Grumble grumble ....

The Cooper Mini didn't fare well, but after 4+ years, the Expy has it's first bent fender. She should have looked in her rear view mirror before changing lanes. She admitted as much to the insurance adjuster, so my costs are covered. But the mirror on the Mini creased the side of my rig after cracking the head lamp lens. My 20" wheel left a lot of folded, wrinkled metal on the side of her car. I felt sorry for her and thank her for being reasonable throughout the process ... but I'd still like those 20 seconds back to change the course of events!

I have always felt that people who cause vehicle crashes should be punished much more than they are (even non-injury crashes). At the minimum - a mandatory license suspension and a heavy fine and/or jail time for multiple at-fault accidents.

The at-fault driver is often careless, negligent, reckless, irresponsible, etc. The person whose vehicle is damaged always "loses", even when the other party admits fault and the vehicle is repaired.

Usually all the offender receives is a mail-in fine ticket, and maybe an increase in their insurance premium.

If I vandalize your vehicle, I can be arrested and jailed. If I ram into your vehicle (oops - it's an accident.....) and cause thousands of dollars of damage, usually all I get is a pay-out ticket.

My two cents.

99WhiteC5Coupe said:

I have always felt that people who cause vehicle crashes should be punished much more than they are (even non-injury crashes). At the minimum - a mandatory license suspension and a heavy fine and/or jail time for multiple at-fault accidents.

The at-fault driver is often careless, negligent, reckless, irresponsible, etc. The person whose vehicle is damaged always "loses", even when the other party admits fault and the vehicle is repaired.

Usually all the offender receives is a mail-in fine ticket, and maybe an increase in their insurance premium.

If I vandalize your vehicle, I can be arrested and jailed. If I ram into your vehicle (oops - it's an accident.....) and cause thousands of dollars of damage, usually all I get is a pay-out ticket.

My two cents.

Click to expand...

A huge problem with this approach is that fault is always assigned to someone (except in no-fault states) and in some cases is assigned to both parties involved. These findings aren't based on facts or evidence, but rather the opinion of the responding officer and/or the insurance claims adjuster. And often the wrong party is blamed. Take a rear-end collision, for example. The driver in the rear is always found at fault, but the reality is that the driver in front is often to blame - or perhaps it was a driver three cars up that was really to blame. Perhaps the guy in the rear was following a little too closely, but the accident wouldn't have occurred at all if the person in front was paying attention and didn't stop so abruptly. Let's say they are both at fault. Do we jail them both? And now they have criminal records. Bye bye job. Seems a bit harsh for a traffic offense. They already pay higher insurance rates and if they have a second at-fault accident, they pay much, much higher rates. Heck, after ONE accident when I was 17 my rates were over $7K/year - and that was over 20 years ago. I now pay $1,100/year and drive a vehicle worth 6 times as much. But i digress ... As much as inattentive and/or careless drivers irritate me, I don't want to see them jailed and I sure as heck don't want to see them unemployed or underemployed simply because they're ****** drivers.

If it's bound to happen, it will happen. Just be thankful no one was hurt.