Accident victim compensation a longstanding tragedy

The Sunday Gleaner shared a heart-breaking account last week of Odean Brown’s fight to save one of her legs that was injured in a motor vehicle accident. The mishap occurred in Trelawny in 1999.

The article, ‘A Painful Christmas: Woman’s Battle to Save Leg Headed for a Disappointing End’ written by Senior Staff Reporter Corey Robinson, was very sad. It reinforced an opinion that I have expressed many times. The motor vehicle insurance compensation system, like many things in this country, is not working properly. People are suffering as a result.

The system needs to be fixed. Are the folks in the ministries of justice, mining and transport, and/or Office of the Prime Minister unaware of the problem? Why isn’t something being done to alleviate the hardships that are being faced by many other Odean Browns whose lives are being dislocated by motor vehicle accidents?

Reducing the number of persons who are killed or maimed is one part of the solution. Finding an effective solution to fixing a dysfunctional system is another. Finding a fix is surely not as difficult as launching the James Webb Space Telescope and, to quote The New York Times, “spotting the first stars and galaxies emerging from the primordial fog when the universe was only 100 million years or so old”.

DEEMED AT FAULT

Ms Brown is a customer care representative employed by the Registrar General’s Department. She was travelling in a van as a passenger making deliveries on behalf of her employer. The van driver collided head-on with another vehicle while in the act of overtaking. The front of the van crumpled, injuring her leg. The Sunday Gleaner reported Ms Brown as saying that “nothing financially favourable came of the insurance claims in the court, partly because the driver of the vehicle in which she was travelling was deemed at fault (and that) the company with whom she worked has since closed”. Wasn’t the Motor Vehicles Insurance (Third-Party Risks) Act, MVITPRA, drafted for situations like those encountered by Ms Brown?

On Christmas Day this year, The Jamaica Observer published a report about mass casualties in a crash that occurred on Christmas Eve in Hanover. Eighteen persons who were travelling in a minibus were said to have suffered injuries, including “broken bones, displaced hips, abrasions, head injuries, and spinal damage”. It is not improbable, given the fact that the compensation system remains unfixed, that some of the injured persons – perhaps all of them – will end up in the same situation as Ms Brown, 22 years from now.

Section 5(1) of MVITPRA says to comply with the requirements of the law, “the policy of insurance must be a policy which: (a) is issued by a person who is an insurer; and (b) subject to the provisions of this section, insures such person, persons or classes of persons, as may be specified in the policy, against any liability incurred by him or them in respect of (i) the death of, or bodily injury to, any person; and (ii) any property damage, caused by or arising out of the use of the motor vehicle on the road”.

There is nothing in the law that prevented Ms Brown from getting compensation under the act. Sections 8(1) and (2) reinforce the general intent of the law, that is, to cover any liability that causes death or bodily injury. The fact that she received no financial compensation for her injuries as the law intended suggests systemic dysfunction.

In ‘The Economic Cost of Motor Crashes’, which was published on December 19, I showed that the current statutory limits in MVITPRA needed to be increased. They are very low when compared to the limits found in the laws of our neighbours. Further, they do not represent present-day costs and are at variance with many of the vehicles that are used in ground transportation. The Christmas Eve crash in Hanover, unfortunately, validates this argument.

Would Odean Brown, her family members, the 18 persons who were injured in the Hanover crash, members of their families and the hundreds – perhaps thousands – of persons who are affected directly and indirectly by the dysfunctional motor vehicle insurance compensation system place a greater emphasis on ditching the Queen than getting an effective and efficient 21st-century system when they have the misfortune to be involved in crashes that are becoming more frequent?

Our leaders, for some reason, do not consider finding a solution to the latter a priority. I hope that a miracle will visit Ms Brown and others like her in 2022.

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