There’s also usually some kind of catch-all “driving in an unsafe manner” kind of ticket.
It wouldn’t be too hard for the cop on the scene to do the math to figure out if the car really was a danger or not. Making these kinds of calls is part of what we pay cops and judges to do.
Except that it’s also generally accepted that overtaking traffic is supposed to pay attention to the road ahead, and anticipate possible changes.
It’s well established that every driver has the obligation to do what they can to avoid an accident, even if the other driver created the conditions that lead to the accident. Overtaking at an intersection at too high a speed to be able to react means you didn’t do that.
Did the car yield to the pedestrian? When asked, could the person truthfully say they were yielding to the pedestrian? The fact that they were physically blocked does mean they yielded. If the driver was unaware of the pedestrian he would truthfully say so, and if he intended to proceed past the bus into the roundabout he would also truthfully say so.
The hypothetical says the facts are not in dispute. If the car was going fast enough to not be able to stop for the pedestrian, then it failed to yield to the pedestrian.
Also the OP described how the front of the bus can move essentially sideways. Again, maybe the bus driver gets a ticket for an unsignaled lane change or whatever, but I don’t think there’s any way the driver is found guilty if he contests that ticket. And if car driver sues bus driver for damages, I seriously doubt that goes car driver’s way either.
Refreshing the scenario. There were predictions made - that the pedestrian had no intent of looking before proceeding beyond the bus, that the pedestrian would ignore the very loud bus horn and continue to walk into the street obliviously, that the driver was not beginning to slow down or would also be oblivious to the horn.
The hypothetical premise includes that the expected reactions to a bus horn blaring would probably occur. The oncoming car would heard the horn and slow down. The pedestrian would hear the horn and stop, startled. But the driver wanted to “be sure”.
Causing a vehicular collision to be sure that someone is protected from something not impossible but not apparently likely?
The hypothetical specifies that no one is injured but at the point of decision making that result is unknown. The car’s occupants could have been injured. The car was totaled? A child passenger side could have had a spine injury.
Causing a vehicular collision, essentially assaulting a car with a bus, potentially deadly force, to “be sure”, does not seem defensible. Even if the result ended up only as property damage.
The car was driving in its lane until it was hit by a bus that was changing lanes. In what way is that unsafe?
The car never failed to yield to the pedestrian. It never crossed the pedestrian’s path. Maybe, if the bus hadn’t intervened, it would have broken the law but, again, you can’t cite someone for breaking a law because you believe they would have broken it in the future. (Although, acknowledging inchoate crimes, I’ll say this ain’t one).
It was approaching a controlled intersection at a sufficiently high speed that a professional bus driver, who we can suppose has seen their share of bad and dangerous driving, concluded that deliberately causing an accident was the best course of action. I’d call that unsafe.
I don’t know who gets a ticket. I have some insight into who gets assigned liability.
No one is liable for the accident that didn’t happen. No one is on the hook for killing the pedestrian.
Sometime is liable for the accident which did happen, a fender bender in which a car hit a bus.
Within the US, the liability for that accident would vary by state, and probably by other details (what’s the speed limit? Was there a light? What did the signage say? Was there a crosswalk?)
In most states, the bus driver would have at least some of the liability for creating that accident. The driver of the car might also be found partially liable, again, depending on a lot of details and state law. (And state laws are very…diverse.)
This is just not true.
Accidents can involve predictions or things that didn’t happen.
Who’s at fault if someone veers into my lane because they changed lanes without looking, and I swerve and scrape a barrier to avoid them hitting me? Or I see a car about to rear end mine at high speed so I jump a curb and damage the undercarriage of my car, and the other car rear-ends the car that was ahead of me? You get to make predictions and take reasonable actions based on them.
This is not assaulting a car with a bus. The bus didn’t hit the car. The bus moved into the car’s lane at some distance in front of the car.
Every comment I’ve made, I’ve included a proviso about whether the car driver was intending to pass the bus at speed, which we would know based on the driver telling the truth, according to the hypothetical.
