I feel traumatized after something that happened today.
I was coming home minding my own business when some guy pulls out from a dead standstill and blocks my path. I’ve often seen cars pull out a little when trying to get out of a parking space, but this was above and beyond the norm, he was substantially out on the road.
He was not out by an insane amount. However I had almost no time to see him edging out and I had to react fast. Now I didn’t know whether he was going to keep coming or what was going to happen. So I took a chance and I went significantly into the other side of the road. Now, this road is so narrow that there shouldn’t really be anyone on the other side of the road, unless maybe if they’re passing out a slow person. The real reason there are two lanes there is for traffic build up. Nobody should be next to another on that road for too long if they are moving quickly. Of course that wouldn’t excuse if I made a mistake. I thought that posisbly there were three lanes on the road at that stage so she could just stay in the complete right now, but I am not sure now. At a certain point there are three lanes but they go into two, if it was where there are three lanes then she should have stuck to the outer lane.
So I went far in, and I hear this mad hooting by the woman next to me. But this parked person was pulling out in front of me. There was no way I could slam on the brakes… any attempt to slow down dramatically could have sent me straight into her who was a bit behind me. So I made a judgement call to go into the right lane a bit.
I am wondering though, did I really have to keep out so far from the guy pulling out on the left? He was out a long way at first, but then to be honest I did see him sliding back a bit inwards. Did I panic and just hope the car on the right wasn’t going to be there? Hopefully I don’t have nightmares about a car pulling out in front of me.
To be fair, there was probably really almost no chance that this parked car was going to edge out again. But I’m not a great judger of distances either, maybe I pulled out too far and I could have kept just about on my side while just about getting past him. It really is very narrow at some points. The impact of hitting a parked car would be far worse than hitting a car going along the same path right?
I slowed down a bit and in passing she gave me a look, but I couldn’t really see her expression because I didn’t want to nearly crash again. I don’t know if she even knew there was a car that pulled out in front of me. She might report me. How common an occurance is this sort of thing?
You pull into her lane without looking the acident is your fault. Ultimately, the accident is the parking bozo’s fault, but if he manages to drive away without you getting his licenseplate, it’s your word against whatever the lady beside you saw. If you decide to fight it, it’s up to the judge. Even if he believes your story, with nobody else identified to nail, your insurance pays for both cars. If you did identify the bozo, he has no damage and denies the situation, and ultimately its your word against his (unless your victim can corroborate). If you are really really lucky, some 3rd party or a police officer saw the whole thing, cites the parking bozo, and he does end up payng for both cars.
If you can’t see a 100% safe way of avoiding a collision then it’s best to collide with the dick who causes it than hit a completely innocent roaduser.
A recent case in my locality, an idiot swerves to avoid hitting a deer and crashes head on into a car coming the other way, killing 3 people.
The idiot survives [ as usual, God indeed does work in mysterious ways ] and is only being charged with reckless driving, it should be manslaughter in my book.
Different states place different legal duties on drivers–Your location might matter. That said:
In general, causing an accident in order to avoid one is not an acceptable option. You as the driver are expected to anticipate reasonable hazards and respond safely (without causing a collision). This is an accident where witnesses would be invaluable for you. A witness can verify the actions of the pullin-out car and might allow you to play the “sudden emergency” defense card. In a nutshell, once you demonstrate a sudden emergency you are allowed to take action which a reasonably prudent person would take–if that means making a reflexive lane change, and if that’s what anyone else would have done, then you’ve got a pretty good chance of being cleared of liability. The trick in this case, however, would be demonstrating a good reason why you didn’t know there was someone in the space you escaped to (you’re supposed to be aware of your surroundings at all times), and demonstrating the pullin-out driver’s actions, no matter how stupid, were sudden and unpredictable. Creeping out into traffic is less sudden than say, a kid jumping out from behind a tree into your path (I swear to golly I get a couple of those every summer).
So let’s say you convince me you responded appropriately to a sudden emergency. The resulting collision between you and blind-spot lady is now the fault of the pullin-out guy but we don’t know who that is or how to contact him because he didn’t stop. I contact blind spot lady and say, “Sorry, babe, it wasn’t the primate’s fault so I won’t be paying for your car or your injuries. Buh-bye.” She’s not happy with that decision and decides to sue you. I buy you a lawyer and the first thing we do is name anonymous pullin-out dude as a nonparty (because he can’t be identified and is thus not a party to the suit) and try to get the jury to find him liable for the accident.
I can’t quite tell what happened in the situation the OP is describing. Do you live in a country where you drive on the left side of the road?
My guess is, you were on a road with at least two lanes in the same direction, you were in the outermost lane, someone pulled out in front of you and you swerved into the other lane, pissing off some woman who may or may not have been in that lane?
Shit happens. You avoided a collision. She’s not going to report you. Don’t worry about it. Next time, keep better track of the cars around you so that you can be confident you won’t hit anyone if you have to swerve (or so that you can avoid swerving if there is indeed someone next to you).
