Taking out the bikers
Discussion
Driving back the other day and was making 'good' progress and was in the middle of overtaking an artic on a curve (not really a bend).
Midway round 2 bikers came fleeing round and things got pretty close (rude gestures and mainbeam!). If an accident had occured, say by one of us locking up or whatever, who would be to blame and what would have been the legal consequences?.
My workmate was in front and had seen them screaming by him (arse up, head down) in the opposite direction to us doing what he reckoned was 90+ on a 60 limit road (not dual carriageway - A82 Loch Lomond).
Midway round 2 bikers came fleeing round and things got pretty close (rude gestures and mainbeam!). If an accident had occured, say by one of us locking up or whatever, who would be to blame and what would have been the legal consequences?.
My workmate was in front and had seen them screaming by him (arse up, head down) in the opposite direction to us doing what he reckoned was 90+ on a 60 limit road (not dual carriageway - A82 Loch Lomond).
Sorry but it is not obvious from your post what direction relative to you the bikers where going, were they coming towards you or overtaking?
If they were overtaking and they went into the back of you then I would say they were at fault.
If they were coming towards you and you could easily show that the view of clear road in front was enough that you could get past the slower vehicle before any other vehicle doing the posted limit became a hazard and they had hit you then also they would be at fault.
If, however, you were doing over the posted limit at the time and\or the view did not leave you with enough space to overtake before another vehicle approaching in the other direction became a hazard then I would say you were at fault.
But that is just IMO based on what I see in your post.
(I may be wrong (and would appreciate a BiB reply if any forthcoming) but my impression is that if someone goes into you then they initially are considered to be at fault unless there are mitigating circumstances (e.g numpty pulls out without looking type thing), but in a head on thing they will look at who was in the correct lane at the time at least initially.
Paul
If they were overtaking and they went into the back of you then I would say they were at fault.
If they were coming towards you and you could easily show that the view of clear road in front was enough that you could get past the slower vehicle before any other vehicle doing the posted limit became a hazard and they had hit you then also they would be at fault.
If, however, you were doing over the posted limit at the time and\or the view did not leave you with enough space to overtake before another vehicle approaching in the other direction became a hazard then I would say you were at fault.
But that is just IMO based on what I see in your post.
(I may be wrong (and would appreciate a BiB reply if any forthcoming) but my impression is that if someone goes into you then they initially are considered to be at fault unless there are mitigating circumstances (e.g numpty pulls out without looking type thing), but in a head on thing they will look at who was in the correct lane at the time at least initially.
Paul
Who cares? An accident didn't happen so there is no blame to aportion. Are you going to drive differently in the future if we all say "oh yes it was your fault" or will you drive along exactly the same if we say they were at fault? It sounds like you're just an extenstion of blame culture it really doesn't matter who was to blame for a "nearly" an accident. The bottom line is part and parcel of safe and defence driving is to expect the unexpected and to make allowances for other road users even when they are clearly in the wrong. I would suggest that maybe your overtaking manouvre was either not appropriate or maybe executed incorrectly, but whatever I wasn't there, don't know the road and frankly don't really care. You're the only person who can look back at it and decide with a clear conscience if you were correct or could have foreseen something similar to what happened.
I've been on the other end of this situation a few times - making progress a little (
) above the limit then rounding a curve to find someone overtaking coming towards me. Never got annoyed at them however, since each time it was easy to see that they started their move with a clear road and plenty of room and the only cause of difficulty was my high speed approach.
Usually just lift off the gas and maybe brake if necessary. No need for abuse. But some folks take the view that it's their side of the road, no matter what the circumstances. The sort of folks that will continue to accelerate towards a hazard...
) above the limit then rounding a curve to find someone overtaking coming towards me. Never got annoyed at them however, since each time it was easy to see that they started their move with a clear road and plenty of room and the only cause of difficulty was my high speed approach. Usually just lift off the gas and maybe brake if necessary. No need for abuse. But some folks take the view that it's their side of the road, no matter what the circumstances. The sort of folks that will continue to accelerate towards a hazard...
mel said:
Who cares? An accident didn't happen so there is no blame to aportion. Are you going to drive differently in the future if we all say "oh yes it was your fault" or will you drive along exactly the same if we say they were at fault? It sounds like you're just an extenstion of blame culture it really doesn't matter who was to blame for a "nearly" an accident. The bottom line is part and parcel of safe and defence driving is to expect the unexpected and to make allowances for other road users even when they are clearly in the wrong. I would suggest that maybe your overtaking manouvre was either not appropriate or maybe executed incorrectly, but whatever I wasn't there, don't know the road and frankly don't really care. You're the only person who can look back at it and decide with a clear conscience if you were correct or could have foreseen something similar to what happened.
Completely the wrong end of the stick though I maybe should have omitted the word 'blame' and used 'legally at fault' instead. I'm not interested in apportioning blame I was interested from a legal viewpoint as to what the outcome would be. If you don't care then don't reply to the post.
If an incident had occured and charges had been brought against me I would not have been surprised at all, just curious as to whether the bikers would have been done as well for possibly contributing to the incident and what, generally, would I have been legally culpable of.
>> Edited by naetype on Thursday 11th September 12:33
>> Edited by naetype on Thursday 11th September 12:35
naetype said:
If an incident had occured and charges had been brought against me I would not have been surprised at all, just curious as to whether the bikers would have been done as well for possibly contributing to the incident and what, generally, would I have been legally culpable of
What part of the A82 were you on, North or South of Tarbet?
If you were South of Tarbet, most of the road, although only a single carriageway, is very wide; room for about four lanes if they used all the tarmac. Therefore if the bikers hooged the crown and wouldn't move over to their nearside, either they were shifting or weren't looking.
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