Is this fair? Was the victim wrong, too?

From reading that article it sounds like it should be 100% the driver's fault, but I'm more inclined to go with half and half. Yes, the driver didn't maintain his vehicle as he should have (the windshield leaked), but if you've ever driven in the wintertime, you know that your windshield fogs up regardless and it's really hard to get it to go away sometimes. It could have happened with or without the leak.

As for the woman wearing dark clothes in the darkness, not smart. It doesn't mean she's at fault, just that she was not making a wise choice of clothing given the time of day she was out walking. Jaywalking, however- sorry, the fault's more on her for that than anything else, imho.

In this situation.. I think both are at fault, but mainly the man.
The woman should've taken extra caution, and waited for the light as one SHOULD.
But the man, he was on drugs, and couldn't see well with blurred vision, he shouldn't be driving at all.

In general, for anyone who walks across the street SHOULD take extra caution and use the crosswalks and light designed for their safety.. and like you said, by wearing lighter and reflective clothes at night and waiting for light. There's been so many jay walkers here at night, especially across a 4-6 lane roads and I can't see them to well. Not only their clothes are dark, so's their skin and that makes it twice as hard to spot them. If a person fails or refuses to follow common sense, lights and the pedestrian cross-walk at appropriate time, then it's their fault, IMO.

On the other hand, when the pedestrian is following the rules, and if the driver is obviously impaired.. drugs, alcohol, cell phone.. it's their fault for not paying attention.

Combo of both.. its both's fault.

This is all IMO.

I think it's difficult driving in dark, wet weather in any location, Vancouver or in the US and summer or winter. Many times pedestrians do not realize that cars cannot stop on a dime and that part of the onus for safety is on them to ensure the driver of the car sees them. As a past pedestrian I know the importance of ensuring the driver sees me, and conversely, as a driver the importance of being aware of my surroundings including children, pets and pedestrians, particularly in bad weather.

In this instance, both parties were equally to blame IMO.

I am a night owl, having worked a night shift for the last decade, and am almost always out cruising past dark.

As such, I strongly believe in nighttime conspicuity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_SArzZSCrk

And yes, I absolutely do believe it is the responsibility of person's at night to make themselves visible. When jogging I wear a blink/reflective halo on my left arm, my shirt is reflective and either bright yellow or orange, and my running shoes have reflective parts on them.

So if the pedestrian was crossing illegally and wearing all black, then absolutely some of the blame is to share.

Yep. I don't sound as nerdy in real life... ok, yeah I do!

A local woman was hit by a car in a crosswalk, in the darkness of an early January morning; she's been awarded 1.1M in damages. The guy who hit her had issues: somewhat blurred vision in one eye, on medication, had smoked marijuana that morning.

In this case, they are BOTH at fault. I believe the man should be cited as well as the woman who crossed against the light. There should be no money awarded. Both should have to pay a fine. The man drove knowing he has some issues. The blurred vision, on medication and smoking marijuana and then decides it is ok to drive, especially at night. You can be cited (in the state where I live) for being in an accident if you tell the police well, I was very very tired and fell asleep. You are at fault while driving in an impaired state. IMO this man was impaired and should not have been behind the wheel. The woman is also at fault for crossing against the light. She too, shoud be cited. This is wrong, that 1.1M was awarded to her. And people wonder why insurance rates are so high!!

It's sad that the pedestrians win out most times. That is the thing, cars cannot stop on a dime. If a person (especially an adult) takes it upon them self to cross against lights, jay walk or dress in a way that makes them difficult to spot, they should be at fault too.

I don't know what it is like to be hit by a car but I do know what its like to be in one that hit a pedestrian. In our case, thankfully no one called the police or was seriously injured but it was the pedestrians fault. However, my roommate would have been the one to take the heat for it had they decided to get the law involved. That's pretty much a given these days.

I once knew a woman who got 4 years in prison for hitting and killing a man with her car. Night time, on a road with no street lights, in the rain and he was dressed in all black clothing. He darted out of from some bushes, right in front of her, she couldn't see him until it was too late.

I agree, when the law gets involved, I don't understand why the result has to be virtually the same as winning in the lottery.

As you say, the driver should be punished for what he did wrong. The pedestrian I think was sufficiently punished already to learn from that mistake.

Both are punished for their mistakes, and that's that. You and I, via massively increased insurance costs, do not need to be the ones that are punished for this tragedy with both parties clearly sharing some blame for the accident that required both of their mistakes in combination to occur.

I just keep thinking of all the times I've been driving in the rising or setting sun, making a turn and not being able to see much other than a green light. If I had hit someone who was walking against the light and I didn't see them, it wouldn't matter if the sun was at fault or not, that guilt would be on me for the rest of my life.

The amount awarded is ridiculous for someone who was walking against the light. The man should definitely NOT have been driving, and has quite a bit of responsibility for the accident. I get that she is now permanently disabled and unable to perform work to the ability that she could before the accident, but what if a perfectly alert and aware person had been blinded by the glare from the road and had hit her? SHE WAS JAYWALKING! If she had waited to cross the street safely she'd be unharmed.

