Profdriver, are you in fact a professional driver? How long have you been a professional driver? You seem as if you don’t understand even the most basic rules of the road.
Yeah sure, Slash. Kansas City is waaaay more congested than Chicago :rolleyes:
It works but most don’t want to do it because they feel their need to get somewhere in a hurry trumps the need to drive safely. Slow down to 25 and no one is gonna be cutting you off and sitting where you will run into them.
Opinions aside can ya’ll predict the outcome
I’m not saying that KC is more congested, because I’ve never driven in Chicago. Maybe KC drivers are simply more impatient.
If you are doing 25 on I-435 around KC when the rest of the traffic is doing substantially faster, you will be ticketed. Period. There is a minimum speed and it is enforced.
“No vehicle shall be operated at a speed of less than forty miles per hour on any highway which is part of the interstate system of highways”–Revised Statutes of Missouri, 304.011.2. There are exceptions in the law for weather and for agricultural implements operating under a special permit, but the general rule is that if you can’t or won’t keep up, you are not allowed on the interstate. Even above 40mph, you can still be cited for impeding the flow of traffic, and that ticket is considered and scored as a moving violation. Many states have similar laws.
See the research conducted by David Solomon in the 1960s, and subsequently updated by other researchers: deviation from the average speed, both above AND below, leads to more accidents. It’s called the Crash Risk Curve. Going much slower than other vehicles on the road makes it more likely, not less, that there will be an accident.
Leaving insufficient space between yourself and the next vehicle will lead to an accident 100% of the time if the vehicle in front of you stops suddenly. No risk curve needed on that one.
If you want to come by to defend the guy that rear ended someone because he was following too close then left the scene of an accident without exchanging paperwork you’re doing a great job, keep up the good work.
I’m not coming by to defend anybody. At this point, I’m asking how to leave sufficient space between yourself and the next vehicle when the vehicles around you insist on filling that space. If you are trying to go 5mph or even 25mph on the interstate, it will be you who is stopped and charged with a moving violation, and I don’t know how many trucking companies will tolerate many of those either.
Do you have any examples of drivers who were given tickets because they slowed down to allow sufficient breaking space?
If there is a police officer present the person likely to receive a ticket in the situation described is the vehicles insisting on cutting people off not the driver for slowing down. It is a right of way violation to cut into another vehicles breaking space.
Stop
Stop Hijacking my thread, I just want to know if I’m responsible for payouts or if this will go on my license, police said just go thru insurance if we want but as far as I know no citation was issued, my boss told me to drop the truck off at the depot for a minor fender bender repair and not to give an illegal who doesn’t have any papers MY papers. I didn’t cause this accident Google “swoop and squat” or “esurance car crash set up” I was the victim of a malicious attempt at insurance fraud, I have full documentation as to what happened
I can give you cites for drivers ticketed for driving too slow. Why they were driving so slowly is not always clear.
The question I pose is because merely slowing down to give sufficient braking space doesn’t accomplish anything when another vehicle immediately leaps into the gap. Then you need to slow down even more to give adequate space behind the new vehicle, and yet another leaps into that gap. Every time you open six or eight or ten car lengths ahead of you, one or more vehicles pulls into that space. You can’t creep along at 5mph, because that is illegal. You can’t move at the same rate as traffic because you don’t have adequate braking space. So at what speed do you travel to make sure you have space?
Yes, it is a right of way violation. It is a moving violation to drive at a speed that impedes traffic. Neither is more serious than the other, and the cop can ticket whichever vehicle s/he wants.
The thread is in an open forum on the straight dope. If you think my posts are inappropriate feel free to report them to a moderator. You started the thread, that doesn’t mean you own it.
By your own admission you hit the car that was traveling in front of you. Swoop and squat would require that car to have violated your right of way ie cut you off. They were cut off themselves and needed to stop suddenly, you don’t get to absolve yourself of liability due to driver other than yourself being cut off.
You’ve presented no evidence you are the ‘victim of a malicious attempt at insurance fraud’ No ones even filed a claim as far as you know. It sounds unlikely anyone will be filing a claim.
You were driving a company vehicle on company time, your company is responsible for any payouts should it come up. If it turns out to be a surchargable event(someone be it the person you hit or your company files a claim) you could accrue points on your license but that’s not guaranteed.
