A friend of mine was recently involved in an accident while parked. He pulled into a parking space and went to open his door. As he opened it, though, someone entered the lot and pulled immediately into the space next to his. They hit his door while it was half open, jamming it into the body of the car. He couldn’t even shut the door.
Who has the right of way in this situation? Is he at fault for opening his door, or is the person pulling into the spot at fault for hitting him? He claims he looked and didn’t see a thing, that the other car must have just entered the lot and went right to the space (it was a relatively small lot right off the road). It was in Virginia if that makes a difference. Thanks in advance.
I was taught that the pedestrian always has the right-of-way. I don’t know if this is actually law, but it does not seem an unreasonable thing for someone to open their car door after parking. A convincing argument could be made that the driver parking was moving too quickly for the conditions.
QUOTE]*Originally posted by friggae *
**The above link says:
Is a parking spot really “moving traffic”? **
[/QUOTE]
While the code say’s the vehicle is moving traffic, the online cite is specific to publicly maintained roads. This is private property.
The code for privately owned & maintained roads states:
21107.5. (a) 'Any city or county may,… find and declare that there are privately owned and maintained roads …", are generally held open for use by the public for vehicular travel “… this code shall apply to the privately owned and maintained road,…”
& yes, a parking lot is considered a road as it connects to a ‘highway’ which is what the vehicle code governs.
The loophole might be, “has the local government properly declared blah blah blah…?”
IANAL. A parking spot isn’t traffic by any definition, unless I’m not imagine what you mean by parking spot. You’re already there, and the door has right of way. Presuming it was safe at the time the door was opened, it’d make sense that the idiot (yes, idiot) that pulled in accept responsibility. Who would be at fault legally if, instead of a door, the idiot hit your 4 year old child in the same spot?
If you open your door while someone is pulling into the adjacent parking spot and the other car doesn’t have time to react to the door opening in front of him then it is your fault because it was not safe to open the door. Just because you didn’t see him doesn’t mean that it was safe.
If he claims you opened your door too fast for him to react but he was driving too fast the fault could then be his.
If you open your door and there is a delay before the other car pulls in then it was his fault for not seeing that it was not safe to pull in.
I sure wouldn’t want to be the judge deciding this case. If I were I might be inclined to apportion the fault as 50/50.
I think the important wording in Qburn’s link is "reasonably safe to do so, " which you’ve indicated your friend had reason to believe was so. Further, in order to jam the door, I’m guessing the car had to impact the end of the outswung door, i.e. the door did not swing into the car but into the path of the car and the car failed to stop in time. Unless your friend recklessly threw open his car door at the last moment, a driver should be in control of their vehicle to avoid such obstacles, so an argument could be made that the other person was driving too fast or not paying attention.
The state you are in matters. Which of the 50 states, I mean.
You say this happened in VA? Then it looks like the driver of the car that hit the door is at fault as the result of: Reckless Driving or Improper Driving
I don’t handle claims in Virgina. So my opinion doesn’t count…blah blah blah…
But I couldn’t find any ordinances addressing duties of a parked car, only addressing duties of the moving car to avoid damaging property.