In the event of serious injuries or fatalities, it is possible for injured persons to seek compensation in excess of the at-fault drivers insurance coverage.In some cases, involving a defect in the design or manufacture of motor vehicles, such as where defective design results in SUV rollovers or sudden unintended acceleration, accidents caused by defective tires, or where injuries are caused or worsened as a result of defective airbags, it is possible that the manufacturer will face a class action lawsuit. Art
Cars have come to represent a part of the American Dream of ownership coupled with the freedom of the road. The violence of a car wreck provides a counterpoint to that promise and is the subject of artwork by a number of artists, such as John Salt and Li Yan. Though English, John Salt was drawn to American landscapes of wrecked vehicles like Desert Wreck (airbrushed oil on linen, 1972). Similarly, Jan Anders Nelson works with the wreck in its resting state in junkyards or forests, or as elements in his paintings and drawings. American Landscape  is one example of Nelsons focus on the violence of the wreck with cars and trucks piled into a heap, left to the forces of nature and time. This recurring theme of violence is echoed in the work of Li Yan. His painting Accident Nº 6 looks at the energy released during a crash.Andy Warhol used newspaper pictures of car wrecks with dead occupants in a number of his Disaster series of silkscreened canvases.
In the early 1970s, British Leyland started an intensive programme of vehicle safety research, producing a number of prototype experimental safety vehicles demonstrating various innovations for occupant and pedestrian protection such as air bags, anti-lock brakes, impact-absorbing side-panels, front and rear head restraints, run-flat tires, smooth and deformable front-ends, impact-absorbing bumpers, and retractable headlamps. Design has also been influenced by government legislation, such as the Euro NCAP impact test. Common features designed to improve safety include thicker pillars, safety glass, interiors with no sharp edges, stronger bodies, other active or passive safety features, and smooth exteriors to reduce the consequences of an impact with pedestrians. The UK Department for Transport publish road casualty statistics for each type of collision and vehicle through its Road Casualties Great Britain report. These statistics show a ten to one ratio of in-vehicle fatalities between types of car. In most cars, occupants have a 2–8% chance of death in a two-car collision. Center of gravitySome crash types tend to have more serious consequences. Rollovers have become more common in recent years, perhaps due to increased popularity of taller SUVs, people carriers, and minivans, which have a higher center of gravity than standard passenger cars. Rollovers can be fatal, especially if the occupants are ejected because they were not wearing seat belts (83% of ejections during rollovers were fatal when the driver did not wear a seat belt, compared to 25% when they did).