Who's fault is this?
Discussion
I witnessed a crash this morning.
I'm in a queue of stop/start traffic on a single carriageway and the car in front of me stops to let a guy out of his driveway on our right join our queue.
He sticks his nose out & is there for around 4/5 seconds before he gets hit by someone coming the other way. She only locked up maybe 3 feet from him & initially I thought she was going to try and steer round him.
Due to the nature of the road, the car that hit him would have been travelling no faster than 40mph at any point before the collision. Impact speed was around 15mph.
The guy was driving a black car and the area has very dense tree cover meaning he would have been quite hard to spot BUT it's a straight road and the girl that hit him would have been able to see him from around 100m away.
edit for clarity
I'm in a queue of stop/start traffic on a single carriageway and the car in front of me stops to let a guy out of his driveway on our right join our queue.
He sticks his nose out & is there for around 4/5 seconds before he gets hit by someone coming the other way. She only locked up maybe 3 feet from him & initially I thought she was going to try and steer round him.
Due to the nature of the road, the car that hit him would have been travelling no faster than 40mph at any point before the collision. Impact speed was around 15mph.
The guy was driving a black car and the area has very dense tree cover meaning he would have been quite hard to spot BUT it's a straight road and the girl that hit him would have been able to see him from around 100m away.
edit for clarity
Edited by Centurion07 on Monday 14th September 18:23
Been in a similar position. Guy pulling into the road will be at fault as he was doing a maneuver into a road, the other car was pre established traffic he should have given way to.
At least that was how it was described to me even though I argued I had been established traffic for at least a minute.
This is going back many many years though. In my case it was my word against hers and she was on her phone which she denied throughout.
At least that was how it was described to me even though I argued I had been established traffic for at least a minute.
This is going back many many years though. In my case it was my word against hers and she was on her phone which she denied throughout.
i would say 4 seconds away is a bit close to pull out on a car baring down at you at 40mph
coming to a stop from 40 in 4 seconds isn't exactly an emergency stop, but it's not gentle stop either. Your reaction to a car pulling out of a drive 4 second in front of you may not be to instantly brake hard either, just maybe ease off a bit, because you would usually expect them to be clear by the time you get there. So although a car pulling out may be stationary in front of you for 4 seconds, it may be a couple of seconds before you've had a chance to realise they've stop and aren't going to be getting out your way, at which point you do need to do some very heavy braking if you don't want to hit them.
coming to a stop from 40 in 4 seconds isn't exactly an emergency stop, but it's not gentle stop either. Your reaction to a car pulling out of a drive 4 second in front of you may not be to instantly brake hard either, just maybe ease off a bit, because you would usually expect them to be clear by the time you get there. So although a car pulling out may be stationary in front of you for 4 seconds, it may be a couple of seconds before you've had a chance to realise they've stop and aren't going to be getting out your way, at which point you do need to do some very heavy braking if you don't want to hit them.
ging84 said:
i would say 4 seconds away is a bit close to pull out on a car baring down at you at 40mph
coming to a stop from 40 in 4 seconds isn't exactly an emergency stop, but it's not gentle stop either. Your reaction to a car pulling out of a drive 4 second in front of you may not be to instantly brake hard either, just maybe ease off a bit, because you would usually expect them to be clear by the time you get there. So although a car pulling out may be stationary in front of you for 4 seconds, it may be a couple of seconds before you've had a chance to realise they've stop and aren't going to be getting out your way, at which point you do need to do some very heavy braking if you don't want to hit them.
Not quite. During the braking phase your average speed is half your initial speed, assuming you brake to a stop, so what started off as 2 seconds at the start of the braking phase actually stretches to 4 seconds braking time.coming to a stop from 40 in 4 seconds isn't exactly an emergency stop, but it's not gentle stop either. Your reaction to a car pulling out of a drive 4 second in front of you may not be to instantly brake hard either, just maybe ease off a bit, because you would usually expect them to be clear by the time you get there. So although a car pulling out may be stationary in front of you for 4 seconds, it may be a couple of seconds before you've had a chance to realise they've stop and aren't going to be getting out your way, at which point you do need to do some very heavy braking if you don't want to hit them.
Having said that, the OP makes it sound like she didn't brake until the last moment, which, if true, means that she wasn't really looking where she was going - making the actual length of time the car was standing there rather moot.
Edited by Pete317 on Tuesday 15th September 09:33
LoonR1 said:
Why no more opinions on this thread?
no idea, I'll stick a finger in the air and decide how I feel.I'll go split liability, she wasn't paying attention but the joiner must would have been turning left to join the queue and not be able to see her. He has drifted out into the opposite lane, crossing the white line as he turned and should have stopped and reversed back to complete the turn if he couldn't see and was going to cross the line.
LoonR1 said:
Why no more opinions on this thread?
I'm shocked too. I thought everyone loves to voice an opinion on this type of thing. Maybe it's because neither of the parties involved is the one that started the thread? 
I got a call from the guy that got hit this morning, he said the girl seemed like a very new driver & didn't want to go through her insurance.
Then he wanted my details so I just told him to pass my number to his insurance co.By my very rough calculations, had she actually been travelling at 40mph (which I doubt), she would have been approximately some 60 metres away when he first emerged. Stopping distance is roughly 36 metres at 40mph, but she was coming up an incline so that's more like 30 and as I mentioned, she only locked up a few feet from him. I think she just didn't see him in the darkened surroundings.
