Insurance question

Author
Discussion

bencollins4

1,091 posts

205 months

Monday 20th March 2023
quotequote all
Road2Ruin said:
Sheepshanks said:
ingenieur said:
It's in the 7.5t - 18t weight class. 7.5t is the absolute minimum it could be and if it were my situation I'd be happy to put in the time finding out.
Would that really help? If you crash into a drunk driver it doesn't work to say they shouldn't have been on the road.
Indeed. Clutching at straws.
Yep, forget that. That doesn’t make him more liable for the accident, believe it or not. Similar to damaging an illegally parked vehicle (which my customers would often argue should absolve them of blame!) it doesn’t mean you can hit them.

EdT

Original Poster:

5,102 posts

283 months

Monday 20th March 2023
quotequote all
Sheepshanks said:
You are high risk - you drive at speed down narrow lanes apparently with no awareness of what might be coming towards you.

The bend shown looks reasonably gentle so you should have had decent visibility and had time to stop.
Woudnt have made any difference - he'd still have struck the mirror

ingenieur

3,992 posts

180 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
quotequote all
A couple of things to note in response to the last few posts claiming it doesn't matter if a driver ignores road signs.

1. The driver has committed the criminal offence of dangerous driving

2. Part of apportioning blame when determining the cause of an accident is to determine who could have acted differently in order to prevent the accident. In this case the guy using the wrong road for his vehicle could have acted differently. Ordinary drivers of other vehicles cannot possibly be expected to have awareness of the potential hazard caused by an oversize goods vehicle being on the wrong road as they would never have any cause to understand the signs themselves.

None of this is relevant if the driver / courier firm is able to provide details of a delivery for that road necessitating use of that vehicle on that road at that time. Also irrelevant if the truck is below 7.5t which I seriously doubt it would be.

The variable of crashing into a drunk driver was introduced earlier as an example of a time when ignoring the rules would have no consequences for the driver. This is fair enough but there are other illustrations which cut the other way such as: A train crashing into a vehicle which is illegally crossing a level crossing - the vehicle in the wrong place at the wrong time is to blame. Another is the lorry driver hitting a low bridge, the lorry drivers fault for ignoring signs and being in the wrong place for the vehicle type.

Road2Ruin

5,167 posts

215 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
quotequote all
ingenieur said:
A couple of things to note in response to the last few posts claiming it doesn't matter if a driver ignores road signs.

1. The driver has committed the criminal offence of dangerous driving

2. Part of apportioning blame when determining the cause of an accident is to determine who could have acted differently in order to prevent the accident. In this case the guy using the wrong road for his vehicle could have acted differently. Ordinary drivers of other vehicles cannot possibly be expected to have awareness of the potential hazard caused by an oversize goods vehicle being on the wrong road as they would never have any cause to understand the signs themselves.

None of this is relevant if the driver / courier firm is able to provide details of a delivery for that road necessitating use of that vehicle on that road at that time. Also irrelevant if the truck is below 7.5t which I seriously doubt it would be.

The variable of crashing into a drunk driver was introduced earlier as an example of a time when ignoring the rules would have no consequences for the driver. This is fair enough but there are other illustrations which cut the other way such as: A train crashing into a vehicle which is illegally crossing a level crossing - the vehicle in the wrong place at the wrong time is to blame. Another is the lorry driver hitting a low bridge, the lorry drivers fault for ignoring signs and being in the wrong place for the vehicle type.
No.
First, the driver has not committed the criminal offence of Dangerous Driving. At worst he has not complied with road signage, it might constitute careless driving if pushed.
Second, if you see an obstacle on the road you are reasonably expected to avoid it. If a pedestrian crosses the road in front of you and you have time and space to not hit them, that is what is expected. If you say though, tough, they could see me coming and hit them deliberately, then be prepared to go to jail.
The OP, it looks like, had an opportunity to stop or at least slow and didn't. You can't argue the vehicle shouldn't have been there, because it may have had every right to be there for all you know. Would that then have altered the OP's actions? As they can't possibly have know, I doubt it. It may of course been a different vehicle, a tractor maybe, would the outcome have been the same...yes.

ingenieur

3,992 posts

180 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
quotequote all
Road2Ruin said:
ingenieur said:
A couple of things to note in response to the last few posts claiming it doesn't matter if a driver ignores road signs.

