Proposition 50K0210

Projet de loi modifiant diverses dispositions relatives au régime de l'indemnisation automatique des usagers de la route les plus vulnérables et des passagers de véhicules.

General information ¶

Authors

CD&V Jos Ansoms, Tony Van Parys, Jo Vandeurzen, Servais Verherstraeten

Submission date

Oct. 29, 1999

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

motor vehicle insurance civil liability damages

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld N-VA MR FN VB

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

June 15, 2000 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, Mr. Colleagues, during four meetings, the committee discussed the present bill in a constructive spirit and across the boundaries of majority and opposition. The proposal aims to make some improvements to Article 29bis of the law of 21 November 1989 on compulsory liability insurance for motor vehicles. Article 29a was introduced in 1994. It provides that vulnerable road users and passengers are automatically compensated for all forms of damage, with the exception of material damage, which they incur in traffic injuries. Therefore, it is not taken into account whether the weak road user committed a traffic infringement in the injury accident or not. This is about the so-called objective liability, which puts the behavior of the weak road user himself in a hook. Only if he has made an imperceptible mistake will the system of automatic reimbursement not work out. The Court of Arbitration has identified the existing Article 29bis of the Law on Compulsory Liability Insurance for Motor Vehicles as discriminating against vulnerable road users who are injured in accidents involving rail vehicles. It is a tram or train. The system of automatic compensation does not yet apply to these accidents. The proposers of the bill, including Mr Ansoms, want to remove this violation of the constitutional principle of equality. The system should also be applicable if pedestrians or cyclists suffer physical injury in an accident involving a tram or train. That is the first purpose of this bill. To date, the automatic compensation for physical or moral damage is not applicable if the rightholder has committed a so-called imperceptible error. It was clearly in 1994 that the legislator’s intention was to consider this undeniable error as something of very exceptional seriousness. The bill’s proposer, Mr Ansoms, said he has captured echoes that some in the judiciary world tend to interpret the concept of unreasonable error broadly. The second purpose of the bill is therefore to prevent preventively a collapse of the system. The proposers of the bill want a deletion of the notion of unfathomable error. Instead, the applicants say that the automatic compensation does not apply if the person concerned has desired the accident and its consequences. This concept can hardly be interpreted because it actually refers to suicide or attempted suicide. The concept of improper error is not new. This strict vision dates back to the roundtable conference, in the early 1990s, on the problem of objective liability in traffic, organized by the then ministers of Traffic Dehaene and Justice Wathelet. This roundtable conference of top academic leaders and the top of the insurance world then mounted into a consensus for the introduction of article 1385bis in the Civil Code, which was already drafted at the time. Article 1385bis originally referred to rightholders who wanted the accident and its consequences. For various reasons, when the law was enacted in 1994, the legislature submitted the text of the 1990 Round Table Conference. Instead, the legislator added Article 29bis to the compulsory liability insurance, which used the notion of inexplicable error, which allows for more interpretations. The concept of unreasonable error is now ending. In addition to these two fundamental changes to the existing system, the applicants would like to make a few small, punctual changes. They want, for example, to compensate for the damaged clothing of the weak road user. The concept of prothesis should also be interpreted as broadly as possible. Damage to prostheses is already considered as physical damage. However, what should be considered as a prosthesis? The applicants want all means that serve to compensate for physical defects such as glasses, hearing aids, a rolling cart and even a blind guide dog to be considered as prosthetics and thus also compensated in case of an accident as a form of physical injury. These small improvements together constitute the third goal of this bill. It didn’t go ice overnight. Therefore, it also requested the opinion of the Insurance Committee. The opinion was quite divided, not so much about the actual intentions, but about how these improvements would be best addressed. Mr Ansoms took this opinion into account and even submitted some amendments, which were suggested by the Committee on Insurance. He acknowledged, at the express request of the Government, that Article 29bis will not apply to injury accidents occurring in private areas. However, one thing must be emphasized. The Court of Arbitration considers it already sufficient if the system of automatic compensation applies to the crossings of the weak road users over the tracks and not to other places on the tracks. Mr Ansoms went further in the amendment of the bill. Not only at the crossings over the tracks, but also for tram and train accidents involving vulnerable road users that occur outside the crossings, the automatic compensation should apply. The example of the coastal tram, where children in their enthusiasm also cross the tram tracks outside the crossing sites when they walk from or to the beach, is very typical. For this vision, colleague Ansoms received the full support of several members of the committee. In the last instance, just before the vote on the articles, the government still mixed itself in the debate and submitted two amendments. Both amendments did not leave much of the original bill. Only the violation of the principle of equality was resolved and for the rest nothing would change the system. After substantial discussion on this with the applicant of the bill and when it turned out that most committee members wanted to follow the applicant’s vision, the government withdrew its amendments. Finally, the legislative service of the House, with the approval of the committee members, made a number of purely technical text corrections. The bill was finally approved with 8 votes for and 1 vote against.

