostly limited at 50-100 mio. euro. For most accidents, these numbers are fairly equal t…

Just for comparison, here in the us insurance for a 25k car and minimal (some 100 or 300k for the described case in the article) plus uninsured driver would be well over 1.2k per month. In other countries i paid that per year for way more peace of mind.

Wow, I have no idea why you have those numbers! I guesssome important details must have been left out?

I have two vehicles less than 5 years old, with two drivers, with way more than $300k coverage for liability and comprehensive, and a $0 deductible by one of the top/largest insurance carriers in the U.S. and I pay $75/mo, total.

Re: Fatal Collision Makes Car-Sharing Worries No Longer Theoretical

#72

Post by vectorpush »

libria wrote: post #22

> On one hand, she is certainly an inviting target. After all, she has worked full-time at Google and is now finishing her degree at M.I.T. She probably has many millions of dollars of income ahead of her that a lawyer could try to garnish. Absolutely disgusting. Our system punishes those brilliant and capable minds that can drive the nations economy. Meanwhile, underachievers everywhere can sleep peacefully. Unless…

Our system punishes those brilliant and capable minds that can drive the nations economy. Meanwhile, underachievers everywhere can sleep peacefully.

This is a ridiculous statement. "Underachievers" (whatever the hell that means) certainly don't sleep any better for lack of an Ivy league education or salary from Google. I think most would agree that "our system" treats highly paid tech workers with elite educations pretty well, all things considered.

Re: Fatal Collision Makes Car-Sharing Worries No Longer Theoretical

#73

Post by geoffschmidt »

uptown wrote: post #18

I think she's extremely naive to put her new car back into the pool before finding out how the courts handle this incident.

I think she's thinking logically. From the perspective of a RelatRides lessor, fatal accidents are low probability events. That she experienced such an event yesterday doesn't change the probability that she'll experience such an event tomorrow. She's only naive if every single RelayRides lessor who reads this story is also naive to continue using the service.

Re: Fatal Collision Makes Car-Sharing Worries No Longer Theoretical

#74

Post by robomartin »

Hypothetical: I lend a hammer to a neighbor. He then goes and, after building the cabinet he needed the hammer for, kills two people with it.

Why am I liable for his actions?

This is the part of the rent-your-car story I just don't get. She had nothing to do with it. She should have zero liability. That's the part of the legal system that is really messed-up. Liability for this accident should sit squarely on the shoulders of those directly involved in causing it. The only way she should be liable is if the car had a known defect that caused the accident.

Re: Fatal Collision Makes Car-Sharing Worries No Longer Theoretical

#75

Post by rayiner »

robomartin wrote: post #74

Hypothetical: I lend a hammer to a neighbor. He then goes and, after building the cabinet he needed the hammer for, kills two people with it. Why am I liable for his actions? This is the part of the rent-your-car story I just don't get. She had nothing to do with it. She should have zero liability. That's the part of the legal system that is really messed-up. Liability for this accident should sit squarely on the sho…

The difference is that car accidents are a foreseeable and inherent risk of car operation, but not hammer operation.

Re: Fatal Collision Makes Car-Sharing Worries No Longer Theoretical

#76

Post by rayiner »

fffggg wrote: post #66
rayiner wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems less perverse when you think of tort liability as assignment of the costs of risk, rather than punishment for negligent behavior. When someone drives a car, this creates risk. Who should bear this risk? Somebody has to, the only thing the tort system decides is who. If you don't assign the risk to the owner of the dangerous instrumentality, then you assign it to either the operator or the general public. Ass…

This doesn't seem any less perverse to me. Shifting responsibility to the operator makes sense for injury resulting from operation. Shifting responsibility to the owner only makes sense for injury resulting from the ownership (improper device maintenance, etc). If you can hold the owner of a car liable for a crash then what stops you from holding the creator of a car liable for a crash? Why not go after Toyota? By th…

If owners are not liable, what stops the owners of inherently dangerous businesses like car rentals from shielding themselves from the inherent risks created by their activity by having judgment-proof operators operate that risk-creating business?

