Traffic Accidents in Nepal

Tort Litigation:

In the event of an accident, the party at fault must pay the injured party on the spot. Basically, they do some sort of negotiation of the amount and then the injured party's family holds up traffic until the party at fault pays up. Sometimes it can take many hours for the injured party's family to acquire all the rupees. Holding up traffic and having a lot of angry drivers is a good way to induce a recalcitrant party to come to an agreement. This is bad news for personal injury attorneys and can be very annoying if, for example, you are trying to drive all the way from Kathmandu to Narti in one day (12 hour drive). On the other hand, the parties save a lot of time and money that would otherwise be spent on litigation and the courts are relieved of a big burden.

Tort Reform:

In Nepal, people do not have health insurance. So, in the event that a bus hits someone, the family of the injured person holds up not only the bus driver, but all other buses coming down the road and collects about $200 from each one to cover the medical costs (most buses belong to the same conglomerate, so I guess they see the money as coming from the bus company). This is roughly equivalent to a month's salary for a bus driver. As a result, if a bus is going to hit someone, the driver tries to kill the person, rather than merely injure him or her. Understandably, many people are extremely upset that this is happening. Consequently, there is a group (or maybe more than one group) that is putting pressure on the government to pick up a substantial portion of the medical costs incurred by anyone who is injured after being hit by a bus.