Motor vehicle personal injury claim in US

[Sparkster]

I was watching Damages (my favourite TV show) and there is a scene where Ellen''s father is about to be sued by a pedestrian he injured by the car he was driving.

Here where I live we pay a ''compulsory third party'' fee on our car registration (which goes towards the Transport Accident Commision) and anyone who is injured in a road accident gets compensation from the TAC to pay for hospitals, physio, loss of income, etc. Here you do not sue the driver for personal injury.

From what I gather from watching Damages, America does not have a system like this in place? I sometimes find this show hard to follow, so maybe I misunderstood that scene too?

 

[cara]

It varies state by state. Most states require drivers to carry insurance of some kind.

Some states are "No Fault" - similar to your system only instead of some government fund paying you if you are injured, your insurance company pays you if you are injured even if the accident was not your fault.

But some states have fault, and car owners are required to carry insurance for other cars and people they might hit/injure. Then when there is an accident, it is important to get the other person''s insurance information and usually a police report/witness statements that will indicate who is at fault. Everyone calls there insurance company, the insurance companies take reports and argue over blame and exchange payments and pay their insurees according to their policies.

Of course there are uninsured scofflaws driving around, who might give false insurance information, and disputes over who is at fault, etc. and these muck up the system.

 

[Sparkster]

Thanks Cara. Most of our tv content in Australia is American. Sometime it just confuses me as to what''s going on! Especially the legal shows.