This is essentially my number one lesson in teaching my kids to drive: “Always assume everybody else on the road is an idiot, and never trust them to do the right thing. You’ll avoid a lot of accidents that way.”
Yep, I understood that; it’s why I distinguished between “the crash that actually occurred,” in which there’s some uncertainty about what B may have known or done before crashing into your daughter, and the clean hypothetical of your OP, in which you present it as a given that B saw A with adequate warning to safely stop.
???
B is my daughter. The “given” is what she told me. (I wrote this in the second half of the sentence that you snipped.)
Sorry, I was rendered unconscious by small meteor before I read the second half of the sentence I quoted.
I would think there’s fault on both sides since Car B didn’t attempt to slow down
As the meme goes, “How much faith do you have in the human race? I look both ways at roundabouts.”
That makes sense to me.
Just to be clear, though, Car B did attempt to slow down once she saw that Car A was stopping. But she did not attempt to slow down before that point.
But it would make sense if she needed to anticipate the possibility, as posters have suggested.
There’s at least one roundabout in Kentucky where this isn’t a joke:
I wouldn’t expect her to actually slow down prior to realizing that Car A was stopping, but she should have been preparing to slow down. Take her foot off the gas, and hover over the brake. In the example I posted way above, that’s how I managed to avoid the accident - I assumed there was a chance the other guy was an idiot, and planned accordingly, so when his idiocy was actualized, all I needed to do was slam my foot on the brake.
As a small anecdotal data point (Ohio)…one time my mom was making a left on to a 25mph road from another 25mph road in our neighborhood. She looked left, saw a car way at the other end, looked right, saw no cars, proceeded to make the left turn, at which time the car way down the road had come up on her and hit her.
Turns out that guy (a neighbor) was going 50mph down the 25mph road so he came up on mom waaaay faster than she thought.
Mom was cited at fault for that accident. There was no way to prove that the other guy was speeding. The cop told her the turning car has the onus to make sure they can turn, I guess.
So, based on my family’s experience with turning cars and accidents, I’d say that Car A was at fault here.
Is your daughter ok?
Two things missing here is how far away is Car B at the start of the turn, and how long was Car A stopped? Because I’m having a hard time picturing a situation where Car A stopped so suddenly that Car B hit it, unless it was going to be a very close miss if Car A made the turn. In which case, Car A probably shouldn’t have made the turn in the first place, regardless of whether or not there was something in the way.
While drivers have a responsibility to avoid cars in front of them, they do not automatically assume blame if they attempt, but are unable, to avoid a collision.
In my reading B did nothing wrong by failing to slow down while a car crossed in front of her, it happens all the time, and we don’t all slam on our brakes the instant someone starts a turn in front of us. It is unambiguously the responsibility of A to stay in his lane until he has a clear path to make the turn, this is what the concept of right of way is all about. A does not have right of way, and must wait for a safe clear path before proceeding, including pedestrians.
At worst, the reading would be that B was slow to recognize A’s screwup, and deserves a portion of the blame. It isn’t clear that this is what happened, though it’s possible.
Everyone seems fine (daughter, her 2 friends, driver and passengers of the other car). Financial damage is more substantial.
It looked a lot more benign initially. My car is an old clunker that I keep as a third car and for my kids to drive around in, so I wasn’t concerned about another dent or two. And my daughter said the other car had “some scratches”. But it turns out that my car has a busted turn signal and assembly, and I don’t think a new one will fit in unless the fender and bumper are straightened out a bit. And worse for the other driver - they said they had a broken axle besides for the scratches.
My initial thought was to keep it out of insurance and pay any damages to my own car. But once the other guys got the diagnosis of the axle ($1,500), they wanted to be paid, so I said OK, let’s go to insurance but in that case I want your insurance info too, and we’ll see who the insurance companies think is (more) at fault. The woman was taken by surprise that there would be any purpose of my making an insurance claim, as she had assumed it was 100% my daughter’s fault based (apparently) on the fact that “she [my daughter] crashed into him [her husband], he didn’t crash into her”.