Colleagues, this afternoon there are two important legislative proposals on the agenda that were submitted by the opposition and that are likely to be adopted. This seems to me to be an important sign on the wall for our work.

I would like to thank the President for his call to approve this bill. If the chairman of the House makes such a call, this is of course a huge support in the back. In my opinion, he, by the way, is very right to launch this call because it is an important bill that was inspired by a great concern for road traffic victims. Traffic safety always has two aspects, namely the preventive - attempting to prevent accidents - and the curative aspect. The fact that we all need to work hard to reduce the number of accidents is evident from the figures. In 1998, 1,500 road traffic deaths and 11,000 serious injuries occurred in our country. I think there is still a lot of work on the shop to reduce this number. In the coming weeks we will have the opportunity to take this into account following the treatment of the government’s security plan. In the area of road safety, we can also take a number of measures to reduce the number of road accidents. Regardless of the measures taken in the field of road safety, there will, unfortunately, always be road traffic casualties. It is then up to the government to show a great heart for these road traffic victims. That is actually the purpose of this bill. Some of you remember that 5 years ago we forced a rather revolutionary breakthrough in our country by automatically compensating the weak road users for physical injury. This was entirely new. It was no longer necessary to raise the individual guilt claim, because bodily injury to the weak road user was automatically compensated. This measure has been debated for a long time. In traffic, cyclists and pedestrians are the weak road users in relation to the driver and the motorcycle driver. If the traffic consisted only of pedestrians and cyclists, there would probably be few or no injuries. However, motorized traffic makes them the biggest victims in traffic. They are the biggest victims of motor traffic, objectively seen. Who are the weak road users? We are all so when we leave our car and cross the street, but above all it is children, elderly and disabled people who can use the car less or no. They are the weakest road users and they are also the most vulnerable. Until the law in 1995 was passed, they were also the weak for the court. After all, the interests of the driver were defended by the lawyers or the insurance specialists of the driver, while the weak road user stood there without defense, especially if one knows that a lot of these elderly people, for example, do not have family insurance or assistance insurance. However, the existing system of automatic compensation for the weak road user was introduced, although it was difficult to ⁇ . After five years, everyone seems to have reconciled with the principle. However, it is not sufficient to approve such a law to enforce such a principle. Quality monitoring is also necessary. After five years, we must examine whether this achieves what the legislator expected of it. Together with a group of experts, we conducted quality monitoring and examined how this bill has evolved after four years of operation. As a result, some corrections have to be made. In the meantime, the Court of Arbitration ruled that the principle of equality was violated by the fact that a child hit by the coastal tram and seriously injured would not be automatically compensated. That is logical, and that was already a reason to amend the law. However, there were other elements. Mrs Creyf gave in her very good and comprehensive report a complete overview of all the adjustments made to the law by our bill. All these adjustments benefit the weak road user and refine and improve the system. This bill came from the opposition, but could be approved in the committee with support from the majority. I am very grateful to the majority groups in the committee for their support for this. This proves that the boundary between majority and minority is not always equally absolute. This is also good, especially when it comes to the weak road user and road safety. I am pleased that the majority and the opposition can find each other around this problem of the soft road users, i.e. children, the elderly and the disabled who are very vulnerable in traffic. We immediately express our hope that the cooperation between the opposition and the majority today will be translated into the same vote here. We hope for a large majority for this in this plenary session. This could then be a precursor for other initiatives on road safety. Hopefully we can work together in other areas. Let us be honest. When it comes to human lives, including in traffic, there should be no party boundaries and no boundaries between majority and minority. Together, we should be able to adopt those measures that prevent more road traffic casualties. I thank you in any case.

I do not want to interfere in the debate. Mr. Ansoms, however, referred to rather furious discussions in 1994. I want to know if there is any guarantee. In 1994, it was negotiated with the insurers that there was a ceiling for a possible increase in premiums.

The introduction as such in 1995 has not resulted in significant price increases. Although it was said differently in advance, it fell with it. This bill was submitted for advice to the insurance committee. Mrs Creyf referred to the comments made by the committee. The cost was not an element in this advice, or ⁇ not a main element.