Ride-share Accidents: Who Is Liable?

Getting into an Uber or a Lyft should not mean waiving your legal rights. Neither should choosing to share a road with ridesharers. Yet, every day across the country passengers and others on the road are involved in accidents with ridesharing companies.

Some studies show that this accident rate is roughly the same as with a regular taxi service, but unlike taxis, the answers as to who assumes liability is not always clear. In fact, who assumes liability and how much changes dramatically depending on the driver’s actions and other factors.

To get a clearer idea of who should take responsibility for what damages, consider the following scenarios from an Uber accident attorney in San Francisco.

You Are an Uber Passenger and Another Car Is at Fault

This situation is arguably the most straightforward since it practically mirrors what would occur if you were a driver or passenger in any other car on the road. In the event of another vehicle causing an accident with your Uber driver, that driver’s liability insurance would cover as close to 100% of the medical costs and property damage as possible.

In certain scenarios, such as if you had injury costs greater than the at-fault driver’s coverage, Uber’s $1 M commercial insurance policy could kick in to pay for excess damages or damages somehow unrelated to the at-fault driver.

You Are an Uber Passenger and Fault Is Shared or There Is No Fault

This situation is a bit more complex. Uber’s commercial liability policy should theoretically cover 100% of the damages in a no-fault accident or contribute the driver’s complete portion of a shared-fault accident. However, Uber may try to implicate their driver’s behavior or the actions of the other involved vehicles.

Because of this complexity, passengers in a no-fault or shared fault accident may end up having to seek a claim against either Uber or the other drivers.

You Are an Uber Passenger and It’s Clearly the Uber Driver’s Fault

Surprisingly, this situation presents a clearer dichotomy than the previous one. Namely: was the driver being blatantly negligent? If the driver made a simple error, like merging onto a highway when they didn’t have enough room, Uber’s commercial policy will cover your own injuries.

However, if the driver was breaking the law, such as driving drunk, or committing acts very likely to cause others harm, Uber may try to make the driver claim full responsibility. This unfortunate situation leaves you in a predicament since most Uber drivers lack the insurance coverage that the company itself wields. If you can successfully argue that company practices failed to protect you from receiving an unsafe ride, you have a high chance of fighting back against their attempts to shirk liability.

You Are Another Vehicle on the Road and Get in an Uber Accident

At all points where a driver has their Uber app open, Uber is supposed to provide liability coverage to others on the road. However, two situations might cause Uber to try to avoid paying full coverage:

1. The driver was not carrying any passengers and was not en route to pick up passengers
2. The driver was behaving recklessly, such as driving drunk or swerving wildly

Once again, Uber is putting injury victims in the position of seeking insurance coverage from a driver who has far less resources. It is unfortunately up to the victim to assert Uber’s responsibility for their driver and seek compensation through their commercial insurance policy.

Bottom Line: You Need an Uber Accident Lawyer in San Francisco

The same advantages that Uber wields compared to a licensed taxi service put all sorts of variables and unknowns in place when it comes to legal questions like liability. The unfortunate reality is that Uber, Lyft and others fought tooth-and-nail to avoid providing any sort of commercial insurance, and now that they do offer it they look for loopholes at every opportunity to avoid having to use it.

What all this means is that, if you have been in an accident, you cannot trust in the fates that you will be covered like you would typically expect. You will likely need an Uber accident attorney in San Francisco to help sort out the complex situation and argue on your behalf that you are owed compensation as any customer of a business normally would be.

If you have been injured by a ridesharing company, whether as a customer or someone else on the road, then you can contact Gruber Law Group today for a free consultation regarding your case. Contact us now using the phone number or the convenient online form below.