MEMORANDUM OPINION
Presented here is the question whether a standard uninsured motorist provision of a Virginia automobile insurance policy provides coverage for an incident in which an insured is abducted in a stolen vehicle, transported to an isolated location, and sexually assaulted within the automobile. More specifically, the question is whether the insured’s injuries in these circumstances arose out of the “ownership, maintenance, or use” of the uninsured vehicle, as required by the terms of the policy. For the reasons that follow, the Court holds that the injuries did not so arise.
I.
The dispositive facts of this case are simple and undisputed. On November 16, 1992, Plaintiff Jane Doe 1 was working at a jewelry *863 kiosk in Manassas Mall, a shopping center located in Prince William County, Virginia. At approximately 10:00 p.m., a man later identified as Richard Shane Collins approached Doe, drew a handgun, and proceeded to rob her of the day’s store receipts. Gun in hand, Collins then demanded that Doe accompany him to the mall parking lot, where he forcеd her into a car he had stolen earlier that day. After driving Doe to an isolated location, Collins parked the car and sexually assaulted her at gun point within the confines of the vehicle. He then drove her to two more locations, sexually assaulting her at each stop. Fortunately, another vehicle approached at the third location, distracting Collins and thus allowing Doe to flee the car and her attacker.
During the course of the attack, Doe suffered numerous injuries. In addition to the harm accompanying the sexual assault itself, Doe received multiple abrasions over much of her body. She also sustained bruises and scratches to her neck from strangulation. Doe’s hand was wounded by a bullet graze when she attempted at one point to wrest the gun from Collins, causing the weapon to discharge. She also received several bumps on her head from being pushed against the interior ear window. And, as a result of this dreadful event, Doe has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Doe filed the instant lawsuit seeking recovery for her injuries under the uninsured motorist provisions of two automobile insurance policies insuring her. 2 The first policy, issued by Defendant State Farm Fire & Casualty Company, provides uninsured motorist coverage to Doe directly as a named insured. The second policy, issued by Defendant State Farm Mutual Insurance Company, covers Doe’s father and his household family members. 3 Because Doe was living with her father at the time of the assault, she also enjoys uninsured motorist coverage under this second policy. Both pоlicies include a standard uninsured motorist provision that provides coverage for:
bodily injury sustained by the insured ..., caused by accident and arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of such uninsured motor vehicle.
There is no dispute that Doe sustained “bodily injury” within the meaning of this provision. 4 Nor does State Farm dispute that Doe’s injuries were “caused by accident.” 5 Rather, at issue here is whether Doe’s injuries arose “out of the ownership, maintenance or use” of the stolen, and hence uninsured, vehicle. State Farm contends that Doe’s injuries did not arise out of the “use” of the vehicle as contemplated by the parties to the insurance contract. In its view, there was an insufficient causal relationship between Doe’s injuries and the use of the vehicle as a vehicle to warrant recovery in this instance. For her part, Doe argues that Collins’ use of the vehicle to abduct, assault, confine, and transport her constitutes a “use” within the intended meaning of the insurance contract. On these undisputed fаcts and opposing contentions, both parties move for summary judgment.
II.
As the parties correctly agree, Virginia law *864 governs this dispute. 6 While there is no Supreme Court of Virginia decision directly on point, existing análogous decisions are instructive and ultimately dispositive.
Analysis properly begins with
State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company v. Powell,
[e]ven though ownership, maintenance, or use of the vehicle’need not be the direct, proximate cause of the injury in the strict legal sense, nevertheless, there must be a causal relationship between the accident and employment of the insured motor vehicle as a vehicle.
Id. (emphasis added). 8
This conclusion, namely that there must be a causal connection between the injuries and the use of the vehiclе as a vehicle, follows logically from a common sense inquiry into the probable intent of the parties. There are certain inherent dangers associated with vehicular travel. Automobiles are heavy and designed to travel at high speeds, rendering collisions particularly hazardous. Because of this risk, automobile owners purchase insurance to cover injuries arising out of the use of insured and uninsured vehicles as vehicles. Thus, while injuries resulting from a highway collision unquestionably arise out of a contemplated use of a vehicle as a vehicle, injuries stemming from an unobservant cyclist’s collision with a parked automobile clearly do not. In the’ latter example, the injuries arise not from the use of the vehicle as a vehicle, but rather from the use of the vehicle as a heavy stationary object, no different from a tree, lamp post, or building wall. Similarly, two passengers who come to blows over an argument in the back seat of an automobile can hardly claim that their resulting injuries arose out of the vehicle’s use as a vehicle. In such circumstances, the only relation of the injury to the vehicle is that the latter served as the situs or enclosure -for the assault, no different from an apartment, an alley, or an elevator. Using a vehicle as a heavy stationary object or as an enclosure, rather than as a means of transportation, does not constitute a contemplated “use” under the terms of the policies.
