One reason to proceed with caution on tort reform is that good lawyers and sympathetic jurors sometimes provide the only way to get the bad guys. Here's an example.

Jim Hoebeck was recently killed when his car was smashed into by one of those pickup trucks that have been jacked up by their owners so that they loom menacingly over ordinary vehicles. A jury found liable the driver-owner who had installed the suspension lift and the company that manufactured the lift kit. Since there are no laws forbidding these lift jobs, lawsuits are the only way we can protect ourselves--and we need protection.

In one state, Virginia, police statistics show that, according to U.S. News & World Report's Danielle Knight, fatality rates, on average, were 29 times as high for crashes involving modified pick-ups as for those involving ordinary trucks.

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