accident

Anthony John Colleluori

You are at fault. You are driving the vehicle and it is in your control. It is your job to control the inside of the vehicle and if you have a passenger that is disturbing you, put them out of the car or pull over until you can control the situation.

If the passenger is suing you, you can have a partial defense of contributory negligence which may reduce their award, however if a person outside your vehicle is suing you, You can interplead the passenger but you will still be lible for the payment to the third party and then you will have to collect your money from your passenger.

Remember, if you have been in an accident you should immediately report same to your insurance company or risk that they will not pay the claim.

Good Luck.

Steven L Shaw

I'm not sure that you can say with any certainty whether it is your fault or that of the passenger. When you say distracted you, that can mean a lot of different things. If he distracted you by saying, "Hey, look over there," then I would agree that you are at fault because drivers have a duty to keep their attention on driving, not looking somewhere other than the road.

But if by distracting you mean he put something in front of your face, covered your eyes, grabbed the steering wheel, etc., your passenger may be completely at fault for the collision. Not an easy call one way or the other.