If an rancher's cow hits your car then the rancher is liable. I am just applying the same rule to the government. It fits in with the whole "how to get the ranchers not to shoot the wolves". It applies a rule in a fashion equal to the rancher's responsibilities in the situation.
If an rancher's cow hits your car then the rancher is liable.
No, the rancher is not. That's what those yellow diamond "entering open range" signs mean. In fact, you hit a head of cattle in open range, you're paying for the ranchers loss.
As an aside, how is a cow supposed to "hit my car" in the first place? They might exceed 20 mph if spooked, otherwise it's like saying that a pedestrian hit your car. The fact that said pedestrian weighs upward of 1200 lbs. does not absolve you, pilot of the 70 mph 4000lb. box of steel.
I watched a bison (juvenile) hit a parked car. On a twisty road we lost a motorcycle driver to a bison that had got out. A bull will attack a car. Cows can panic too.
IANAL, but what you linked directly contradicts what you stated about ranchers paying for the damage (assuming the case of signed grazing areas). And with that, I'm done with the armchair lawyerin'. May neither of us discover the truth of liability the hard way.
Signed grazing area is not a contradiction, its very specific. I have discovered the liability as I had to help with the bison case. So I guess I was fortunate it wasn't my car.
In most of the west the inverse is true. If you hit livestock, under any condition (if it got loose and was wandering the highway), you are liable. Livestock always has right of way.
