Whatever the case may be, there will be times in life when someone else drives your car. Perhaps you are road tripping across the country and you and another person (or more) decide to rotate back and forth so you don’t have to stop overnight. Or maybe your good friends car wouldn’t start and you let them use yours that day to drive to work? In whatever circumstance, we decide to lend out our car in order to help those we care about, often times not thinking of the possibilities that may come with this choice. For example, what if your friend gets into a car accident and makes a stupid move on the road, is there a chance that you could get nailed for the accident and the other people’s injuries?

Believe it or not, there are a number of possible situations for which you could be held responsible even if you weren’t the one driving your car. First, in the event that you choose to lend your car to a bad driver and they get involved in an accident, there is a possibility that you will be held responsible for the crash because you were aware their poor driving skills. This theory is called the law of vicarious liability, which means that in the event a person who was driving your car was knowingly irresponsible and yet you let them drive any way and they were in an accident, you could also be listed as a responsible in the lawsuit. This category also includes parents and their teenage drivers. In most families, the teen will just use their mom or dad’s car in order to get around on the weekends and to school, however if they are in an accident, the parents will be held vicariously responsible.

Vicarious liability also includes driving as an employee for your employer. For example, say you own the local pizza shop and your employee was out driving for a delivery when the accident occurred, there is a chance that as the owner you will be considered liable for the accident because of your negligence as the employer. This theory is going to be called the “respondeat superior”: which means that the boss is responsible for his employees, for any and all accidents which occur. In most cases, employers can only be responsible for so much, which is why this rule applies only for car accidents in the majority of situations. In the event the employee was using the car for his or her own personal matters, the employer may not be held as a liable party in this case.

Finally, in the event that the car was poorly manufactured or the road was poorly constructed, vicarious liability may also be taken into consideration. For example, if Sally was driving the speed limit on the highway and her brakes gave out causing her to hit another vehicle, pushing them into the wall of the highway, originally one would think that only the driver is responsible for the accident. However, in this case, if the driver was abiding in the laws of the road and a simple car malfunction caused the accident, vicarious liability could be used here to point the figure at the maker of the car rather than the driver who was also a vicitim in this accident and not the one responsible. In this case, product liability laws would be argued in order to shift the blame from the driver of the car to the one responsible for the malfunction.

In the event you have been involved in a car accident of some sort, do not hesitate in using our website to direct you to a car accident lawyer near you!