[rayiner]

I don't get the people complaining about the tort system. The tort system didn't create the losses here, the car and the driver created the losses. The people being severely injured created the losses, and frankly for severe injuries to 4 people in an accident that killed one person, $1.5 million is not an unreasonable estimate of the actual economic loss in this situation. The tort system is just allocating this loss to the parties involved.

The fact of the matter is that cars are dangerous instrumentalities. A car accident can create enormous costs. In car sharing, someone must bear the cost of this risk. With its $1m of liability insurance, RelayRides is taking on a fixed amount of risk, and allocating the rest to the car owner. I think you'd be stupid to take on this risk without more compensation than what RelayRides provides, but that's what Ms. Fong signed up for.

[WildUtah]

Individuals are largely shielded from taking responsibility for the dangers and costs of car crashes in the USA by special exceptions and allowances. Companies and commercial renters are not so protected. That makes consumers drastically underestimate the real costs of their car use and RelayRides is going to face a hard task in keeping it covered up for their individual providers.

Both civil and criminal liability for killing and injuring others with a car non-commercially are incredibly cheap. The usual penalty for killing someone with a car is no penalty at all, even though over one hundred people a day die from driver negligence.

[rayiner]

I agree. The solution is fewer restrictions on tort liability, not more. If people bore the costs of driving, they would drive less.

[ams6110]

Besides seeking reimbursement for medical bills (Mr. Knecht’s alone are nearing $100,000, according to his lawyer, William Doyle Jr.), the injured people could also file pain-and-suffering suits. “If somebody crosses the center line and plows into your car, it does a number on you in terms of how you feel about getting into a car,” said Jonathan Karon, Ms. Hodges’s lawyer.

The above sort of BS is my complaint about the tort system. I've been hit by a car crossing the center line and plowing into my car. It didn't change how I feel about getting into a car, at least not in any debilitating way. I am perhaps (sometimes) a bit more alert to whether oncoming cars seem to be drifting towards the line. And please tell me how "pain and suffering" compensation is going to remedy any "feelings" you have about getting into a car?