Years ago, I was kind of involved in an accident in California. I say kind of because the circumstances were such that we were more of a moving target than actually involved in the crash itself.
It went down like this: four lanes of sparse traffic, all travelling over 70 miles per hour. My boyfriend (driving) and I were in the far left lane, and coming up on a car going slower than us. My boyfriend, signals, gets over into the 2nd lane from the left, and continues at his rapid speed. Meanwhile, a guy in a station wagon in the 3rd lane from the left suddenly decides he wants to get into our lane. Without looking, he begins to merge right into us. We are in between the two cars with nowhere to go. I scream - LOUDLY - and I think it somehow caught the driver’s attention. He then swerved hard to the right to avoid us. Meanwhile, my boyfriend is accelerating like hell to get us out of the line of flailing. I turn and watch as the guy overcorrects, overcorrects again, and again, and finally totally loses control of his car and T-bones the center divide at nearly full speed. SMASHOLA. It looks bad. Other cars slow down and stop as we continue to drive away.
So did we commit a crime by not stopping? Technically we didn’t do anything to cause the accident, the guy did it all by himself. By the time the accident happened we were quite far ahead and going about 80 mph. We had no cell phones to call for help. But I’ve always wondered - did the guy survive? If he didn’t, is there a family out there that will never know what really happened? Is what we did wrong? Or were we just lucky the guy didn’t take us with him?
Was his car the only one damaged? I don’t know the answer to your question, but if another car was damaged, a witness statement from you would be handy.
I’d say that you didn’t do anything wrong. By the time you could have stopped safely, you would have been a long way down the road – too far to back up safely.
You also didn’t do anything to cause the accident. You were in the lane when he tried to change lanes into you. You didn’t hit him, and he didn’t hit you. Since others were there to lend assistance after the accident, you didn’t even have a moral or ethical reason to do something.
So, IMHO, no, you didn’t do anything illegal, or morally or ethically wrong.
I’d say that if you didn’t touch, then you had no requirement to stop. Might have been nice, and I’m sure you’ll get piled on by the “holier-than-thou” crew, but I don’t think you had to.
Seriously, though. I think I would have been so concerned about what ultimately happened to the guy that I would have gotten off at the next stop and gone back to the scene. However, I don’t think you did anything wrong to cause the accident, and I don’t think you were legally or morally obligated to stop. You would have been nothing more than a witness, and as you said, there were plenty of those behind you guys to provide that information. Probably not a whole lot you could have added to it.
Unfortunately, you should have done something. Take the first exit and call in a report, at least.
Had someone followed and identified you, you might have been put in jail.
There was someone here who was convicted of leaving the scene because of an accident that happened in his wake. Of course the witnesses said it was caused by his weaving, but just being in front of the accident was no excuse for not reporting it.
Are you sure? Most Good Samaritan laws I’ve seen prevent you from getting sued if you attempt to help in good faith. They don’t impose a requirement on a witness.
Yeah, maybe, if the accident happened in front of them.
But since it happened behind them, it seems to me that going back would just have clogged up the area when emergency vehicles might have been trying to get through. I agree that stopping at the next exit and calling it in might have been good. But I don’t see any moral imperative to do so.
According to Wiki, the “Good Samaritan” laws have a different intent in the U.S. than they do in Canada and other countries.
Due to your description, of the seriousness, of the accident, I think you should have contacted the local authorities and offered to provide a witness statement.
I’ve been in two similar situations, both before cell phones. First time: on icy roads, I was going about 40-45. A car behind me was frustrated, wanting to go faster. He swerved around me, clearly angry, and spun out, did a 360 and ended up off the road. I was slowing down to stop when I saw two things–him shaking his fist out the window at me and another car pulling over to assist. I decided not to stop. I figured, not my fault an idiot drove too fast on slippery roads, and I was concerned about his attitude towards me. Make that afraid.
Second time (decades later lest you think I make a practice of causing accidents…): My daughter was driving to get practice learning to drive on the Interstate. The weather changed rapidly and the road got icy very fast. She was a new driver and not used to such conditions, so we lwere ooking for an exit so I could take over. She went into a slight skid and shimmied, but stayed in her lane. The car behind us (which IMHO was following WAY too closely for the conditions), slammed on his brakes and slid across three lanes of traffic, ending up in the median. There was total chaos behind us. I’d say 7 or 8 cars spinning, going off the road. I told my dauther to focus on driving. We kept going.
My rationale–we’d have had to go to an exit, come back, by which time the road would have been totally clogged with traffic. It was icy, we’d be endangering ourselves, etc. etc. But my real reason was 100% relief that we weren’t “involved” and a great desire to get the heck out of there.
I’m not proud of either situation. Now, with cell phones I’d have made a call to 911 to report the situation and see if I had an obligation to give a statement. In both cases I feel some responsibility for having contributed to the situation. I’m not sure why, really, because the following drivers were the ones who showed a lack of proper following distances, caution, passing technique and skill.
The desire to just get away from the scene was very powerful. Close to panic. And I knew I (we) had done nothing wrong in either situation. I imagine if a driver is at fault, the intensity of the urge to get away is even greater. I would like a clear legal opinion on whether we had any obligation to stop.
I had a similar situation on a business trip several years ago. I was driving a rental car and was driving back to the airport to catch a plane. When I rounded a curve on the freeway, I saw nothing but brake lights ahead of me. There was apparently some construction work up ahead and cars were stopping. I hit my brakes hard and avoided plowing into the car ahead of me. The car behind me was also able to stop in time. But the car behind him didn’t, so the car directly behind me got rear-ended. I glanced in my mirror long enough to see that there were no obvious injuries, and continued on to the airport.
Except that she implied that the other car came very close and other witnesses may have thought they made contact. It’s possible the police might be looking for the missing car. This would be especially likely if there was serious injury, or death. By calling in you would determine this and have your car inspected to show no contact had occurred.
It happened while we were on vacation. I lived in Vermont at the time. I tried to look it up online later and find out what happened to the guy. I couldn’t find anything in the news. All I had was a place and time of day to go by. Now I can’t even remember the date. I am sometimes bothered by the idea of the possibility of a family without a dad who will never know the whole story. Which is why I guess I really wonder if we broke the law.