Marty Howard wrote:
There is a problem with all the proposed solutions. We keep getting farther and farther away from personal responsibility. Too many people now expect the government or the manufacturers to protect them from themselves.
I think a much more effective method would be legislation saying the people who wrecked these machines, or their survivors can NOT sue for their stupidity. Further more, those who were effected (the innocent parties), can sue the person or their estates, and only their estates, not the manufacturer.
We need to get back to taking responsibilities for our own actions. This country has become way to litigation happy.
The question is where does stupidity begin and negligence end? For example, you take your brand new Blue Devil to the track, it has been inspected, you are experienced, you are driving at 7/10ths you go around a curve and because the pot-smoking assembly line worker decided that the suspension bolts did not need to be torqued the fail and you crash into a wall and become a carrot for the rest of your life. Is that a lack of personal responsibility, or negligence?
If you cap damages, it would be pretty easy to figure out if it is worth fixing a problem or if the cost to pay up in lives and maiming is less than the cost to recall. Instead of capping damages, I would like to see the payouts go to different receipients. Instead of paying gazillions to lawyers and having the class participants get nothing or have to wait for years and years and decades for resolution payments above compensatory damages (punitive) should go to pay the lawyers so it doesn't come out of the compensatory to who was injured and to something that benefits the world that the loser inhabits. So if GM is found guilty, and has to pay punitive damages, they should go to providing cars for schools, scholarships for students in automotive training, SAFER barriers for race courses. whatever. Remember, you hear in the media about all the cases where some company is sued for something stupid and wins a bunch of money, what you don't hear are all the facts (McDonald Coffee) or that the judge later reduced the amount substantially. Also, while the general public is portrayed as being litigious, most of the suits against businesses are by other businesses.
That being said, I agree that we need more personal responsibility and that we are litigious and victims of everything unfair, but I don't think that companies, individuals whomever should be able to profit from doing something wrong and not have to pay not only for the damages which in many cases is less than their profit, but also enough to make them or someone else think twice before they do it again.
Our litigious society is why we will never have a Nurburgring here where you can pay 14 Euros and drive on the same track as the great ones.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