Also, people keep ignoring the set up of the hypothetical, which is that the intersection is the entry point of a two-lane roundabout, at which there is a yield sign. In addition to the requirement to yield to traffic in the roundabout, drivers are also required to yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk.
So, the only way the bus driver is at fault is if the driver did intend to, and would have been able to, stop before the crosswalk, but was not able to stop because the bus was a few feet closer to the car than the stop line was. That’s a pretty narrow margin, and it seems like the car would have been going slow enough that close to the stop line that it would be unlikely to be totaled.
And again, if the bus driver were ticketed, they would very likely have a solid defense with some form of a choice of evils defense, which can under some circumstances allow a person to damage another’s property to prevent a greater harm.
You made the right choices. But in most cases, the insurers are going to consider you at fault in those examples.
You use the word “accident” but this was not an accident. This was a collision intentionally caused by a huge motor coach intentionally placing itself in the way of a smaller vehicle predicting that the smaller vehicle would hit it.
If I put my leg out in front of a runner and they trip, is it not my aggression because they ran into me? If I open a car door in front of a cyclist knowing that they will hit it?
The key here is that the reasonable expectation would be for the pedestrian to react to the horn blaring and stop, startled. Causing a collision with its potential to cause harm, even death, to the driver or a passenger of a much smaller vehicle, to “be sure” is reckless even if such ended up not happening.
I had a very similar situation happen to me about a year ago. Was driving down a road at a quiet time of night in the right hand lane and there was a restaurant on the right directly on the sidewalk about 100 yards ahead. The door of the restaurant swings open and a toddler comes running out and starts down the sidewalk towards me. I immediately slow down from about 40mph to 15mph just in case he veers into the street. His (assumed) mother pops out the door less than 5 seconds later to give chase.
Sure enough the kid steps out into the street in front of me several yards ahead and I have plenty of time to come to a complete stop. However, I can now see a car doing about 40mph coming up in the left lane and they have no idea why I’ve stopped.
I had one eye on the kid out in the street and another on the approaching car and was just about ready to sideswipe the car if the kid made a move towards that lane but for some reason the kid didn’t move from my lane and the mother swooped in with a second to spare and snatched the kid back up on the sidewalk.
I have mostly only been addressing who gets the ticket, and if the bus driver gets a ticket whether they’d be found guilty. But I very seriously doubt I’d have civil liability in either case, if my version of events were believed. What an insurance company chooses to contest vs. pay out on is beyond my ken, and involves more variables. But no way am I actually liable for those damages if those are the accepted facts.
Yes, I should have used the word “crash” which is usually my habit.
Here’s a link to a model version of a choice of evils defense statute. And again, you are responding to my posts that have the proviso that the car driver was intending to pass the bus at speed rather than yielding, as required, to the pedestrian in the crosswalk.
https://h2o.law.harvard.edu/collages/2961
The harm sought to be avoided is a pedestrian and baby being run down by a vehicle that isn’t slowing down. The harm of taking the action is committing a traffic infraction wherein the car driver will see the big bus and slam on the brakes, and might hit the big bus, after slamming on the brakes, instead of hitting a pedestrian and baby while not slamming on the brakes, or doing so later.
Oh I get avoidance of harms.
To me however the risk of harm occurring without causing the collision was actually small. I’ve been cluelessly distractedly walking along, just on a sidewalk, or while jogging. If I hear a loud horn near me I stop, startled. I think almost everyone with reasonably normal hearing would. 100% sure? No. But close to it.
And the potential for greater harm to human life by placing a motor coach in the path of another vehicle is not small. There was no way to have known in advance that someone in that car would not have been seriously injured as a result. That’s potentially having a car run into a wall. People die from collisions with just a deer sometimes.
Laying on the horn was the right move. Causing a collision was not.
Yeah, if the bus driver doesn’t think the collision is likely, it’s a closer call. Timing might come into it as well – did the bus driver have a split second to see if the pedestrian reacted to the horn? The way I picture the scenario, the bus driver is justified. But we may be picturing it differently.