I agree that they both should have been fined in accordance to their breaking the law. 1.1 million is asinine.

When it comes to car vs pedestrian, the car is always at fault. That doesn't always make sense to me though, but that is the law, at least where I live. Same thing with car vs. bicycle. Car is always in the wrong, regardless of what the cyclist did.

In the case linked above, I feel the car is definitely in the wrong. He was DUI, and the car was not in good repair which contributed to the accident.

How the intersection is at fault? That boggles my mind. She was walking agrainst a light, how is that the intersections fault?!

In my opinion she should have received money for her medical expenses and current lost earnings. The article doesn't say anything about her not being able to work period.

As this happened in the USA, which from everything I've seen, everyone is very laws suit happy (54 Million lawsuit for a lost pair of pants at a dry cleaners? Prisoners suing over lack of choice between chunky vs smooth peanut butter? Girl suing McDonalds over burned thighs when she placed a fresh cup of hot coffee between then when driving), I can see a court rewarding that sum to the girl. Frankly I'm surprised that they were so conservative.

Where I live there is "no fault accident insurance" (everything is no fault), meaning you can't sue for pain and suffering, future lost wages etc etc etc. Every body part is assigned a dollar value. An accident victim will get medical expenses, travel expenses if they have to come in from out of town, medication expenses, and maybe replacement income at a reduced % rate of what your normal wages are, if you are not able to work for a period of time, but it's not forever. If an accident causes you to lose a leg, you are awarded the dollar value assigned to that particular body part.....and that's it. You don't get millions of dollars in lost future earnings. It's a one time lump sum. Even if you end up a complete paraplegic, you are not entitled to millions of dollars. You would be lucky if you got $500,000 to compensate you.

When our auto insurance went to "no fault" it put alot of lawyers out of business because many of them had padded their income with insurance claim settlements.

That is what gets me is that these people exist, and there doesn't seem to be ANYTHING the law can do about it.

On one of the episode of hoarders, the woman even openly admitted on national television that her profession is suing people and that's how "she feeds her family" and she had been doing it for years and years and years. How about, oh I dunno, getting a productive job.

Laws are supposedly made to protect us but they sure can break us too. It makes me sick that people can sue over things that simply cannot be helped. Seriously, if you fall up someones perfectly level, cleared, dry steps, how is that the owners fault? Learn to walk?

There are cases were suing someone is perfectly fair but these "sue happy" people need to be stopped. If you do something to cause your own injury, get over it stop trying to blame everyone else.

I'd be rich if I sued someone every time I fell, or hurt myself on another property.

speaking of suing.. I am reminded of the woman who sued a cereal company because it made her kid fat. Same with a man who sued McDonald's because it made him fat. Sadly, they won.

It was THEIR choice to buy the food. the companies did not force them to eat it!

That could also be said of the tobacco companies. They didn't put the cigarettes between our lips, light the match and force us to smoke. Doesn't stop people suing.

We need the judges to get on board with common sense. If that happened then the lawyers and sue-happy people would get the message and stop wasting the courts' time.

Laws vary from state to state and this is not true where I live.

This topic is always a hot-button issue where I work every fall. I work on a large college campus where students frequently have to cross busy streets with lots of vehicle traffic. New crosswalks and signs were installed, and all traffic-light intersections were updated to ensure the walk/don't walk signs were operational.

Students are STILL crossing against the light, outside of the designated crosswalks, etc. These are adults! They wear headphones, talk on their phone, text their friends, etc. all while crossing the street. It is so bad here, the university hired crossing guards!

There was one case last year that sticks with me where a girl wasn't paying attention, crossed against the light and got hit by a car. The car, thankfully, wasn't going fast, but the girl was still injured. The girl was given a ride to the hospital to be checked and a citation for jay-walking. The driver was reminded to pay more attention.

Now, I'm not saying it's always the fault of the pedestrians around here. There are plenty of people who drive like morons and don't pay attention themselves, so everyone needs to be careful driving or walking around this campus. As both a pedestrian and driver around here, I make sure I cross at crosswalks and pay attention while driving. I just have to fight the urge to yell out my car window, "USE THE CROSSWALK!" *ahem*

I'm in Manitoba and car insurance is through Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation. There is no such thing as private auto insurance. MPIC has only "no fault accident" insurance.

You can read more about it here: http://www.mpi.mb.ca/english/newsroom/articles/Other/le_wfp_mar30.html

Home insurance on the other hand is completely different. It's not "no fault" so people can sue and it's up to the court to decide the compensation.

More on MPIC payments:

http://www.mpi.mb.ca/english/claims/...0overview.html

http://www.mpi.mb.ca/english/claims/...permanent.html

http://www.mpi.mb.ca/english/claims/...%20amount.html

I got the finger the last few times I said that to a pedestrian. I have a big mouth and I do yell at people who ignore traffic safety and such, lol.