The issue here is not regulation of lobbying. It's the very simple fact that driving a car creates substantial risks that have a price. Someone must pay that price. Owners and operators of dangerous instrumentalities are much more appropriate to bear that price than injured third parties. Owners are much more likely to be able to bear the cost than operators. If you shield owners, than you are practically shifting the burden to the public. I.e. socializing the costs. Yes it's great for small businesses to shift the costs of their profit-making activity to the public.

Ms. Fong's ownership of the car gives her the right to profit by renting it. It is fair to link that right with the obligation for risks created by that profit-making activity.

Re: Fatal Collision Makes Car-Sharing Worries No Longer Theoretical

#78

Post by fffggg »

sliverstorm wrote: post #37
haberman wrote: post #16

It seems perverse that mere ownership of something can create liability. If she had failed to get some maintenance that made the car dangerous to drive, that would be one thing. But there is no indication that this is the case. If a psychopath rents a VHS from Blockbuster and then uses it to bludgeon someone's head in, is Blockbuster liable for that act of violence? Sure, a VHS is not intended to be used this way, bu…

Ownership implies responsibility. For precedence, see pets and children.

Children don't have owners, they have parents -- and the determination of responsibility is much less clear than your glib comment implies.

For example, is liability held by the biological parent, or by an entity acting in loco parentis? The distinction is crucial, as it is similar to the difference between an owner of a car, and a renter of a car.

With pets, again, if I lease or rent a pet it is not the case that the owner is necessarily responsible for the pet while I have possession. They may, but they also may not -- and it's this uncertainty which drives much frustration with tort law.

Re: Fatal Collision Makes Car-Sharing Worries No Longer Theoretical

#79

Post by WildUtah »

rayiner wrote: post #45

I don't get the people complaining about the tort system. The tort system didn't create the losses here, the car and the driver created the losses. The people being severely injured created the losses, and frankly for severe injuries to 4 people in an accident that killed one person, $1.5 million is not an unreasonable estimate of the actual economic loss in this situation. The tort system is just allocating this los…

Individuals are largely shielded from taking responsibility for the dangers and costs of car crashes in the USA by special exceptions and allowances. Companies and commercial renters are not so protected. That makes consumers drastically underestimate the real costs of their car use and RelayRides is going to face a hard task in keeping it covered up for their individual providers.

Both civil and criminal liability for killing and injuring others with a car non-commercially are incredibly cheap. The usual penalty for killing someone with a car is no penalty at all, even though over one hundred people a day die from driver negligence.

Re: Fatal Collision Makes Car-Sharing Worries No Longer Theoretical

#80

Post by fffggg »

rayiner wrote: post #76
fffggg wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't seem any less perverse to me. Shifting responsibility to the operator makes sense for injury resulting from operation. Shifting responsibility to the owner only makes sense for injury resulting from the ownership (improper device maintenance, etc). If you can hold the owner of a car liable for a crash then what stops you from holding the creator of a car liable for a crash? Why not go after Toyota? By th…

If owners are not liable, what stops the owners of inherently dangerous businesses like car rentals from shielding themselves from the inherent risks created by their activity by having judgment-proof operators operate that risk-creating business? The issue here is not regulation of lobbying. It's the very simple fact that driving a car creates substantial risks that have a price. Someone must pay that price. Owners…

Judgement-proof operators? Nowhere was it suggested that operators ought be judgement-proof. In fact, I suggested the exact opposite.

The issue is exactly one of lobbying. As the article notes, the auto insurance industry has successfully lobbied to pass the Graves Amendment, which nullifies vicarious liability for auto rental. The article mentions this, and you can read more here: http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/49/VI/A/301/I/30106

Car rental owners are shielded by this lobbied-for legislation. The only question is whether Ms. Fong will qualify as a rental agency for the purposes of this law.

This is precisely a case where an industry has lobbied for an exemption which may exclude others from competing in said industry. It is a textbook example of regulation preventing disruption of an established industry.

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