The incident at bar falls somewhere between these polar examples. The causal nexus between Doe’s injuries and the use of the stolen vehicle is plainly not as strong as it would be had she been struck by a moving automobile. On the other hand, there is
some
causal connection, for Collins used the vehicle to abduct Doe and transport her to an isolated location for the specific purpose of
*865
assaulting her. Yet, Doe’s injuries, while somewhat causally connected to the car, are not connected to the use of the ear as a car. Rather, the injuries here arise not from the use of the ear as a car, i.e. as a means of transportation, but from the use of the car as an enclosure or situs for the commission of criminal acts. Nor is it significant that some of Doe’s injuries resulted when Collins pushed her head against the interior car window. Physical contact of this sort with the automobile does not amount to a use of the car as a vehicle. It is no different from the situation where two pedestrians begin to argue, and onе pushes the other against a parked car, causing injury. There, as here, the injury clearly would not arise out of the “use” of the vehicle under the terms of the insurance policies. Similarly, the fact that Collins used the vehicle as a vehicle to transport Doe to several isolated locations where he committed the assaults is unpersuasive. The use of a vehicle merely as transportation to the scene of a subsequent crime clearly does not satisfy the causation requirement between vehicle use and injury.
Cf. Erie Ins. Co. v. Jones,
III.
Subsequent decisions by the Supreme Court of Virginia support this result. Applying Powell’s standards to an essentially identical uninsured motorist provision, the court in
Erie Insurance Company v. Jones
recently denied insurance coverage for a criminal assault.
Concededly, the Erie decision addressed a question somewhat different from the one presented here. In Erie, the court’s causation inquiry focused not on whether the vehicle was used as a vehicle (for clearly it was at the time of the collision), but rather on whether the chain of events leading from the collision to the subsequent dispute and assault were sufficiently related to warrant recovery. Nonetheless, the court’s rejection of a “but for” causation test, as well as its affirmation of the principles that the injury must result from the “normal use of the vehicle” or from the use of the “vehicle as a vehicle” arе instructive and support the result reached here. In the instant case, as in Erie, the fact that a criminal assault temporally followed closely on the heels of the use of a vehicle as a vehicle, and perhaps would not have occurred but for that use, presents an insufficient causal nexus between injury and vehicle use to trigger insurance coverage under the policy language in issue.
*866
Nor is
State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company v. Rice,
As these cases make clear, hunting is an activity normally associated with the use of certain vehicles. As a result, injuries arising out of this use are covered. By contrast, Coffins’ use of the stolen car as a location for his criminal attack is not “foreseeably identifiable with the
normal
use of the vehicle.”
10
Erie,
Doe protests that under Virginia law, consideration must be given to the nexus between the injured
party
and the vehicle in question. She points out that in
Rice,
the court found that “a sufficient nexus existed between Rice, who was a passenger in the Jeep, and the Jeep itself, which had transported the men and their equipment to the hunting site.”
Rice,
Doe’s argument in this .regard misinterprets the relevance of whether the claimant was a passenger in the offending vehicle. Certainly, a plaintiff need not always be a passenger in the vehicle to satisfy the causal link between injury and vehicle use. Unquestionably, a pedestrian struck by an uninsured automobile may claim coverage under the insurаnce provisions here at issue regardless of the fact that he or she was not a passenger in that vehicle. Similarly, the fact that an injured party was a passenger in an
*867
automobile at the time of injury does not automatically trigger coverage; there must still be a causal relationship between the injury and the use of the vehicle.
12
See State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Bright,
In short, the Supreme Court of Virginia has made clear that there must be a causal connection between the injury and the use of the vehicle as a vehicle. And if the vehicle has a special and contemplated function, such as farming or hunting, the causal relation must exist between the injury and the special use to which the vehicle is being put. No such causal connection exists here, and hence Doe’s claim fails.
IV.
