Patent ID: 7630909

Claim:
A method, comprising: providing to a computer system an estimate of a proportion of responsibility of a party for each of two or more past or theoretical vehicle accidents, each estimate comprising a proportion of responsibility for the accident that can be attributed to at least one party involved in the accident; wherein the computer system is configured to access a memory, wherein the memory comprises a set of characteristics for the past or theoretical vehicle accidents, wherein the characteristics describe the past or theoretical vehicle accidents; storing each of the estimates of the proportion of responsibility in the memory in association with one of the sets of characteristics for the past or theoretical vehicle accidents; the computer system comparing a set of characteristics for a real vehicle accident to sets of characteristics associated with two or more of the past or theoretical vehicle accidents to determine the nearest matching set of characteristics among the sets of characteristics associated with the past or theoretical vehicle accidents, wherein the characteristics for the real vehicle accident describe the real vehicle accident, wherein the comparison to determine the nearest matching set of characteristics comprises comparing a roadway configuration for the real vehicle accident to roadway configurations for the past or theoretical vehicle accidents, comparing an accident type for the real vehicle accident to accident types for the past or theoretical vehicle accidents, and comparing a pair of impact points for the real vehicle accident to pairs of impact points for the past or theoretical accidents; and the computer system determining, when possible, an estimate of a proportion of responsibility that can be attributed to at least one party involved in the real vehicle accident, wherein the estimate of the proportion of responsibility for the real vehicle accident is based, at least in part, on the estimate of the proportion of responsibility for the past or theoretical vehicle accident whose associated set of characteristics most nearly matches the set of characteristics for the real vehicle accident.