6 months ago
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Today’s article is the sequel to last week’s ‘Ridesharing is disrupting the transport and motor insurance sectors’. The focus, however, will be different. It will deal more broadly with the risks that motorists and road users face daily and question the efficacy of the existing statutory mechanisms that were invented decades ago to provide protection.
The Motor Vehicles Insurance (Third-Party Risks) Act, or MVITPRA for short, and public passenger vehicles, or PPVs, are also triggers for this article.
This newspaper reported on a recent minibus crash on the Font Hill main road in St Elizabeth. The accident which occurred at around 4 a.m., claimed the driver’s life. Thirteen passengers were also injured. No other vehicle was involved.
Police say the vehicle was travelling in an easterly direction, towards Black River, when the driver allegedly lost control. The bus hit a tree and overturned several times.
This mishap is not just another abstract statistic. This south coast roadway is familiar because I have driven along it scores of times. The police have confirmed what I know about this stretch of road: drivers often exceed the speed limit; cows sometime appear out of nowhere; and many serious accidents have occurred along this corridor.
I worry about the injured passengers. Are these persons likely to get compensation for their injuries in this situation where they were innocent victims? If so, when and how much?
A few days later, a former PPV passenger, who is now living in Texas, sent me a message via WhatsApp. Five years earlier she suffered serious injuries in a mishap. Her six-figure claim is now in the final stage of being settled. Her problem: the proposed payout is about half of her claim even though there were two motor policies in force when the collision occurred and she was also an innocent victim.
My third case provides another real-life example that the authorities, to use the title of this newspaper’s June 6, 2024, ‘Procrastinated too long’ editorial, were not only tardy in not formulating a transportation policy but also failed to revise the limits under Subsection 5(2)(a) and (b), and (3)(a) and (b) of MVITPRA. An uninsured PPV hit the insured vehicle of another motorist in St Catherine a few months ago. The motorist suffered personal injuries and his vehicle was totalled. The PPV driver who is alleged to have caused the collision has threatened legal action against the other driver for an amount that is twice that stated in Section 5 of the statute.
The limits stated under Subsections 5 (2) and (3) are as follows:
• Bodily injury or death – not less than $1 million any one person; all claims arising from one accident – not less than $3 million; and
• Property damage – not less than $500,000 any one person; all claims arising from one accident – not less than $1 million.
If the minibus in the Font Hill crash was insured, and depending on the third-party limits under the policy, the injured passengers are likely to ‘suck salt’.
The three examples I have quoted are connected to the ongoing debate about the controversy that has arisen from the unfortunate death of Danielle Anglin and the transport ministry’s decision to ban ridesharing companies.
In one of my articles, published April 15, 2018, I wrote that lawmakers in other Caribbean countries are more on the ball on this subject than local legislators. Their laws provide much higher levels of compensation for victims of motor vehicle accidents than those in Jamaica. [See table on this page.]
The existing law was passed during the first half of the last century. The limits were not set based on any objective analysis. There is no relationship between them and the amounts that a court may award. Courts follow well-established rules for valuing personal injury claims. On the other hand, motor policies can provide limits for injury claims that are less than 6 per cent of actual court awards and still comply with the law. Most drivers who cause accidents seldom have the funds or assets to pay the difference between the court award and the amount paid by their insurers.
The original lawmakers recognised the weakness in the legislation. They gave the minister authority under Subsection (6) to increase the limits stated in Subsections (2) and (3) by order, subject to negative resolution.
Now is the time to stop the dilly-dallying.
Cedric E. Stephens provides independent information and advice about the management of risks and insurance. For free information or counsel, write to: aegis@flowja.com or business@gleanerjm.com
English (US) ·