The problem here is that we only have the report from Driver “A” and we can assume that they are telling the truth. Driver “B’s” account might (and probably does) give a quite different description of the collision.
I too have some experience of resolving insurance claims after vehicle collisions (albeit in the UK), and sometimes it’s hard to believe that both drivers are describing the same incident. In the absence of witnesses or CCTV/Dashcam footage, a 60/40 split in his favour would be the best Driver “A” might hope for. Insurance companies, in my experience, always want to take the route of least resistance and never want to get into expensive legal disputes.
Any driver should assume that all other drivers are dicks. The problem with pulling out of junctions is that we tend to concentrate on the traffic in front and become blind to anything else, like a dick making a second lane. I often see videos of collisions where one driver believes that the other one is 100% to blame. Yes - the other driver was a dick, but with a little more care, observation and anticipation, the “victim” may well have avoided the collision or at least mitigated it.
I was in the left turn lane waiting to get the arrow. When it turned green, I looked to make sure that there was nobody running the light, or making a right turn from across the intersection. I turned left into the left-most lane, and then put my blinker on and started to pull to the right. As I did, I saw that there was somebody next to me! I swerved back, and they passed on the right. I was thinking “WTF, where did they come from?!?” My buddy was behind me, and saw it all - he said they made a left turn from the middle lane (which was illegal), and just totally ignored me.
Be careful - people are terrible drivers, and COVID made them much worse.
Here is the street view of the junction in question (link). From this perspective (and I realize the Google Car camera can distort things a bit), in order for Car B to squeeze past Car A without driving over the curb, it appears that Car A would have had to be quite far left in the lane as to almost be over the middle line, which seems to be strange positioning for someone who is turning right. If I pulled up behind someone like that I’d probably think it was kind of weird. I am not the least bit surprised that an impatient Bozo would use it as an opening to try and sneak up and cut in line. I think they are to blame, but I would consider that being a predictable driver is one of the best ways to avoid an accident and being spatially aware of your vehicle positioning is important as well.
Are you 100% positive that Driver B was totally stopped? Even if they were inching up it would have increased the likelihood of an impact when you started your turn.
Car B made a completely dick move. But if nothing else car A should have looked to the right before the turn to check for pedestrians or any other danger. Car A would have seen car B.
Always look both ways. Even if turning onto a one way street.
I use that last fast peek to to the right before committing to look out for bicycles on the wrong side of the road.
Some years back I was at a 4-way stop, waited my turn, started moving forward, when I noticed movement to my right and slammed on the brakes. There were some bicyclists crossing from right to left in front of me, and the guy gave me an evil glare.
At first I wondered how I missed them, then I realized that they were idiots and were riding on the wrong side of the road, where we do not normally look so intently. Not only were they in the wrong, but they would have been dead wrong had I not stopped in time.
These weren’t kids; they were serious bicyclists kitted out in riding gear. No idea if they are still alive these days.
Even if this were true, the proper first action would have been to honk at you, to wake you up or something. Only after a decent amount of honking would I even consider trying to drive around you.
I had an accident go to arbitration, and the diagram the people suing me used was so wrong, the arbitrator was pretty much convinced on that alone that their suit was bogus. It didn’t have to be dissenting opinions, because the physical, photographed damage to the cars could not have happened as diagrammed.
There’s an intersection I use frequently that sounds pretty much the same as the one the OP described – there’s a median across the cross street, so it is only possible to turn right there. The rightmost part of the street is marked as a bike lane, and as a cyclist it always kind of annoys me when drivers pull into the bike lane while waiting to turn right. So when I’m waiting to turn at that intersection I purposely position myself a bit more to the left to keep the bike lane clear. The problem with that is exactly what you just said, the way I’m positioned doesn’t “look” like I’m turning right (Even though I have my turn signal on in addition to the fact that’s the only way you can go). So on at least two occasions other drivers have done exactly what Car B did in the OP’s scenario. Thankfully I noticed them do that and let them go first.
I think some people just habitually always pull around other cars when turning right, to the point where they don’t even notice other cues like turn signals and turn lane markings that should have let them know that that other car intends to turn right, too.
So are you saying car A was in a similar position to white car here:
Then car B (because they thought they were taking too long, or whatever) tried to sneak to their right and turn ahead of them. In the process they hit car A?
Its definitely mainly car B’s fault, the only reason it would be less than 100% is if car A actually hit car B (as they didn’t notice or expect there be a car on their right, so they pulled forward into car B as they were trying to sneak last)
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