OT: accident, who's at fault?

[The Natural Philosopher]

But which lane was A driving in?

[Roger Mills]

More importantly, what do your *insurers* say in the light of the evidence presented by both parties?

[The Natural Philosopher]

The point is that if Car B was crossing the lane that A was in, its B's fault.

If B was correctly waiting in his lane to turn and A panicked and crossed the white line, its A's fault.

A clearly has priority, But not to cross the white line and smash into a stationary B.

B has every right to wait stationary on his side of the road, and not get smashed into. But not to cross the path of a car especially one coming down an icy hill.

I wish the police, instead of handing out tickets to people they think might one day cause accidents, treated each actual accident as a case of someone is going to get blamed and their licensed removed, the driving standards would be higher.

[jgharston]

appropriate to the conditions to evade people crossing his path.

JGH

[The Natural Philosopher]

The highway code is quite clear. People turning right give way.

If B was out of position its his fault. road conditions and visibility may be mitigating factors, but the code is he code.

[jgharston]

the initial corner sufficiently to see clearly to his left before turning across the oncoming lane. If the accident hadn't happened he would have entered the side road on the wrong side of the street, or straddling the centre line.

JGH

[Andy Cap]

Of course true, but I was just interested if he was given a different verdict by coming here.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Phil L" saying something like:

B, for driving a piece of shit that couldn't accelerate properly.

[Ronald Raygun]

Is your interest in this purely epidemic as an unconnected bystander, or were you in (or indeed driving) one of the cars? Since you explicitly say you don't know whether B's intention was to make a U turn or to proceed up the road to the Northeast, you are presumably not driver B. Therefore if you are involved at all, it's most likely as driver A. Since everyone seems to be leaning towards B being to blame, I don't understand your persistence.

There is no doubt in my mind that driver B is 100% to blame, because he had no business being in A's lane without having made sure first that it was clear and going to remain so for the duration of his presence therein.

I reckon this is true irrespective of whether parked cars were involved, and irrespective of where B intended to go.

[Ronald Raygun]

Hmm. Do you know what "parallel" means?

[Steve Firth]

Yes, that's what happened to me about seven years ago. Someone driving way faster than the speed limit in force saw a car turn right across the front of them. If both cars had continued at the same speed there would not have been a problem. As it was the car driver in a hurry panicked and slammed on the brakes - lost control of the car and slid across the road into my car.

Yep, again in my case the driver of the car that hit mine spent four years trying to dream up ever more ludicrous stories. The damage to my car was frontal towards the offside wing and caused damage to the radiator, offside front wheel, offside wing and driver's door. The other party insisted that I had performed a manouever like the one shown in yellow dots on the photo but could not at any time explain why if that were so the damage was all to the offside of my car. They did draw some amusing diagrams over that period in their attempts to explain.

My problem was that the only witnesses were both in the car that turned right across the path of the car that hit me. The driver refused to give a witness statement for three of the four years. Once my insurers had convinced them that honesty would not lead to any bad result for them they gave a factual account that confirmed my version of what had happened and the case was settled in court a year later.

It was only bloody-mindedness on my part that saw the case settled. For a large part of the first three years both my insurers and my solicitors were pushing me to accept fault just to get the matter closed.

[Phil L]

I was driving vehicle A, yes.

I stayed in the lane I was driving in, did not skid across any road markings, nor make any bizzare movements nor did I panic.

I approached the junction at low speed due to the ice, the other car appeared in front of me sideways on and I hit the brakes but skidded about 6 feet into his passenger door - it probably would have been a collision even without the snow and ice as he obviously hadn't seen me.

The only reason I'm asking for opinions is, despite the other driver admitting responsibility on the day and talking me into not getting the police involved and generally being 'pally' and 'matey' about it, he's now informed his insurer that it was 'six of one and half a dozen of the other'

[Harry Bloomfield]

[Phil L]

As an update, I am driver A, as most of you had already guessed, and also, the majority have come to the conclusion that B was to blame, which he was, I'm not making anything up nor have I skewed any facts - I just wanted a concensus because my insurer has told me to go and get the car repaired, great, fine, I'm fully comp, except there's a £400 excess, which I do not intend paying, nor have I any intentions of losing my NCB, and while it's ok for the insurers to just say 'get it fixed', once I've paid out the money, my insurer won't be arsed about trying to get losses from the other side and I will be out of pocket. I've decided I'm not going ahead with any repairs until the other side admits liability.

[Harry Bloomfield]

If A it the passenger door of B, B must have already been well into his turn.

[dennis]

Car B shouldn't have gone past the wider bit if car A was already in the narrow bit. However if car B was hit because car A couldn't stop then car A may have been driving too fast for the conditions. Nobody can tell and both drivers will blame the other. The insurances will almost certainly do a knock for knock settlement. The chances of getting anything else are remote without witnesses, etc.

[Skipweasel]

The other guy is always at fault.

[Skipweasel]

Not all of us. The last time I had an accident that was my fault (over twenty years ago) I put my hands up to it; it was my fault.

[dennis]

This group is full of better drivers, every one of them.

[ARWadsworth]

No it is not all drivers. I should have said some drivers:-)

I also put my hand up when it was my fault. I did not see any point in lying. Mistakes happen and insurance is there to cover that.