Ride-Share Riders Could Get Stuck With Medical Bills in a Crash

From the Governing website

In some states, Uber and Lyft don’t have to pay if passengers are hurt by a hit-and-run. There are moves in a number of states to increase protections for riders and drivers in the case of accidents with uninsured motorists.

In the early hours of Sept. 12, 2020, Denver chef Brian Fritts, 32, was riding in the backseat of a Lyft car when another vehicle crashed into it and drove off, leaving him with six crushed vertebrae and a broken jaw.

His life has never been the same. Nor has his pocketbook. A loophole in Colorado’s rideshare insurance laws left him with no payments to cover his medical bills and other expenses. He owed hundreds of thousands of dollars, much of which was not covered by Medicaid, his health insurance.

“I can’t sit up; I can’t stand for very long,” he told the Colorado legislature this month in a House Judiciary Committee hearing. And, he said, he needs more surgery to fix his crooked jaw, a procedure he said he can’t afford.

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