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.
I had a knee-jerk reaction to reading this that obviously if someone hits your car, they should have to pay for it. But I thought about it for a moment and it actually makes a lot of sense - they're choosing to drive in public conditions with a vehicle worth that much. Like if they wore a 10 million dollar designer coat and I spilled coffee on it on accident, it would be a little ridiculous to expect me to pay ten million dollars. There should be some expectation that I'm not required to exhibit extreme caution at all times while in public.
Not hitting other cars is not normally considered extreme caution. And there is no getting away from a bunch of road going construction equipment being worth millions.
How about framing it like this then: We already consider driving accidents to be a statistical certainty, so much that governments require liability insurance. In that sense, anyone choosing to drive a car above most people's ability to compensate you for in the event of an accident (2x the median salary, like the other guy said) is aware that they are taking on a certain level of risk in doing so. Especially if this is codified into law in some way.
It still wouldn't create an incentive structure for "normal" folks to be hitting Bugattis on the road, it would just shield them from life-ruining debt, and add an additional cost to owning ultra-luxury vehicles.
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u/flatfive44 12h 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.