Who Is Responsible for a Rideshare Accident?

As a general rule of thumb, businesses are responsible for the actions of their employees; for example, if a truck driver causes an accident and injury to another party, the trucking company, and the company that hired them, can often be held liable in a truck accident injury claim.

However, when it comes to rideshare services like Uber or Lyft, since the drivers who work for them set their own hours, choose when and where they want to work, and are responsible for their own taxes, many courts do not consider rideshare drivers actual employees of the company they work for.

This can make recovering compensation for injuries caused by rideshare drivers much more complicated than in a typical personal injury case.

What Injury Coverage Do I Have as a Rideshare Driver?

At The Law Office of Fredson & Statmore, our attorneys have more than 50 years of experience helping clients injured by the negligence of distracted drivers to recover full and fair compensation throughout the State of New Jersey.

Many rideshare companies provide insurance coverage to their drivers in several scenarios.

Uber for example provides third party liability coverage of $1,000,000, uninsured or underinsured motorist injury coverage of $1,000,000, and contingent collision coverage up to the amount of the actual cash value of your vehicle.

However, these coverages depend on where you are in the rideshare process, i.e. app on waiting for a request, driving to pick up a passenger, transporting a passenger, and offline. For a more complete overview of the insurance coverage Uber provides for its drivers, you can view their insurance information page here.