I think the system is deplorable, but I wouldn't blame the dealers or the manufacturers. Instead you needd to blame our corrupt legal system that allows a lawsiut to be filed even though the plaintiff was guilty of causing the accident. I am a physician and was involved in a frivolous lawsiut as an expert witness for the defense ( a physician). The laswsiut was won by the defendant physician after 15 minutes - YES, 15 LOUSY MINUTES, of jury deliberation. It cost the physicians's insurance company somewhere between $90,000 and $150,000, by my estimate, to defend the physician. In order to keep the number of lawsiuts down, this physician's malpractice company has a policy of fighting all lawsuits that are not clearly malpractice by the physician. In this particular state, Alabama, lawsuits for malpractice are a dime a dozen. For the 1999 calendar year, the lossses for product liability lawsuits, under which malpractice falls, was greater then the total losses for the same cause in Georgia, Tennessee and Mississippi for 1997, 1998 and 1999 combined! The policy of fighting all lawsuits is the only policy to follow, but it is expensive. Multiply the costs in Alabama by the number of states with similar circumstnaces: California, Florida, New York, Massachusetts, Texas and about 10 or so others and the national cost would be at least double the price of a motorcycle in this country.
The real problem is not the number of lawyers or the the unscrupulous lawyers, but it is with the judges that allow such shennanigans, the state legislatures, congress, and the courts (judges again) who rule any tort reform legislation unconstitutional, as was done in Alabama. s
This same problem shut down the small airplane industry who quit mqanufacturing small airplanes for a number of years because they consistently lost lawsuits brought over small airplane crashes. Most of these cases were lost even though the crashes were mostly ruled pilot error or due to poor maintainence. Many of the aircraft involved were well over 20 years old. Small airplane manufacturering only began again in the US a couple of years ago after congress passed a law that any airplane that had flown for 17 years or more was deemed, for purposes of legal liability, to be airworthy and above fault for a crash.
"Houston,", and the rest of the country, "we have a problem". It is the civil courts, their foolish ways and our tort system.