Some Issues On The Compensation In Motor Vehicle Accidents

Liability for damages in motor vehicle accidents is the civil responsibility tocompensate personal injury or property loss caused by those accidents. Manyproblems need to be deliberated on about such compensation. The writer picked outseveral issues, which are met frequently in legal practice, to discuss over, that is, thedoctrine of liability fixation, liable persons and the application of comparativenegligence rule.In the area of liability fixation, most countries that belong to the continental lawsystem regulate the legal relationships in the compensation in motor vehicle accidentsby enacting related special law and adopt the principle of no fault liability. However,the common law applies the principle of fault liability, backed up by the advancedsocial insurance system. In China, "General Principles of the Civil Law" appliesno-fault liability principle to abnormally dangerous activities. But in early 1990s,"Measures on Handling Road Traffic Accidents" shifted to the principle of faultyliability. As a result, the principle of no-fault liability was substituted by that of faultliability in legal practices despite that the former one was established by a higher law.Some irresponsible local regulations even attributed the whole liability to the walkerswhile relieved the drivers of any responsibility, which aroused hot reactions for thesociety. The wrong was not put right until the passage of "Law of the people'sRepublic of china on road Traffic safety". According to the theories of riskresponsibility, taking responsibility while benefits and sharing the loss, the principleof no-faulty liability should be followed in the compensation in motor vehicleaccidents. The principle is consistent with the idea of civil law, i.e., protecting thesocial vulnerable groups, upholding human rights and promoting social fairness.The duplex theory of controlling over and benefiting from operations must beused to set up the standard to determine who is liable for damages. The owner takesthe responsibility when he or his employee, with or without authority, drives thevehicle, registers it under other unit's name as well as lends or rents it to others. Butwhen the vehicle is stolen, under repair, pledged or sold under installment whiling the seller retaining the ownership, or the registration remains unchanged after sale, theperson who actually controls and uses the vehicle, rather than the nominal owner,assumes the liability for damages.Comparative negligence means that the inflictor's liability should be reducedwhen the injur_ed party has contributed to the loss. The rule of Comparativenegligence can be applied while no-fault liability principle is carried out in thecompensation for damages in motorcycle accidents. It is reasonable to impose riskresponsibility on the party who has the advantage. Comparative negligence must belimited to the area of passive and spiritual damages.