Opinion ID: 1180974
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Probability of Motor Vehicle Accidents

Text: Because Nash held that motorists could assume that all who use the highways will drive with care, the decision imposed no duty to anticipate injury. Over a lifetime, however, it is almost certain that a motor vehicle accident will injure the average motorist. [27] The clear foreseeability of automobile accidents is the reason most courts now hold automobile manufacturers responsible to make vehicles capable of providing a reasonable level of protection to automobile occupants. See, e.g., Larsen v. General Motors Corp., 391 F.2d 495 (8th Cir.1968) (original case adopting crashworthiness doctrine). Our court of appeals recently applied this theory to the design of motorcycles. Cota v. Harley Davidson, A Division of AMF, Inc., 141 Ariz. 7, 12-14, 684 P.2d 888, 893-95 (App. 1984). Given modern-day conditions, we conclude as a matter of public policy that the law must recognize the responsibility of every person to anticipate and take reasonable measures to guard against the danger of motor vehicle accidents that are not only foreseeable but virtually certain to occur sooner or later. Rejection of the seat belt defense can no longer be based on the antediluvian doctrine that one need not anticipate the negligence of others. There is nothing to anticipate; the negligence of motorists is omnipresent.