Denizens of the outer boroughs looking to rent a car for a weekend getaway are being hit with a hefty surcharge — and they have trial lawyers and local juries to blame. Our Errol Louis reports at page 3 today that the higher rates charged to residents of Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx are the result of rental companies’ fears of large jury awards in those boroughs. To quote a Hertz vice president, Richard Broome: “For many, many years, our liability costs in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx ran orders of magnitude higher than in New York or in the rest of the country.” Rental companies, it turns out, are responsible under New York’s “vicarious liability” law for accidents caused by renters.

How big is the bite on renters? Mr. Louis did the numbers on the Web site of Dollar Rent A Car. Whereas a Manhattan resident can get a five-passenger Dodge Stratus for $53.99, the following surcharges apply to residents of three of the outer boroughs, for the same car at the same location: $76 a day in Brooklyn, $66 a day in the Bronx, and $10 in Queens. These surcharges have long been unpopular with local politicians — resembling as they do redlining, the practice of refusing to serve an area because of the race or economic status of its residents — but they can’t be seen as unreasonable from a business standpoint.

It is hardly as if the rental companies are going to charge unnecessarily high rates to outer-borough residents. Why would they want to rent fewer cars? There are lots of companies competing for business. The simple answer to this problem would be to eliminate vicarious liability — 40 other states have no such thing. Don’t expect it to happen though. It would be liable to sever the trial lawyers from a carload of cash.