1. The driver has committed the criminal offence of dangerous driving

2. Part of apportioning blame when determining the cause of an accident is to determine who could have acted differently in order to prevent the accident. In this case the guy using the wrong road for his vehicle could have acted differently. Ordinary drivers of other vehicles cannot possibly be expected to have awareness of the potential hazard caused by an oversize goods vehicle being on the wrong road as they would never have any cause to understand the signs themselves.

None of this is relevant if the driver / courier firm is able to provide details of a delivery for that road necessitating use of that vehicle on that road at that time. Also irrelevant if the truck is below 7.5t which I seriously doubt it would be.

The variable of crashing into a drunk driver was introduced earlier as an example of a time when ignoring the rules would have no consequences for the driver. This is fair enough but there are other illustrations which cut the other way such as: A train crashing into a vehicle which is illegally crossing a level crossing - the vehicle in the wrong place at the wrong time is to blame. Another is the lorry driver hitting a low bridge, the lorry drivers fault for ignoring signs and being in the wrong place for the vehicle type.
No.
First, the driver has not committed the criminal offence of Dangerous Driving. At worst he has not complied with road signage, it might constitute careless driving if pushed.
Second, if you see an obstacle on the road you are reasonably expected to avoid it. If a pedestrian crosses the road in front of you and you have time and space to not hit them, that is what is expected. If you say though, tough, they could see me coming and hit them deliberately, then be prepared to go to jail.
The OP, it looks like, had an opportunity to stop or at least slow and didn't. You can't argue the vehicle shouldn't have been there, because it may have had every right to be there for all you know. Would that then have altered the OP's actions? As they can't possibly have know, I doubt it. It may of course been a different vehicle, a tractor maybe, would the outcome have been the same...yes.

EdT

Original Poster:

5,102 posts

283 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
quotequote all
Road2Ruin said:
The OP, it looks like, had an opportunity to stop or at least slow and didn't.
Does it matter though if I was doing 0mph, or ~25+mph? Pace wasn't the cause of the damage, neither of were speeding I expect.
The combined speed doesnt alter the width of the opposing vehicles, and has no/little say in the outcome.

Anyhow, I cant risk an (expected modest) cost to fix this damage messing my insurance renewal, so I feel best to agree with advice here to suck it up

ingenieur

3,992 posts

180 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
quotequote all
EdT said:
Road2Ruin said:
The OP, it looks like, had an opportunity to stop or at least slow and didn't.
Does it matter though if I was doing 0mph, or ~25+mph? Pace wasn't the cause of the damage, neither of were speeding I expect.
The combined speed doesnt alter the width of the opposing vehicles, and has no/little say in the outcome.

Anyhow, I cant risk an (expected modest) cost to fix this damage messing my insurance renewal, so I feel best to agree with advice here to suck it up
Depends on how much damage there is and what matters most to you. If it was just a clipped door mirror on a van then who cares... life is too short.

Sheepshanks

32,529 posts

118 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
quotequote all
EdT said:
Sheepshanks said:
You are high risk - you drive at speed down narrow lanes apparently with no awareness of what might be coming towards you.

The bend shown looks reasonably gentle so you should have had decent visibility and had time to stop.
Woudnt have made any difference - he'd still have struck the mirror
Yes, but you wouldn't have been doing 28MPH. If you're stopped, it's always the moving driver's fault.

EdT

Original Poster:

5,102 posts

283 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
quotequote all
Sheepshanks said:
Yes, but you wouldn't have been doing 28MPH. If you're stopped, it's always the moving driver's fault.
I'll keep that in mind for next time!

the-norseman

12,263 posts

170 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
quotequote all
ingenieur said:
Ordinary drivers of other vehicles cannot possibly be expected to have awareness of the potential hazard caused by an oversize goods vehicle being on the wrong road as they would never have any cause to understand the signs themselves.
Yes they should. You should be aware of the potential for anything to happen when your driving! The road does say nothing over 7.5T but you should be aware that they could potentially be making a delivery.

