Driver A in front of you is travelling at 30 miles per hour in a 50 mph zone and apparently feels you (Driver B) have been following too closely behind them, or that you’ve left your brights on, or committed some other driving faux pas they perceive as offensive, because when you move to (lawfully) pass you see the driver hold up and cock what appears to be a handgun (in fact, it is an airsoft gun he intended to intimidate you with). Not wanting to run the risk of ending up a target in Driver A’s crosshairs, you make a split-second decision not to pass, hit your brakes and move to reenter the lane behind Driver A. Unfortunately, in the meantime Driver C behind both of you has closed the gap between his vehicle and Driver A, and when you (Driver B) conduct your emergency lane reentry, you end up colliding with Driver C’s vehicle.
Should Driver A be charged with something here, or held liable in any way for the collision? Who could be held at fault and for what? What would the police officer arriving at the scene do?
You can’t pull a gun, even a toy gun. But honestly, driver B sounds like a real idiot. If he’s going to make a move to pass, he needs to hammer it and pass most authoritatively, leaving driver A in the dust. If B changes his mind, and cancels the pass he simply has to be aware that he’s now lost 2 spots and gets back in line properly. Not noticing that there’s now another car where he used to be is not acceptable.
Yeah, if you wuss out the pass colliding with another driver behind is absolutely not acceptable AND it’s not another driver’s fault–you and you alone are responsible for where your car goes. If you’re too weenie to pass and can’t safely fall behind then pull over onto the shoulder and wait until the entire mess is too far ahead to bother you any more. Yeah, you’ll catch up to it eventually but if you’re too chicken to pass someone doing 30 in a 50 zone you can just suck it up and let the other cars ahead of you but still behind the asshole in Car A soak up the damage.
Me, I’d blast right past because I know that most people are such miserable shots with a pistol they couldn’t hit a fucking car if they were standing still ten feet away so a driver trying to shoot across his own body while driving a car is what I would consider to be a negligible risk. Let the fucker try to catch me once I get by him, I’m pretty sure if he’s going 20 under the limit he’s not going to be doing much to threaten me once I get past him.
Pointing a gun at you creates an emergency, and you need to make a decision as to the safest course of action. You can continue to pass and risk being shot at (or at least that perception), brake and wait to fall behind car C, or crash into car C as in your scenario. IANAL but I have to think that driver A bears some, if not all, of the fault for creating an emergency, and an assault charge to boot.
If Driver B can describe Driver A to the police, well enough that they can go and locate him and find the replica gun then Driver B shouldn’t have any problem saying they feared for their life and the accident happened as they were trying to get away from the driver with the gun pointed at them. Driver A, I’d think, would be charged with brandishing a firearm, illegal concealed carry (if they couldn’t legally CC in that jurisdiction) and possibly whatever happened WRT the accident.
If anyone happened to get it on video, I think it would help exonerate Driver B of any wrong doing.
Having said all that, Driver B still changed lanes without making sure there wasn’t a car in the way. Assuming that Driver A didn’t stop and no one saw it happen, it’s B’s fault.
Suppose Driver A actually shot at Driver B, and in the resulting chaos B hit C. Can we now blame the collision on Driver A?
Because it seems very much that A’s actions could be the proximate cause of an accident, and we’re just trying to determine if brandishing (or whatever the charge in the OP would be) rises to that level.
I agree subject to the ambiguity in the OP about whether it was more than one lane each way, though sounds like that’s the idea. On a two lane road (one each way) the car following the one attempting to pass needs to leave room in case the passer is forced to cancel their attempt due to oncoming traffic or other reasons. In that case it would be at least partly C’s fault. On a multi-lane highway I agree it’s B’s fault separately from A’s behavior which might also be at fault, and not C’s fault.
It’s clear that driver A should be charged with brandishing or some other crime related to the gun.
It’s not clear what happened with driver B and why the accident occurred. For instance, why didn’t he wait for driver C to pass him on the right before moving back to that lane? Was there a line of cars behind him? Could driver A have moved off to the shoulder in the opposing lane? Was there a car coming his way in the passing lane? And maybe it’s possible that driver A is still responsible for the accident as a result of his threatening action.
So if someone points a gun at you then you can rob a bank? There are reasonable results of pointing a gun. Running into another car ain’t necessarily one of them. But it could be.
We’re at a train platform. You point a gun at me, and in my effort to get away, I cause someone to fall off the platform: you caused that. In other words, the effect of any response immediately following being threatened by a gun, and either an effort to get away from it or a result of momentary shock from the threat, are the result of the brandishing or ADW.
This couldn’t happen to me. I don’t think I have ever, even once, looked at the driver I’m passing while I’m passing. I was aware of where the car itself was. Now if my passenger says something, that’s different.
But hpothetically, I am still the driver. I’m in charge of the car. So any mishap caused by my bad passing decisions are on me. I would sure try to say I was provoked though.
Under these circumstances, wouldn’t it be reasonable to suspect that Driver A is trying to murder you, capture you, or prevent you from reaching your destination, and that’s why he doesn’t want you to pass him?
Sure. That sounds like the result of an immediate and reasonable reaction to a threat. But what if you started to get away from me, then decided to turn around and get next to me again, and in so doing knocked someone off the platform? In the OP driver B is removing himself from the danger by slamming on his brakes, then deciding to get right back behind driver A, causing the accident. Is that a reasonable action if driver B had other alternatives that would take him further away from driver A instead of closer?