I don't think anyone wants to give an opinion as it really is border line
a bit closer than no doubt it would have been his fault, a bit further way no doubt her fault
The OP hasn't gone out and said it exactly, but it seems fairly clear he thinks it's 100% the girl's fault, and he was the one who actually saw it.
But i seem to remember the OP having some interesting opinions on how to drive, i bet if i were to pull out 60m in front of him on a 40 road, to wait for a gap in the traffic going in the opposite direction i could expect to hear a blast of the horn and see some hand gestures.
a bit closer than no doubt it would have been his fault, a bit further way no doubt her fault
The OP hasn't gone out and said it exactly, but it seems fairly clear he thinks it's 100% the girl's fault, and he was the one who actually saw it.
But i seem to remember the OP having some interesting opinions on how to drive, i bet if i were to pull out 60m in front of him on a 40 road, to wait for a gap in the traffic going in the opposite direction i could expect to hear a blast of the horn and see some hand gestures.
The way it reads, the person emerging from their driveway has to cross a lane of live traffic going in the opposite direction of OP to join the queue in which the OP is waiting.
Did that car have to be so far forward such as to be on and obstructing the carriageway to obtain vision of what is in the lane of live traffic they have to cross (perhaps their view was obscured by a hedge or the footpath is not very wide)?
Seeing as it was a dark coloured car under a poorly lit area is there the possibility the female in the other car genuinely had difficulty seeing the person emerging from their driveway? Was the person emerging from their driveway indicating right to join the queue so as to provide a side-facing flashing light to help the other driver pick out the car?
There are a lot of circumstances that could skew it in either direction.
50/50 has to be the easiest decision based on OP's basic description but IMO the car that pulled out, obstructing part of the carriageway, could possibly have more to lose if it goes through the insurance companies.
Did that car have to be so far forward such as to be on and obstructing the carriageway to obtain vision of what is in the lane of live traffic they have to cross (perhaps their view was obscured by a hedge or the footpath is not very wide)?
Seeing as it was a dark coloured car under a poorly lit area is there the possibility the female in the other car genuinely had difficulty seeing the person emerging from their driveway? Was the person emerging from their driveway indicating right to join the queue so as to provide a side-facing flashing light to help the other driver pick out the car?
There are a lot of circumstances that could skew it in either direction.
50/50 has to be the easiest decision based on OP's basic description but IMO the car that pulled out, obstructing part of the carriageway, could possibly have more to lose if it goes through the insurance companies.
I am 100% 50:50 on this.
1. She should have seen an object on the road if it had been there for 5 seconds - subject to there being clear vision/ability to see him.(His car was lit/it wasn't dusk etc).
2. Nobody should think it correct to pull across/significantly into a lane of traffic when turning right, unless they can clear it before already approaching traffic has to stop. Lanes are marked and cars on them have priority - even if you are in a hurry.
I nearly hit a car coming in the other direction the other week, because I had to swerve the last second to avoid some numpty who pulled at least three foot over the give way of a side road. So I might be a bit biased.
1. She should have seen an object on the road if it had been there for 5 seconds - subject to there being clear vision/ability to see him.(His car was lit/it wasn't dusk etc).
2. Nobody should think it correct to pull across/significantly into a lane of traffic when turning right, unless they can clear it before already approaching traffic has to stop. Lanes are marked and cars on them have priority - even if you are in a hurry.
I nearly hit a car coming in the other direction the other week, because I had to swerve the last second to avoid some numpty who pulled at least three foot over the give way of a side road. So I might be a bit biased.
Edited by Mandalore on Wednesday 16th September 08:32
ging84 said:
I don't think anyone wants to give an opinion as it really is border line
a bit closer than no doubt it would have been his fault, a bit further way no doubt her fault
The OP hasn't gone out and said it exactly, but it seems fairly clear he thinks it's 100% the girl's fault, and he was the one who actually saw it.
But i seem to remember the OP having some interesting opinions on how to drive, i bet if i were to pull out 60m in front of him on a 40 road, to wait for a gap in the traffic going in the opposite direction i could expect to hear a blast of the horn and see some hand gestures.
Not at all, that's why I asked.a bit closer than no doubt it would have been his fault, a bit further way no doubt her fault
The OP hasn't gone out and said it exactly, but it seems fairly clear he thinks it's 100% the girl's fault, and he was the one who actually saw it.
But i seem to remember the OP having some interesting opinions on how to drive, i bet if i were to pull out 60m in front of him on a 40 road, to wait for a gap in the traffic going in the opposite direction i could expect to hear a blast of the horn and see some hand gestures.
She definitely had enough time and space to avoid him; likewise he should have reversed back into his drive rather than say "f
k it, I'm claiming this gap and you'll just have wait".I was just wondering if there was an insurance precedent for this scenario since I recall someone on here once say their mate scraped along the front of an emerging car and was found blameless as the other guy should've been behind the line.
it's the fault of the person pulling out of the driveway. They still had to cross a live lane of traffic, irrespective of whether someone on the opposite side of the road had left space for them - that has no relevance. They should have waited until they could safely cross the live lane.
Gassing Station | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff