In real life, I drive a motorcoach for a charter company. The bus is 45 feet long and 13 feet tall. The following is the narrative of a real-life event that had absolutely no drama to it at all. But what if it did?
The scenario: I am driving my bus and have stopped in the right-most lane at an intersection. A pedestrian pushing a baby stroller (a pram, for our Brit dopers) enters the crosswalk in front of me. Because of the size of the bus, she cannot see any traffic beyond me. (The preceding did happen. The following did NOT happen.) As she is crossing, I see (in the mirror) a speeding car approaching the intersection in the left lane. The car’s driver cannot see the pedestrian and the pedestrian cannot see the car. I can see everyone. I predict that the car and the pedestrian will have an unhappy meeting in front of and to the left of my bus. To prevent this tragedy, I sound the horn. But, I cannot be sure that this sound will stop the pedestrian. So, I maneuver the front of my bus to block the oncoming car. The car administers a glancing blow to the side of the bus, damaging my bus and totaling the car, but there are no injuries to anyone.
So, who is at fault: me (the bus driver), the car driver, or the pedestrian. My deliberate choice to move the bus into the car’s path is the direct cause of the crash, but I did so to prevent a greater tragedy. The pedestrian may or may not have stopped with or without my warning.
The cops arrive and interview everyone involved. Assume that everyone is telling the truth, at least from his/her own perspective. The actual facts of the incident are not in dispute.
You’re the cop. Who, if anyone, should get the ticket? Whose insurance gets to pay for this mess?
(In real life, the lady with the stroller passed in front of my bus. She paused and stuck her head out to peer around the bus before crossing the next lane. There was no oncoming car at any speed. The pedestrian completed the crossing safely and we all moved on with our day. The intersection was a roundabout controlled by a single yield sign facing me. I yielded due to the pedestrian approaching the crosswalk.)
Pedestrians always have the right of way. You said you stopped at the intersection, so I assume it was either a stop sign or a red light. In either case the driver on your left should have stopped and made sure the intersection was clear. It sounds like it would be a clear-cut fault of the car driver, unless I’m misunderstanding something.
Unless I’m misreading it, the car never actually makes it to the intersection as it hits the bus first. So really, you can’t give them a ticket for doing something they may or may not do if the bus didn’t cut them off first.
If they were going fast enough to hit the bus, they were almost certainly going fast enough that they would not have been able to stop at the intersection.
The car definitely gets a ticket. I’m torn on the bus, that would probably depend on the mood of the cop. But it’s one of those, “I’ll take ticket, as it was worth it to prevent a tragedy” kind of things.
The bus gets the ticket. The car didn’t even have a chance to stop at the intersection before you moved in front of it. Though I am not really sure how such a move could even be made without also hitting the pedestrian, since you have to move forward at the same time.
I think if the bus were ticketed, and the ticket contested, the bus driver would win on a defense of others/necessity/lesser of evils defense (depending on definitions in that jurisdiction).
The car driver should absolutely get a ticket if they were not intending to, and able to, stop.
If you are approaching a crosswalk – where you are required to yield – and your view is obstructed, it is necessary to slow down enough to make sure that the way is clear before proceeding. That driver should be grateful for the accident and ticket vs facing much more serious consequences and charges for running down a pedestrian and baby.
I usually can’t get people to slow down with an unobstructed view of the crosswalk that I’m standing in. There’s no way that the pedestrian would go blithely past the bus without checking, unless she was suicidal.
If the car crashed into the front-most side of the bus with enough speed to cause damage, it certainly was going too fast to stop adequately at the intersection. Most cops aren’t ticket issuing robots— I would think any reasonable cop would evaluate the situation in such a way that they would ticket the driver of the car, and hopefully tear the driver a new one about stopping at intersections and ensuring they’re clear before proceeding.
Let’s put it another way- if, instead of a bus, another pedestrian ran out into the road and pulled the mother and child to safety in the nick of time, I doubt they would get a ticket for jaywalking.
And yet pedestrians die that way quite regularly. I think I’ve heard that it is a particular problem for older pedestrians.
In my state, there’s a specific infraction for passing a vehicle stopped at a crosswalk for a pedestrian. I’m not sure how common that is.
I also currently live in a state where there are a lot of pedestrians, and people do stop for them. I’ve lived in states where no sane person would expect a car to yield to them – but the car would still be at fault if they were required to yield.
I had the same thought. I guess if the bus was stopped a few feet from the crosswalk, there might be a way to move a few feet into the next lane without going far enough forward to hit the pedestrian. But frankly I’m not seeing how it could happen as described by the OP.
In my mind, the driver is clearly at fault. Seeing the bus stopped he should realize instantly that it is stopped for a reason. Assuming there is no obvious traffic coming on the roundabout (if there were he should yield anyway) the only reason the bus is stopped is for a pedestrian. If he cannot draw that inference he should not be driving.
Is there some legal principle that says that? From a moral point of view it seems like the bus driver is 100% in the right. It also seems like if we were talking about people not in cars (i.e. irresonsible jogger hurtling towards small child in a stroller, nearby weightlifter steps between jogger and baby, jogger slams into weightlifter Weightlifter is hero, no crime committed, right). Why would it be different with cars involved, legally speaking?
Offhand, I can’t think of a ped crossing on a 4 lane road where there isn’t a traffic control device, either a red/yellow/green traffic light, or a blinking yellow ‘stop for peds when lit’ light(s). although it wasn’t stated in the OPs scenario does the car have a green light?
Maybe things work differently in the US than they do in Canada, but here in the States, buses stop to drop off and pick up passengers. If I saw a bus stopped, my assumption would be that it was picking up or dropping off.
I have little legal knowledge so I can’t really comment on who is in the right or wrong … but I just wanted to say that if I were the OP, I’d do the exact same thing. I’ll eat the cost of any number of tickets if it meant preventing a senseless death(s).
That’s where I’m struggling with my scenario. The car never had the opportunity to commit the crime because the bus moved in the way first.
The bus is 45 feet long. When turning, it pivots on the drive axle (the dualies near the rear). I stopped about fifteen feet from the crosswalk. If I turn the wheel hard to one side and release the brake, the front of the bus will actually move in the direction I turn rather than roll forward. It will move forward a bit, but the translation to one side will be much larger. Otherwise, parallel parking the bus would be nigh impossible. On the bus I drove today, the tag axle (the single rear-most wheels) also steer, further enhancing this effect. I could have easily gone from a full stop to blocking both lanes without intruding into the crosswalk.
Nope. My bus does not have a rear window nor does it have a backup camera. Backing in a traffic situation is to be avoided at nearly all costs. The transmission on a bus is also large. It is controlled electronically – just push a button. But it takes a moment for it to disengage one gear and move to reverse – and then to forward again.
The traffic control device would be the yield sign that precedes the roundabout. Two lanes approach the roundabout. There is a yield sign even with a stop line painted on the pavement. Beyond the stop line is a crosswalk. Beyond the crosswalk is a counter-clockwise roundabout. I stopped short of the stop line. A car approaching behind to my left would not see the yield sign, but would see the stop line and the crosswalk.
Mine is an over-the-road motorcoach. While I do load and discharge passengers, I don’t usually do it at a street corner like a transit bus. A driver may not assume I’m loading or discharging passengers because my bus does not resemble Capital Metro buses at all.
This was my thinking. When I saw the lady begin across the street, I realized that any approaching traffic would be unable to see her. I briefly considered moving the bus to block both lanes, but I decided not to do so because A) my bus suddenly moving would probably have scared the crap out of her, and B) I observed that there was no traffic approaching.