A friend of mine was in a car accident recently. His car was hit by another car. The other driver had a high blood alcohol content and was arrested for drunk driving. Meanwhile the friend was given a ticket for running a red light. No one was injured.
My questions for anyone out there with experience in the matter are these:
How much does the fact that one driver was drunk influence the determination of whose fault the accident was?
How much does the fact that one driver was given a ticket influence the determination of whose fault the accident was?
How much does the fact that one driver was drunk influence the giving of a ticket to the other driver?
Please note: my friend is getting appropriate legal help in contesting the ticket. I’m just curious as to whether the conventional wisdom/ sympathy I was hearing has any basis in fact.
I realize location sometimes matters for questions like this. Either answer for the location of your choice or for Upstate New York.
Wait…so a police officer was at the intersection and watched your friend enter the intersection against the light?
AFAIK you can’t really get a “red light” ticket without a police officer present for the infraction. Was it a red light camera intersection? (if it was your friend wouldn’t get a ticket, he’d get one mailed to him at a later date).
The officer assigns blame on the report. Sometimes it is a combination of factors from both drivers. The insurance company doesn’t care what the officer says and will assign blame to whoever they want. If you are in a “no-fault” state it doesn’t matter anyway.
See #1
Not at all. Running a red light is a violation. Doesn’t matter if the other guy was drunk.
Wouldn’t a police officer be able to decide that a red light had been run on the basis of what the two drivers said? In particular, might the red-light runner not have actuslly confessed to the infraction? (People have been know to tell the truth to police officers, and admit they have broken the law).
It would all depend on the trial, but your friend could easily be found responsible for the accident due to running the red light, regardless of the DUI. I spent a whole day in traffic court, and when it comes down to officer saying “He ran the red light” and your friend saying “yeah, but…” it won’t really matter. It would also depend on the how good the various attorneys are.
And insurance is completely different, like Loach says. I was found guilty of “not staying in my lane” or some such nonsense (drifted to the right). My insurance company thought otherwise - I didn’t have to pay anything out, and my rates didn’t go up. The DMV assigned me points on my license. It was all very odd.
No-fault means that no matter who is at fault, the policyholder’s own policy will cover their medical expenses. No-fault doesn’t mean that no one is at fault in an accident, someone is always “at fault”. Sometimes it’s determined that the fault is 50/50. No fault insurance is listed as PIP or personal injury protection on your policy.
Your friend should proceed by analogy with a failure to yield accident: if one party pulls out onto a thoroughfare from a parking lot (implicit “yield” sign, or possibly explicit “stop” sign) but doesn’t leave time for the oncoming traffic to stop, the blame may still be assigned to the driver in the thoroughfare, who is required to give right-of-way to cars entering the road, and is required to stop his vehicle (even if there’s no time or distance to do so). So even though your friend is at fault for running a red light (was it “pink”?) the other driver may also be guilty, since green means “proceed with caution,” and he didn’t. Failure to avoid an accident (unsafe speed, inattentive driving, etc.) can be cited as the “second mistake” and can sometimes be the one that gets the blame.
It really will come down to who argues what in the court.
"Fault” is negligence that causes an injury or damages. Negligence is the failure to act as a reasonably careful person would act under the circumstances. I
n Arizona they have what is called “Comparative Fault”. Basically that means that there may be any number of people or entities at fault, including the Plaintiff, and the relative degrees of fault are entered as a percentage of the total fault for the injury. One person’s fault may be greater than that of another but the relative degrees of fault must add up to 100%. The total damages are therefore divided between the parties at fault. This means that the percentage of damages attributable to the plaintiff, to persons who could not be sued or collected from, or persons that, for any reason, are excluded from paying their percentage of the verdict would reduce the amount of damages that the plaintiff receives. Medical negligence, product liability, bad faith, premises liability, employment law, and many other areas of fault have their own rules.
How much does the fact that one driver was drunk influence the determination of whose fault the accident was?
Almost not at all. A driver owes a duty to all other drivers to obey traffic signals. Your friend breached that duty and became the efficient cause of the accident. The other guy *might *have been able to exercise the “last clear chance to avoid” the accident had he been sober, but without a video of the accident, that can’t be proven. Examining points of impact on the cars and where in the intersection the accident happened might help, but the fact remains the accident would not have happened at all had the red light been obeyed.
How much does the fact that one driver was given a ticket influence the determination of whose fault the accident was?
The opinion of a trained professional who felt he had enough evidence at the scene to issue a citation to the sober driver is gonna be pretty solid. It tells me that the facts pointed to your friend running a light as opposed to the other guy doing so, despite being on his lips at the time of the accident. A DUI ticket = fault no more than does an arrest warrant for tax evasion. It MIGHT suggest something about avoidability, but it would be a weak defense for someone who was in an intersection at the wrong time.
**How much does the fact that one driver was drunk influence the giving of a ticket to the other driver? **
Dunno on this one. It’s always possible two people were not following the rules, so it’s not unusual for everyone involved to get a ticket.
I don’t know whether the light was red or not and my friend will be getting competent legal advice as well as abundent parental advice.
The impression I got from conversation was that the ticket was given on the basis of “he said, she said” type testimony. Those involved in the larger discussion were all convinced that the testimony of a drunk driver should be largely negated on the grounds that drunks are unreliable.
At first blush, this was comforting for the sake of my friend and his wallet. But as I thought about it, there was something troubling about the notion that all drunk drivers are more reckless drivers than all sober drivers. Responses to this thread have reassured me.
Were both your friend and the other driver tested for a DUI, or just the other guy? Just wondering… because if one is tested, the other should be as well.
Not exactly. While there has to be probable cause to arrest, there only has to be reasonable suspicion to stop a driver for DUI. In the fact pattern given, most likely the police officer’s report would say: “Came upon accident at intersection of Main & 1st Street. Spoke to Driver 1 who said, ‘blah, blah, blah’. Spoke to Driver 2, who’s eyes were bloodshot, speech was slurred and smelled like a brewery, who said “I only had two beers, officer”. Asked Driver 1 to perform Standard Field Sobriety tests, etc.” The officer’s reasonable suspicion of DUI can be the fact that the accident occurred.
While it’s true that only reasonable suspicion is needed to ask a driver to perform the Field Sobriety Tests, just the fact that he ran a red light isn’t enough. There would have to be some objective signs, such as an odor of intoxicants, poor balance, bloodshot eyes, etc. Just because one driver was tested in no way obligates the Officer to test the other driver.
On review, I realized that I should clarify. An officer can always ask someone to perform FSTs, even if there are absolutely no signs that the person is intoxicated. However, there would be no reason for him or her to waste time testing someone who shows no sign of having consumed alcohol.