Decisions from other jurisdictions also support the result reached here. Most notably, a Minnesota court addressed virtually the identical circumstances presented here and reached the same result.
Edwards v. State Farm Mutual Auto. Ins. Co.,
Chapman v. Allstate Insurance Company,
Doe also erroneously relies upon several cases in which passengers’ injuries resulting from assaults by taxi drivers or bus drivers were held to arise out of the “use” of the automobile for insurance coverage purposes.
See Huntington Cab Co. v. American Fidelity & Casualty Co.,
Finally, Doe mistakenly relies on several highway shooting cases from other jurisdictions where courts found a sufficient causal connection between the use of the vehicle and the injuries sustained.
See Cung La v. State Farm Auto. Ins. Co.,
V.
In sum, in interpreting the “ownership, maintenance or use” provisions of automobile insurance contracts, the relevant inquiry is whether the vehicle is being used as a vehicle at the time of injury, and if so, whether the injury resulted from that use. In this case, Doe’s injuries arose not from the abduction, where the vehicle was used as a means of transportation, but from the assault, where the vehicle was used simply as a situs, or enclosure. Thus, Doe has failed to demonstrate a sufficient causal connection between Collins’ use of the stolen vehicle as *869 a vehicle and her injuries from the violent assault to warrant recovery under the insurance policies.
Accordingly, State Farm’s motion for summary judgment will be granted, and Doe’s motion for summary judgment will be denied. An appropriate order will issue.
Notes
. Pursuant to Plaintiff's understandable request, she is referred to throughout as "Jane Doe” to preserve her privacy.
. The vehicle owner’s automobile insurance policy did not cover injuries arising out of unauthorized uses of the vehicle. Thus, because Collins had stolen the automobile in which he assaulted Doe, the parties agree that the vehicle was uninsured pursuant to the terms of the two automobile insurance policies insuring Doe.
. In view of the fact thаt the language in the two policies is identical, as well as the close relation of the Defendants, Defendants are hereinafter referred to collectively as "State Farm”.
. The policies define "bodily injury" broadly to mean "bodily injury, sickness or disease, including death, sustained by a person who is an insured." Doe's physical ailments plainly fall within this broad definition. Arguably, so do her psychological injuries, though this question is neither presented nor decided here.
. Although Collins' behavior was certainly intentional, the appropriate inquiry is whether Doe, the injured party, intended for the behavior to occur.
Cf. Newsoms v. Commercial Casualty Ins. Co.,
. The insurance contract was written and delivered in Virginia. Virginia law is therefore controlling on coverage issues.
Buchanan v. Doe,
. Unlike the instant case,
Powell
did not involve an uninsured motorist provision. Rathеr, the
Powell
court was called upon to interpret an insurance provision providing coverage for bodily injury "arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use” of the
insured
vehicle, that is, the vehicle insured under the policy in question.
. The Virginia Supreme Court has reaffirmed these principles from
Powell
in subsequent opinions.
See State Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co. v. Rice,
. In
Powell,
a gun rack permanently affixed to the vehicle carried a loaded gun, which inexplicably discharged and killed the plaintiff while he was socializing next to the vehicle.
. That Collins was using the stolen vehicle for . the purpose of abducting and assaulting Doe does not liken this case to
Rice.
Hunting is a reasonably foreseeable use of certain vehicles, as is farming, with foreseeably attendant risks. The same is not true for the use of vehicles to facilitate sexual assaults, for, as the Minnesota Court of Appeals has noted, "[t]he risk of being a victim of a violent crime is unfortunately a risk associated with living in our society!,] it is not a risk associated with motoring.”
Edwards
v.
State Farm Mutual Auto. Ins. Co.,
. As previously noted, Erie too involved a situation where a plaintiff sued under the uninsured motorist provision of his own policy.
. As noted earlier, a spontaneous fistfight between passengers in the back of an automobile plainly would fail to meet the causation requirement.
. Others decisions outside of Virginia, while factually distinguishable, also lend support for the result reached here.
See, e.g., Nationwide v. Knight,
. In this regard, it is important to recall thаt in cases where the vehicle has a special and contemplated function such as hunting or farming, the inquiry focuses on whether the injuries arose out of the use of the vehicle for those purposes.
. It is worth noting in this regard that several other jurisdictions have denied automobile insurance coverage for incidents of highway shootings. See cases cited supra note 13.
. Similarly,
Bourne v. Farmers Insurance Exchange,
