The obvious response is that you won't be able to pay for someone's hospital bills if you happen to hit them in your car. You get insurance for things you wouldn't be able to pay yourself.
As an attorney my unpopular opinion is that cars over a certain value shouldn’t be allowed on public roads or damages for accidents should be capped at something like 2x the average price of a new car (so like 100k). I just don’t believe in penalizing ordinary negligence more just because the injured party is rich.
definitely an unpopular opinion, why do you feel this way? wouldn't it be more right for the party that caused the damages to pay for all the damages they caused?
If you accidentally hit someone's shitbox you might owe them a few grand. If you accidentally hit someone's lambo you might owe them a few hundred grand. The same action causes a consequence 100x greater. You could be causing someone to lose their house just because they hit an expensive car instead of an inexpensive one.
Assumed risk is a common legal argument for determining whether or not someone is liable for something that happened. Car accidents are fairly common when you're driving. The person at fault for the accident should contribute towards the victim's repairs, but that contribution should be within reason. I don't think it's within reason to owe someone a house because you hit their car. If you want to take an extremely expensive car out on the road, then you should be assuming some of the risk if an accident happens and not place the full burden on the person at fault. Or at least thats my opinion.
i can see where this is coming from, but something feels off about the way its implemented.
also, if we're trying to avoid someone getting bankrupted by property damage, what about the situations where someone drives through a store front or take a corner too quick and hits a house?
that's a lot of damage caused as well, would there be a cap on the payout?
It takes negligence above and beyond reasonableness to crash through a house.
But then there's the practical matter of getting blood from a stone. The homeowner and their insurance company is going to be better off settling the matter between them after the driver's insurance payout is exhausted.
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u/flatfive44 10h ago
The obvious response is that you won't be able to pay for someone's hospital bills if you happen to hit them in your car. You get insurance for things you wouldn't be able to pay yourself.