Patent ID: 7890352

Claim:
A method of estimating liability for a vehicle accident, comprising: providing to a computer system a real set of characteristics of a real vehicle accident, wherein the real set of characteristics comprises: a pair of impact points for the real vehicle accident, wherein one of the impact points of the pair is an impact point for a first vehicle in the real vehicle accident and the other impact point of the pair is an impact point for a second vehicle in the real vehicle accident; a roadway configuration for the real vehicle accident, and an accident type for the real vehicle accident, wherein the accident type for the real vehicle accident specifies a relationship between two or more vehicles' paths on a roadway at the time of the real vehicle accident; wherein the computer system is configured to access a memory, and wherein the memory comprises sets of characteristics for past or theoretical vehicle accidents associated with estimates of liability, wherein at least two of the sets of characteristics for the past or theoretical accidents comprise: a pair of impact points for a past or theoretical accident, wherein one impact point of the pair is an impact point for a first vehicle in the past or theoretical vehicle accident and the other impact point of the pair is an impact point for a second vehicle in the past or theoretical vehicle accident; comparing the real set of characteristics to the sets of characteristics relating to the past or theoretical vehicle accidents to determine a nearest matching set of characteristics among the sets of characteristics relating to the past or theoretical vehicle accidents, wherein comparing the real set of characteristics to the sets of characteristics relating to the past or theoretical vehicle accidents comprises the computer system searching, from within a first database table having pairs of impact points for the past or theoretical accidents, for a pair of impact points associated with the roadway configuration for the real vehicle accident and the accident type for the real vehicle accident that is the nearest match to the pair of impact points for the real vehicle accident; and determining an estimate of liability for the real vehicle accident based at least in part on a base liability associated with the nearest matching pair of impact points.