When something goes wrong the public very often will get to know about it and they are going to want to clarify who is at fault and to make sure that the person at fault has received due punishment. It is therefore very important for authorities to find out who is at fault, to be able to show the public that they have done their duty.

That does not necessarily mean that the real person who is at fault is the one who is punished, but the authorities have to be able to show that they've done their job and they have to find the easiest and the fastest and most efficient way of demonstrating to the public what is ging on. If the wrong person has to suffer because of this then so be it. That is not their concern and that is not the way the authorities deal with the situation.

Thus, we have the classic case of an assigned risk. That is the situation when a person is involved in an accident. The insurance company may pay for the repairs, may or may not depending on the arrangement and the negotiations, but the person's category has changed.

Now what happens if the person was not to blame but was involved in the risk?

This situation occurred in a particular case in the United States. A car was parked outside of a school and the teacher was inside teaching. The students heard a loud crash in the middle of the lesson and everybody ran to the window including the teacher. The teacher and the students, there were a total of about 600 witnesses, saw one of the students who had driven a stolen car and it had plowed into the teacher's car, demolishing it. Everybody saw who the student was. Everybody saw the entire incident.

A series of nightmares followed the teacher after that. The insurance company would not pay for the damage because a minor was driving the other car. The teacher was ordered not to sue the child because he was a minor and it would destroy his future (!). Lastly, the teacher's insurance status was changed to assigned risk because he was involved in a serious accident. Granted, it was not his fault and there were 600 witnesses, but the fact that he was involved was sufficient. He was then assigned an insurance company which charge him a very high rate for the next several years because he was involved in the accident.

The authorities did their job. They quieted the public. They found somebody to state who was at fault.