Thank you all for the conversation. I have found this interesting. The story about the toddler running out of a restaurant seems the closest to my scenario.
Let’s up the ante a bit. I, the bus driver, suddenly maneuver the bus into the left lane (not hitting the pedestrians). The speeding car driver sees the bus intruding on his intended path. I expect the car to take a glancing blow to the side of the bus, around 1/4 bus-length from the front bumper. I expect the energy to be dissipated by the friction created by the sliding of the two vehicles, the crumpling of panels on the two vehicles, and the driver’s attempts to stop.
However, the car driver doesn’t buy into my plan; he has a plan of his own. Upon observing that the bus has blocked his intended path, he decides to double-down. He presses down on the accelerator and jumps the curb into the grassy median to his left. He does not hit the bus at all. Unfortunately, he hits a tree. The tree is firmly rooted to the ground and has a much smaller impact area completely lacking in crumple zones. The combined increased energy due to the accelerator and the greatly reduced impact area results in the energy being transferred to the driver and he is killed.
Since I, the bus driver, intentionally and suddenly moved into the car’s path and the result was the death of another person, I suppose I now have a serious problem. The fact that I was attempting to prevent two pedestrians from being mowed down may be a mitigating factor, but it’s hard to prove that something might have happened at some point in the future.
Maybe it’s better to let the predicted crash with the pedestrians play out and deal with the aftermath. I should point out that my real life example took place within about two blocks of a major hospital emergency department.
Finally, much is made of the horn. The horn is indeed loud. It is an air horn located under the driver’s left foot. However, I have no guarantee that hearing it will cause the woman to stop. She could reasonably interpret the horn as “Move your ass!” and quicken her pace in front of the bus. This could make the situation worse.
FWIW that is a very improbable immediate reaction.
Just place yourself in her situation. You are in crosswalk distracted by your child perhaps or maybe a text. Not being very aware of your surroundings. Huge horn blast. What would you do? No way your immediate reaction is think you better run your ass across the street without looking. The reaction is a startle. A jerk to look in the direction of the horn. To me that is a near sure thing. To me your surety of the bus sliding and absorbing the force is less so sure. No tree need be involved. The driver hitting the stoped bus with anything other than a glancing blow could seriously harm an occupant of the vehicle.
By the way, just so there is no confusion, I am a trained, professional motorcoach operator. I am not in the habit of positioning my bus in ways that will cause collisions with other vehicles. I really do not contemplate ways to use my bus or any other vehicle under my control as a battering ram.
There was this asshole who was intentionally blocking my path, though. The thought did cross my mind…
Yes I think you’ve severely screwed yourself here. Of course there was an unseen woman and baby you were trying to protect when you ran that car off the road and they got killed. Did you rescue a dozen orphans from a burning building that day as well?
In this case I’d say you’d be better off lying and saying you had to swerve into the next lane because you were going to hit this woman who darted out in front of you… you didn’t have time to check for oncoming traffic, you just knew you were about to hit this woman. It’s unfortunate there was someone else speeding past you at the time…
Then they pull the video from my bus’s dashcam and I’m in bigger trouble. The video from the cam is uploaded to the cloud in real-time, so I can’t “accidentally” delete it.
It sounds like the best course of action in any of my hypotheticals is to do things like sounding the horn that cannot reasonably cause harm to anyone. Moving purposely to hit another vehicle is going to pretty much be a bad idea in every situation.
You left out the part about having dashcam footage… and “everyone telling the truth” as deciding the outcome in the previous scenario suggested that there was little evidence other than what those involved said happened.
But you still might be able to lie about this scenario to save yourself: Your dash cam points forward but not back. From your angle you could see in the side view mirror the car come flying towards you like it was a get away car; it looked to have a path that would pass you on your right, but it’s coming too fast at an insufficient angle and you feared it was going to hit you. So you decided to try and move over to clear the intersection and let it fly past. The idiot driver at the last second swerved and tried to pass on your left instead and ran his own car off the road to avoid you as you were moving over for him. Luckily your bus shielded that woman who would have got hit had you not tried to get out of that erratic speeding car’s way.