Study On The Tort Liabilities For The Road Traffic Accidents

The Law of the People’s Republic of China on Road Traffic Safety and the Tort LiabilityLaw of the People’s Republic of China are promulgated in succession. Although they fill thegaps in the legislation of tort liabilities for the road traffic accidents in China to certain degree,there are still considerable controversies on the various issues in the tort liabilities for the roadtraffic accidents in the theory and practice. This paper makes discussions on the constituentelements of the tort liabilities for the road traffic accidents, the recognition of the subject ofthe tort liabilities, the determination of principle of imputation and other issues, hoping toserve as a modest spur.This paper firstly elaborates the concept, nature and characteristics of the tort liabilitiesfor the road traffic accidents and holds that the tort liabilities for the road traffic accidents arespecial tort liabilities, secondly analyzes the fact of damage, causal relationship, illegal actand fault in the constituent elements from the perspective of tort liabilities for the road trafficaccidents, elaborates in detail the three special requirements for the establishment of the tortliabilities for the road traffic accidents, including the damage must be caused by vehicle onthe road and the vehicle must be in running, thirdly makes recognition on the tort liabilitysubject for the traffic accidents in the attachment, employment, contracting, the vehicle beingsent to repair or in the custody period, driving without authorization, act of rescue, riding withgood will and fraud by analysis of the principle of “running domination and running interests”applicable to the tort liability subject in the road traffic accidents, finally by analysis ofprinciple of deciding reliability based on fault, principle of deciding reliability not based onfault and the presumption for fault, comes to the conclusion that the principle of decidingreliability not based on fault and the principle of deciding reliability not based on fault jointlyconstitute the dual imputation principle system for the tort liabilities for the road trafficaccidents. Under this conclusion, by demonstration and analysis of the principle of the partywho has advantage should undertake the danger, the person who has the right of way shouldundertake the liability and the scope of the aggrieved, this paper elaborates the application ofthe fault balancing principle and analyzes the burden of proof in the tort cases in the roadtraffic accidents, i.e., the inversion of burden of proof and liability distribution and by analysis of the overall compensation principle, concludes that the existing calculation method of thetort liability cases of the road traffic accidents fail to meet the requirements for the overallcompensation principle. This paper holds that the insurance companies which acceptinsurance for the third party liability are not the proper party to the tort liability cases of theroad traffic accidents, the insurance companies which accept insurance for compulsoryinsurance of the third party liability for the automobile vehicles can join in the lawsuit as theparty, but only as the third party without independent right of claim, and as for the trafficaccident caused by driving without license, and the insurance companies are still obliged tomake compensation within the limit of the compulsory insurance of the third party liability forthe automobile vehicles.