I do live in a country where you drive on the left side of the road, however this was a one-way road. Her lane would be the fast lane on a motorway, however this wasn’t a motorway and technically her lane was for if she were turning off to the right a long way away from us (which she didn’t). If she wasn’t turning off to the right, and didn’t find my speed acceptable, she should really have passed me out early on where there were definitely three lanes. We were the first two cars to go off from the lights. And it definitely gets really tight later on, somewhere you don’t want to be adjacent to another car for very long unless it’s stop/start traffic. I know if I’m in the right lane and see anything funny going on in the left, I know someone might be coming into my lane. However she may not have had time to see that.
It was the person who was coming out’s fault. I should have hooted at them, but in that moment I was concentrating on trying to avoid an accident. I wouldn’t mind a tiny bit of edging out, but this was way too much on to a main road, traffic coming down at speed. When I am in that type of a situation, I always pull down my windows to listen and make sure there’s nothing coming. Unfortunately it was after coming around a small bend also. I just wonder if I could have shaved a bit closer to the car that was way out so that I was less on her side, but it would take a lot of nerves to get that close to a parked car at speed.
Yeah, I’m going to be very careful about that road from now on though. In parts the lanes are barely wide enough for a full car to go through. I’m nearly sure we were still at the part where there were three lanes.
I’d like to say that this is bullshit, but my own unfortunate experience tells me otherwise. Asshole pulled out of a parking lot without looking. Blue car swerves into my lane to avoid a collision. I have a choice to hit the blue car or swerve into oncoming traffic. I hit the blue car.
The insurance companies decided that the blue car was 51% at fault. Sucks for them, but at least they drove away from the accident. I’d bet that the asshole didn’t even know there was a collision.
Striking the side of an object moving in the same direction is always safer for you than hitting a non-moving object head-on. I would accept the fault and resultant costs in order to minimize injury to myself.
The danger in this scenario is that your action startles the person alongside you enough to cause them to impact a solid object or one moving in the opposite direction.
My rule is to only make emergency lane changes toward the passenger side of the car. If the person struck is driven into a phone pole it’s still preferable to them hitting an oncoming car. The cruel irony is that you’ve subjected them to the scenario that you’re avoiding. Since I’m in the US, that would be to the right. In the OP’s case, to the left. It doesn’t matter to me whether it was a one-way road, the move must be instinctive and therefore no exceptions are allowed.
Did you honk to get his attention? That would have been my very first move. And then simultaneously braked and tried to slide through the available space.
Have never been in an accident like this - although I would and have given a quick honk for sure - I am fairly sure that I would be aware of someone in my blind side, and would try to brake and risk hitting the edging-out driver rather than swerve into an innocent passerby’s lane.
I know someone who was in a similar scenario earlier this year, and ended up in a three-car accident. He was in the right lane, someone pulled out of a parking lot in front of him. He braked but also swerved, I guess, and hit the car travelling on his left.
He did not get a ticket. Accident investigators and cops came out and measured tire marks and whatever they do and only gave the person pulling out of the parking lot a ticket for failure to yield right of way.
No, the impact of moving a moving car could spin that car (and you) into the path of someone else, or yet another immoveable object. And since you’re not sure of the distance, not sure whether the other driver was stopping or even “sliding back” a bit to give you room, I’d say you perhaps overreacted and that had you hit the other car, you would have been at least partially at fault.
I may have missed it, but did you mention approximately how fast you were traveling?
While true, I’d have to nitpick a bit.
Sideswiping someone unexpectedly has a number of consequences which may result, as opposed to the car clipping the front end of another/absorbing the kinetic energy from that collision.
For example, most people tend to swerve and panic when in a similar situation. Unfortunately, I’ve seen two cases where sideswiping a vehicle caused the driver to over-compensate and/or deflect off in the other direction. You now have one vehicle going into oncoming traffic or a ditch, while the original driver has lost control and is creating a dangerous situation on their side of the road.
It really is a terrible situation in either case, but sometimes applying full brake force (enough to engage ABS), bracing, and minimizing the colission speed before impact creates a more controlled collision, while in the case of most cars today, they have crumple zones designed to better handle it.
I know we all sometimes zone out when driving and that’s when the unexpected happens, but it is a really good idea to keep track of other cars on the road and make a note if there is one traveling in your blindspot. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that and we all have been there. I know about having a close call in traffic, it can really rattle you.
A couple of weeks ago, I was in the left lane traveling in the city. There was a car in the right lane. Up ahead the right lane was blocked by an accident with flashing lights, etc. You could see if for blocks ahead of time. I slowed way down to let the car on my right into my lane before the blockage up ahead and waited and waited. He just kind of lingered there and then started to drift to the right at the intersection. I thought he was taking a right without signaling so I started to resume normal speed when all of a sudden he realized the lane ahead was blocked and came into my lane without signaling.