Hope your employer doesn’t fire you. Hope no on files a claim. If someone does file a claim hope it doesn’t get attached to your license.
I see no evidence that you were the victim of attempted insurance fraud. You were the victim of stupid drivers, but the car you hit wasn’t the one that caused it, and you’ve got nothing to show that the car you hit had anything to do with the one that caused it.
Whether you personally are responsible for payouts or your company and/or their insurance is will depend on your company’s policies as much as anything, so we’re not going to be able to give you a definitive answer. Since you were driving a company vehicle, your boss may or may not expect you to pay for some of the damages to the company’s vehicle, and the precise language of your employer’s insurance policy will determine whether the insurance company can pursue you for reimbursement, although it is pretty unlikely. Under the specific circumstances shown, there is a pretty good chance the insurance company is going to find you at fault for the accident, and some pictures of skid marks does not constitute full documentation.
Your employer’s insurance policy should cover any liability to the other driver. Generally, they cannot force you to pay for that. If no citations were issued, then your insurance shouldn’t take a hit.
However, refusing to give your information to the other driver, REGARDLESS OF HIS LEGAL STATUS or what you think of his paperwork, is a bad bad idea, because if the other driver chooses to pursue it, you could be charged with criminal acts, possibly including hit-and-run. (And your boss’s employee manual and/or insurance policy may have something to say about liability during the commission of a crime.) If the other driver manages to produce proof of identity and relation to the car but chooses to take that information directly to the cops instead of to you or your employer, you could be in some deep shit, and citations or criminal charges may yet be forthcoming.
You need to consult an attorney in your jurisdiction, and not rely upon what your boss is telling you.
It seems I was wrong when I said that dashcams had stopped the crash for cash scam. Someone who was foolish enough to try it has just been convicted of it over here, thanks to a dashcam.
A few other points in support of this. My understanding is that drivers are on a schedule, a schedule they are not going to be able to keep going 25 mph on a road where the traffic flow is at 50. I suspect a driver never meeting his schedule is going to be in more trouble than one who gets in rare accidents.
Second, as a car driver, trucks going the truck speed limit of 55 when cars go 65 cause enough congestion already. This is a necessary evil, but if a bunch of trucks start going 25 on freeways there is going to be chaos.
I’ve driven through LA recently, and nobody leaves the theoretically required space on the freeways, even when moving at 60. Definitely a good thing to do when your biggest worry is a cow wandering onto the road - in real cities, forget it.
Some people on this thread seem to be unclear on the concept of insurance. Insurance does not expect you to pay if you are at fault, unless there is some violation of the insurance contract, such as being unlicensed, driving drunk, (maybe) driving a non-street legal vehicle, or whatever depending on the contract.
I’d be very surprised if you personally had to pay a penny. If you had been wildly weaving in and out of traffic at 10 mph above the speed limit, you might be in trouble. Leaving more space than the semis I see on the freeway every day, I doubt it.
Then you’ve got grounds for charging B with attempted car theft, though since the police didn’t show up that may be tough to prove.
The OP doesn’t have grounds for charging anyone. Law enforcement enforces the law not some random person that thinks they have the right to ‘charge’ someone. The DA can pursue a crime with or without the OP’s involvement. Seeing how the police weren’t interested in showing up that’s not going to happen.
The driver of car B was attempting to break the law because the OP refused to give him information he was legally entitled to. Both parties were in the wrong.
True enough and I phrased that poorly. I’m a bit vague on the procedures for filing a complaint against someone. I mean, say I see the neighbor’s kid breaking into my car and report it to the police, presumably there is some way of filing a complaint and requesting police followup. If the police are willing, I guess the term would be “press charged”?
I was baffled about the “OP refused” until I reread this: “I was told by management not to give the driver any info pertaining to me or the company if he doesn’t have stateside proof of his identity or relation to the car.”. It still doesn’t explain why Driver B attempted to take C’s keys and get into C’s truck.
I assume he was trying to force the OP to provide his registration or get into the truck and pull it himself. Rather stupid move imho and illegal.
It sounds like it the ops vehicle was a commercial truck over 10k pounds so in addition to the license plate the companies name and the dot number was on the truck. If the OP refused registration car B should have just noted the visible information and let the police pursue the OP for leaving the scene of an accident.