Profpointy
Legendary Member
@Profpointy
I agree with your hierarchy statement & enjoyed your Edit too.
Presumed Liability though ?
Would you like to have to prove in court that Johhny A or whoever wasn't completely responsible for their untimely demise ?
Think of the grief it would cause you generally.
Not a slur, just different perception i suppose & thanks for your comments.
A serious response now - on the "presumed liability" notion; at first I was sceptical, as it sounds like "guilty until proved innocent" as the Daily Mail et al might have it. Then I started thinking about liability law and what not. At the risk of a legal digression, for most claims in Tort (eg personal injury or damage to property) there's a balance of probabilities to the legal decision, with plaintiff having to prove the defendant had been negligent in some way, eg driving badly. However for certain activities judged to be inherently hazardous, then the defendant is liable even if negligence hasn't been proved - simply that the consequences arose from the dangerous activity albeit not his fault. Perhaps you are keeping lions at home, and one eats the postman even though you had checked the lion was chained up, and had an otherwise exemplary safe system to keep it chained up. You would still be held liable. Currenlty, for driving a car, you would likely not be held liable for an accident resulting from something like being stung by a bee, where you were otherwise driving perfectly sensibly. Presumed liability would treat operating a car as an inherently dangerous activity just like operating a chemical works or keeping lions, thus accident due to bee sting would still mean you were liable - albeit not something you could have avoided. Thus, unless the plaintiff had himself blatantly caused the problem to himself (by being proved to have jumped in front of your car, or by breaking into the lion's cage) you would be held liable by dint of being the one in charge of the dangerous activity, however careful you'd been. Anyhow, long winded answer, but that's why "presumed liability" is "a good thing", and not wildly different from how non-car things are treated anyway. Just to be clear, this isn't the same as being criminally guilty, in which case you'd have had to do something blameworthy as well.
(edit for clarity)