My choices were to swerve into oncoming traffic for a head on collision, or lay on the horn and wait for the hit. He kind of woke up and ended up having to come to a complete stop in the right lane waiting for all the traffic in the left to clear. I was actually shaken up pretty good and I couldn’t have been going more than 25mph.
This.
You were driving along with no idea there was another car alongside yours. Very dangerous.
If I may ask, how old are you? The situation as you describe it makes you sound like a rather inexperienced driver. Learn from this incident. Keep your eyes moving and your head in the game. Always know what’s happening around you and where your escape routes are if you need them.
Well yeah, but experienced drivers get that way with: experience. So everyone is going to be inexperienced for a while; “inexperienced” isn’t a perjorative, it’s just a fact of driving life. That said the question as posed in the OP strongly indicates inexperienced so let this be a lesson and thankfully a dirty look was the worst of the damage!
Over the years, if you’re observant and responsible, it become pretty much second nature to know what’s going on around you at all times while driving. Judgement, speed and spacing all become second nature as well. Hopefully.
Inigo’s advice above is very good, he’s an adjuster so listen to him. Evasive action is one of those things where you must take it if you can take it, but if you can’t take it then you mustn’t. If you had braked (broken? lol) abruptly and a person behind you had hit you, then they would get cited for tailgating. Braking would have been the proper action to take. If you HAD caused a collision with mad-hooter-lady while swerving, you’d have been cited for an at-fault accident yourself.
It’s up to your situational awareness whether it is possible to take evasive action or not. Clearly you should not have done so in this case, and you would have known that if you had known whether a car was driving next to you. You are guilty of not paying attention to your surroundings. You should always know approximately where other vehicles are around you. You should not have been surprised that the woman was there. You should be scanning your side- and rearview mirrors **all the time **while you’re driving. You should **never **be surprised by traffic flowing in the same direction as you!
It sounds like you were tunnel-visioning in front of yourself, which is a really really bad idea when you’re steering a metric ton of metal down the road at speeds in excess of 50 mph. Work on improving your situational awareness so this doesn’t happen again. Congrats to her for avoiding colliding with you. Otherwise, your ass would be grass
As I said, no I didn’t. I believe that was my biggest mistake, I should have honked. I will know my lesson from now on. To be honest it didn’t really even occur to me and that’s what I should have done. The guy coming out would have gone back in as far as he could and I would know he wasn’t coming back out again. I should not have given him a little extra space in case he would continue to come out.
Perhaps about 45-50mph. A main road, but narrow in places and cars parked both sides. I was just coming home at a normal speed. I probably slowed a little when I saw him but sped back up when I decided to stick my head in the sand and just try to pass him out.
I knew the car was there somewhere, I did not know exactly where it was.
I’ve been driving for about five years. I’ve gone through this route dozens of times and nothing like this has ever happened. I was a bit late starting driving. But I believe in general I am a good and safe driver though not too good here. Two people made a mistake here, it’s a good thing the girl in the black car next to me didn’t make a mistake also and instead exhibited really good driving.
I guess maybe it’s the aggregrate of driving that sometimes decides if there’s an accident or not. He had bad driving, I had bad driving because I didn’t expect it, good thing she had good driving to make up for it. In the future I will try to be not just safe if everyone else is safe, but “proactively” safe so I can make up for others’ bad driving also.
I wasn’t surprised that she was there at all, I knew she was somewhere around after the lights.
I thought about this rachelellogram, and the people who say look in your mirror every 3 seconds, but you know something? This guy pulled out so fast initially that if I had been looking in the mirror for even a fraction of a second at that time that I would have lost valuable reaction time. But I DO agree with you on being generally aware of my surroundings. I did know she was there somewhere.
I think the two lessons I’ll take away from this are:
Be instinctively ready to blow the horn at all times. In driver’s tests and public guidelines they often say to avoid using the horn. However blowing the horn could definitely prevent a clear accident. I’ve occasionally blown it before, but only at like intersections or if someone cut clear across me when I had the right of way.
If I had blown the horn here, I could have been confident that he would try to pull in as much as he could fast and I would have alerted the woman to the problem faster.
Always be aware of my surroundings and also of what might happen, especially parked cars. If there were no cars for a distance behind her (I’m not sure), and she was close to me, I might be able to slam moderately hard on the brakes, let her pass me out, and then go into her lane after her.
I would (and have done) make one exception to the “don’t cause an accident to avoid one” rule.
I was once faced with the option of hitting a pedestrian who had stepped in front of me, or swerving and hitting a parked car. I swerved and hit the car. Lesser of two evils IMO.
Yeah. This isn’t really the same question at all, but I’d think most people would do this instinctively regardless. And then, just as instinctively, jump out of the car to make sure you get his name and phone number. And get a little pissed off and yell a little. Maybe that’s just me, though.
