By Scott Sexton
Media General News Service
Writing laws can be slow, frustrating and messy.

Such is the case with an effort to overhaul the state’s contributory negligence laws. Basically, contributory negligence means that if two people are in an accident and one is determined to be the least bit at fault, the other – even if he or she was 99 percent at fault – doesn’t have to pay up.

The N.C. House of Representatives passed a bill earlier this year to change that. A similar bill is working its way through the Senate. (We’re one of just four states that still use the contributory negligence concept.).

Under the House bill, we would switch to a modified “comparative fault” system, one based on a concept familiar to most 4-year-olds: If you’re 75 percent at fault, you (or your insurance company or both) pay 75 percent of the damage.

“Your periodic attention to this ludicrous NC law has been invaluable to those of us who are intent on changing it,” wrote George Gates in a May e-mail after the House took action.

Gates is the father of a young man who was killed changing a flat tire on Interstate 40. Lawyers later argued that Stephen Gates contributed to his death because his car stopped a few inches in the travel lane.

“Pat and I have continued our efforts, together with others, since the day (now five years ago) when we were rudely smacked by an insurance company representative asserting that our son Stephen had caused his own death,” Gates wrote.

Perhaps by fall, the Gateses’ work will bear fruit.