View From The Trial Of The Liability Subjects For Compensation In Traffic Accidents

Apart from Introduction and Conclusion, this paper is composed from four parts:The first part makes research on basic concept and elaborates on the concept of traffic incidents and components thereof. The components of traffic incidents include vehicles, roads vehicles on the road and traffic participants, among which, vehicles are divided into motor vehicles and non-motor vehicles. Such division constitutes the prerequisite of determination of compensation subjects of damages in different traffic accidents. Traffic participants are divided into motor-vehicle custodians, motor-vehicle drivers, pedestrians and passengers. On the basis of the concept determined upon research, this part evaluates and analyzes the connotation of legislation language of"vehicle party", points out its difficulty in judicial practice and suggest the concept of"custodian"or"owner"should be adopted.The second part makes research on liability subjects of damages compensation in traffic accidents and analyzes imputation principle of damages compensation in traffic accidents, legal provisions on damages compensation in traffic accidents in foreign countries, components of damages compensation in traffic accidents and liability subjects of general pattern, that is, motor-vehicle owners and drivers are the same persons. The research in this part cards imputation principle of damages compensation in traffic accidents since 1978, and points out that current imputation principle that is provided by law of damages compensation cases in traffic accidents is a binary imputation system in which priority is given to fault assumption principle, supplemented by fault liability principle, except the limit of statutory obligatory insurance liability of motor vehicles is indemnified by insurance companies according to statutory limit. As far as legal provisions on damages compensation in traffic accidents are concerned, legal provisions of twelve countries and regions are quoted, so as to compare their differences. As far as the components and liability forms of damages compensation in traffic accidents are concerned, the author analyzes situations of applicable own liabilities and vicarious liabilities from the perspective of general infringement act and special infringement act. Considering that obligatory insurances by insurance companies fall into social law, insurance companies that accept obligatory insurances for motor vehicles shall be regarded as special liability subjects. On the basis of the aforesaid researches, this paper analyzes the general pattern of damages compensation subjects of motor vehicles in traffic accidents, that is, motor-vehicle owners and drivers are the same persons and holds that determination of damages compensation subjects in traffic accidents of the general pattern shall follow Article 76 of the Road Traffic Safety Law, and except that the limit of statutory obligatory insurance liability of motor vehicles is indemnified by insurance companies according to statutory limit, other compensation liability subjects shall be determined as the motor-vehicle owners and in the meantime the motor-vehicle drivers.The third part makes classification research on special circumstances of damages compensation subjects of motor vehicles in traffic accidents, differentiates the situation in which the motor-vehicle owners and derivers are detached, divides these situations into eight types and respectively defines these types, including: criminal crime situations such as theft, robbery and robbery of motor-vehicle; leasing, financing lease and borrowing of motor-vehicle; transfer and delivery of motor vehicle in way of selling, donation and succession but failure to go through transfer registration and buying of motor vehicle by installment; attachment and contracting relationship; employment relationship or duty conduct; repairing, safekeeping, pledge and lien; driving assembled vehicle, discarded vehicle, smuggled vehicle and fake-licensed vehicle; and pick-up with good faith. These situations include the provisions of current law and the author puts forward suggestions for the types which fall out of definite provision by current law and offers corresponding opinion on the deficiencies in existing regulations.The fourth part makes research on damages compensation subjects of traffic accidents of non-motor vehicles and accidents that happen out of the roads, and defines damages compensation subjects of traffic accidents between non-motor vehicles and non-motor vehicles, non-motor vehicles and pedestrians. This part analyzes damages compensation subjects of accidents out of the provisions of the Road Traffic Safety Law according to the rule of general infringement act. The two contents vary the situations that previous researches focused on damages compensation subjects of traffic accidents of motor vehicles and constitutes certain reference significance to the research and treatment of traffic accidents of non-motor vehicles.