I'd like to see the whole video rather than a still.

Edited by the-norseman on Tuesday 21st March 11:47

Road2Ruin

5,167 posts

215 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
quotequote all
EdT said:
Does it matter though if I was doing 0mph, or ~25+mph? Pace wasn't the cause of the damage, neither of were speeding I expect.
The combined speed doesnt alter the width of the opposing vehicles, and has no/little say in the outcome.

Anyhow, I cant risk an (expected modest) cost to fix this damage messing my insurance renewal, so I feel best to agree with advice here to suck it up
Yes it does matter. If the lorry were stationary and you were moving, you hit it. If you were stationary and the lorry were moving, it hit you. If you are both moving, you hit each other. There were no cenre lane markings, so neither of you had any more right to be where you were.

Road2Ruin

5,167 posts

215 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
quotequote all
ingenieur said:
If you read the top bit you will see that it is not as simple ad that. It would certainly apply for a driver that jumped a red light or went over a stop sign and that in itself caused an accident. This situation however does not fall in to that category.

ingenieur

3,992 posts

180 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
quotequote all
Road2Ruin said:
EdT said:
Does it matter though if I was doing 0mph, or ~25+mph? Pace wasn't the cause of the damage, neither of were speeding I expect.
The combined speed doesnt alter the width of the opposing vehicles, and has no/little say in the outcome.

Anyhow, I cant risk an (expected modest) cost to fix this damage messing my insurance renewal, so I feel best to agree with advice here to suck it up
Yes it does matter. If the lorry were stationary and you were moving, you hit it. If you were stationary and the lorry were moving, it hit you. If you are both moving, you hit each other. There were no cenre lane markings, so neither of you had any more right to be where you were.
Look closer, there are central lane markings and the truck is substantially over them onto the opposing carriageway.

ingenieur

3,992 posts

180 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
quotequote all
Road2Ruin said:
ingenieur said:
If you read the top bit you will see that it is not as simple ad that. It would certainly apply for a driver that jumped a red light or went over a stop sign and that in itself caused an accident. This situation however does not fall in to that category.
It's about 'standards' - deliberately vague.. not that I'm complaining. But it allows this to be a matter of opinion. I think it's below standard if you're driving a large vehicle to ignore applicable signage regarding your vehicles weight. If you think that's fine then that's your opinion.

EdT

Original Poster:

5,102 posts

283 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
quotequote all
Road2Ruin said:
Yes it does matter. If the lorry were stationary and you were moving, you hit it. If you were stationary and the lorry were moving, it hit you. If you are both moving, you hit each other. There were no cenre lane markings, so neither of you had any more right to be where you were.
There are lane markings along there. The centre marking shown here, behind the truck's rear tyre



(The pale patch in front of the wheel is a surface fix, not a lane mark)

If I'd have positioned myself any more left I'd have mounted the verge

the-norseman

12,263 posts

170 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
quotequote all
Show us the whole clip. and what road is it?

Sheepshanks

32,529 posts

118 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
quotequote all
EdT said:
There are lane markings along there. The centre marking shown here, behind the truck's rear tyre
They don't make any difference to the situation.

ingenieur

3,992 posts

180 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
quotequote all
Sheepshanks said:
EdT said:
There are lane markings along there. The centre marking shown here, behind the truck's rear tyre
They don't make any difference to the situation.
Lol.

EdT

Original Poster:

5,102 posts

283 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
quotequote all
Sheepshanks said:
They don't make any difference to the situation.
What's their point then?

EdT

Original Poster:

5,102 posts

283 months

Tuesday 21st March 2023
quotequote all
the-norseman said:
Show us the whole clip. and what road is it?
Hopefully if you click the still, it'll play