Research On The Legal Issues Of The Test-drive Traffic Accident

With development of economic and improvement of people’s living standards, automobile gradually transforms from luxury goods to the necessity of life. What follows is intense competition in the automotive market, in order to in crease market share, auto dealers have introduced a variety of promotional activities, test-drive service has also became one of promotional tools widely used by auto dealers. Due to the lack of uniform industry standards and blindness of laws ‘application, the number of accidents disputes caused by test-drive service has increased steadily.The purpose of the study is to resolve contentious issues in the test-drive service, including application of existing law, the rights and obligations of the parties, legal relations between test drivers and auto dealers, potency of the Test Drive Agreement and making up the blindness that laws regulate the accident liability of the test-drive service. This paper adopts the method of case analysis, on the basis of the controversial problems in the case, clearing the legal relationship between test drivers and auto dealers, the rights and obligations, and liabilities of the parties in the accident. This paper extends the contentious issues in the case to the lack of industry standards, and finally proposes the legal risk of test-drive mode and countermeasures against risks.Results of this study are relevant government departments should establish a standardized management system of the auto test-drive service, clear rights, obligations and the division of liabilities, and develop a standardized system for test-drive process to provide uniform industry standards for test-drive service. At the same time, the legislative department should complete the relevant legislation of test-drive service to clear the liability principle of test-drive accident. This paper argues that the test driver is the direct operator of the motor vehicle, but the auto dealer has also made a lot of restrictions to the test-drive behavior, and greatly controlled the possible danger when the test-drive motor vehicle is running. So auto dealers are also the actual operator of test-drive vehicle. At the same time, test-driver and auto dealer will all benefit from test-drive service, so they shall bear the responsibility. This paper argues that division of liabilities should base on the degree of faults between test-driver and auto dealer, and compactness of causal association between and damage consequences of accident.