Ladies and Gentlemen,
the discussion has suddenly turned interesting, focusing on some real issues!
Safety Concerns,
I am not sure you understand the phenomenon of "migration to the boundary". Have you ever, ever driven a car one kph over a speed limit? One time? Two times? Most people I know do it often, of course where it's "safe" to do so, and then mainly because they don't notice. "Your honor, the defendant was going 1 kph too fast!" "Is that true, lad?" "I don't know, your honor" "OK, guilty. Because of the ensuing chain of events, 100 people died. Two years, suspended sentence!" Just? You may say so, I don't.
Do you have an argument that would persuade me, other than invoking your intuition?
Mountain Bear,
under UK law, every legal person has a duty of care. That goes for corporate "legal persons" as well as for real persons. In this case, the mechanic. Apparently under French law also. I would be very surprised to find that under (various state versions of) US law, there is no such duty. Suppose you are an auto worker on an assembly line, and you just don't bother to tighten the wheel bolts because you don't care, even though you are supposed to, and the test driver gets in the car and crashes it and injures herself. Are you really suggesting that US law doesn't prosecute the assembly line worker for not attending to his duty of care? I don't think you'll find that is the case at all.
PBL