A shame (as crashes frequently are), as they seem like decent people. I spoke to their insurance today and gave my daughter’s version of events, and the guy said that aligned with what the other driver had already reported. So the facts are not in dispute, and the question is how the insurance people assign fault in such cases.
On the other hand, randomly slowing for apparently no reason is as likely to get your rear ended as hitting an idiot stopping in the middle of a turn. In the case that happened to me I could have slowed when I saw a car at the parking lot exit, but that’s dangerous. I did stop well enough so that my airbag did not deploy and though I had front end damage my car was still driveable.
BTW the cops who came checked that I was wearing a seat belt, (I was) and then laid into the other driver who turned out to be unlicenses and uninsured. No liability on my part at all.
Good for you to go to the insurance. I got hit by a woman with a guy in the car she didn’t want her parents to know about. She admitted liability and said she’d pay if we didn’t go to the insurance. I foolishly agreed. I finally got my money, but it was a pain in the ass.
People at fault often try to brazen it out. I once witnessed a crash where a guy lost control, crossed three freeway lanes, hit this poor woman, then crossed three more lanes. His lawyer or insurance called me to try to get me to say she hit him. I said I’d love to testify what really happened in court, and I never heard from them again.
IMHO you and your daughter both did good.
IMHO, the automatic presumption will most likely be Car A’s fault. However, if witnesses or better still, video footage can bear out that Car B did little to “avoid” the accident, fault could become as much as 50/50. Fault can easily shift to “the person who had the last clear chance to avoid the accident”. I don’t see Car A getting out of the situation completely as “blocking” the road is usually an offence in and of itself.
Well, Driver A’s insurance company sent an adjuster down today to make an estimate on damage to my car. He declared the car a total loss; as I said earlier it’s a beat-up old clunker, though it does still drive well. He also said the Driver A’s insurer assumed complete liability and will pay in full.
I don’t know what decision my insurance company has made or will make as to Driver A’s damage. But my understanding has been that if an insurer agrees that their guy is fully liable, then the other insurer is unlikely to take the position that their guy has liability.
Turned out to be a very unfortunate decision by Driver A. Because I was willing to eat the loss on my car and forgo reporting to insurance. Driver A were the ones who decided to bring the insurers into it, and it would seem that it’s not working out for them.
You may not know the answer to these, but:
- Did/could Driver A see the pedestrians before he began his turn?
- Did the pedestrians suddenly (and unexpectedly) start crossing the street once Driver A had started his turn?
- Or, were the pedestrians initially concealed (by foliage, a parked car, whatever), and Driver A was only able to see them once they had started into the intersection?
I might be chiming in a little late, but if the fact that Car A was forced to stop created a situation where Car B couldn’t stop in time to avoid a collision, then it seems to me like the driver of Car A was cutting it really close to begin with. Even if they technically had just barely enough time to make the turn if everything had gone right, it would have been safer to just wait.
A good chime. I think the car A coming to a stop was the key because that will be a “fault” in and of itself, IMHO. Any “waiting” during the left turn must be made before you start the turn.
I remember hearing on NPR years ago that the most common cause of pedestrians being hit by cars is cars making left turns. Drivers usually check for pedestrians when they’re going straight through an intersection, but rarely do so when making a left turn, probably because they’re so focused on looking for a gap in traffic. And if this was an intersection with traffic lights and pedestrian signals, when cars A and B had a green light, pedestrians would also have a “walk” signal to cross the street Car A was turning on to.
That reminds of an accident that happened around here not long after I first moved to this area. Two cars were drag racing each other on a local road with a speed limit of I think 45 mph. A woman got killed when one of them t-boned her after she turned in front of them. In this case the driver who hit her was found at fault (and got hit with more serious charges like manslaughter) because there was clear evidence the two cars were racing, but a lot of people in the comments section of the news articles about the crash tried to argue it was the woman’s fault because she pulled out in front of them.
The thing is, it’s really hard to judge how fast a car is going when it’s coming towards you. So we generally just look at how far away they are and make a judgement as to whether it’s safe to turn based on the assumption that they’re traveling a normal speed for that road – not 80 mph like the guy above was going.
Posters are missing the possibility that it is neither A nor B’s fault, but the pedestrians’ faults.