Hence my question. If Car A is in an unmarked turning lane, do they have to turn at the next intersection OR can they use it to bypass backup traffic and not turn at the next intersection?
If it’s unmarked, does it have legal status as a turning lane?
I’m not following this line of reasoning with whether car A was “allowed” to turn at that intersection or not; seems to be a bit of grasping at straws. There’s simply not enough info presented here to answer. If there was a “no right turn” sign or “no turn on red” (if there was a light for southbound traffic) then perhaps car A did something illegal.
But as you’ve presented it car A simply turned right at an intersection. You don’t know why (bypass a traffic jam, that’s the way their house is, get off the street to take a phone call), and it doesn’t matter. Unless that turn was specifically posted as illegal, then car A would be allowed to turn right by default and car B, facing a stop sign, should have yielded to car A.
As mentioned already even if another vehicle shouldn’t be in your path that doesn’t guarantee you won’t be found at least partly at fault for hitting it. Every driver has the obligation to watch out for what they drive their vehicles into. If one want’s to make the case that they couldn’t see the other vehicle until the last second, well that same defense should apply to the other vehicle as well and you’re both 50:50 responsible.
OTOH, if this is what the police concluded:
I can see a scenario where you might argue it. Pretend it was a 4-way stop and car A and car B pulled up at the exact same time. Car B had to cover the distance of 3 lane widths before hitting car A, and car A would only have had to move forward 1 car length to get t-boned. So it would seem obvious that car B started through first and car A pulled out after. That’s IF it was a 4-way stop though.
Nobody was turning at the intersection in question.
Ah I see now. Makes no difference in my last example; car A still would have pulled out after car B.
And as for whether car A did anything illegal change my previous post to ask was there a “right turn only” sign? for car A.
Generally speaking traffic law does not specify who has the right of way, only who must yield the right of way. This implies that in some situations, in some states, you may be required to yield to a person who may be violating traffic law (see anecdotes below). In this case, IMHO your son failed to yield right of way to the car on the main roadway. In addition, given your description of the accident as a T-bone collision, your son failed to prevent the accident, regardless of who had right of way. That is, the car was in front of him and he failed to stop. I can’t say without having been there but just from your diagram and description, if he had been duly cautious when crossing he would have seen Car A passing the other cars and it appears that he was not looking there since he wasn’t expecting it.
Some states have a “last clear chance” doctrine where the last person who was a clear chance to avoid an accident but did not can be held at fault even if they did not otherwise violate traffic laws. I was taught this in Maryland driver’s ed, but I don’t know what they are teaching now (that was in 1973). For example, if you are stopped at a 4-way stop sign, and the car to your left runs his stop sign, it does not give you the right to jump out and ram him while he is in the intersection.
I had a high school teacher who was waiting to make a left turn at an intersection with no left-turn arrow. He had pulled into the intersection to wait for a break in traffic, which was legal. When the light turned red he completed his turn, and got broadsided by an opposing car who ran the red light. My teacher was cited for failing to yield.
In another case, a friend of mine was turning right onto a main roadway. The lane nearest her to her left was right-turn-only into the road she was coming out of. The only traffic was a car in that right-turn lane, with its right-turn signal on. Therefore it appeared obvious he would turn down her street and she was clear to go. She pulled out, and the other car did not turn and instead hit her. She was seriously injured. She was cited for failing to yield and the other driver was not cited at all.
My point in these stories is to show where a car violating traffic law did not have right of way, but the other vehicle was required to yield anyway and did not.
They did NOT turn right. They used a turning lane to bypass a backup and went straight through the intersection.
Your diagram is poor in several respects:
- no indication of what direction cars are traveling. Typically, such diagrams show an arrowhead shape for the front of the car, or have white circles indicating headlights on the front end.
- no indication of where traffic controls are. Seems like there was a stop sign on the side road before car B, but no signal or stop sign on the main avenue. And a signal at the boulevard. These should be shown.
- Seems like the 4 lanes past the intersection were filled with vehicles, but they are shown as empty in your diagram. They should be shown, especially as they are significant in this case (they show why vehicles on the avenue were stopped at the intersection).
- no indication if the side street is one-way or both directions.
You should definitely correct these items before you show this diagram in court. Judges get annoyed when litigants present diagrams that leave out relevant info or are misleading.
But I would stay out of court entirely.
Seems fairly clear that your son in car B failed to yield when he should have. Accept the mistake, and move on.
Thank you. I wonder if driving instructor @dolphinboy teaches in a state where that’s different.
Here is a page from a Virginia driving school that does assign right of way. Here is a sample of actual Virginia code, which uses both types of wording. A car turning left must yield to opposing traffic (it does not say that opposing traffic has the right of way) but then it says that a car turning left on a green left-turn arrow has the right of way.
So my earlier statement is not absolute. It was an expression of how driver’s ed was taught at one time. Ultimately, of course, it’s going to be up to the judge.
And as I already said when I corrected my post (and others have since pointed out) it doesn’t matter whether car A was turning or going straight through; car B should have yielded the ROW.
You keep saying this was a turning lane and that you know that car A was using it to bypass traffic. But you won’t say what traffic controls are actually posted for car A or the other southbound lanes. As mentioned if this is your diagram it’s not very useful as signs/lights are missing, and you’re making claims that car A did something wrong when your diagram doesn’t show it.
No controls at the side street. The cars were stopped to prevent gridlock. When I asked the LEO on-site about the unmarked lane she said that Car A could use it to turn onto the side street but didn’t (couldn’t?) answer if they could legally use it as a 4th lane to get to the protected right turn lane further on. That is the real question I’m looking for. Was Car A acting illegally using it as a 4th lane and not a turn-onto-side-street lane?
I think the answer to that question depends on the road signage. If it’s right-turn only, it should be listed as a right-turn only lane. Sounds like the car still might’ve been hit if turning.
There was a similar discussion about one of the driverless car accidents :The school of hard knocks: driverless cars should learn lessons from crashes
The driverless car was overtaking on the inside at speed, was hit by a car filtering through stopped traffic, the driverless car hit a kerb and flipped.
A lot of people thought that the driverless car was probably legal. I thought that if driverless cars are trained to drive like that, they will have accidents like that.
I think you are are looking for answers to questions that may be irrelevant. Just because someone else may have done something wrong does not absolve the driver of wrong doing. An insurance company may assign percentages of fault to multiple drivers but a judge will not. I have never seen the “He was wrong too” defense work in court. I can’t predict the future but in general the judge only cares what the driver was charged with and if he did what he was cited for. The rest is for the insurance company to decide.