A car is parked in a parking lot. Another car sideswipes it. Both cars have horizontal scrapes, but one car has a longer scrape.
Can it be ascertained which car was parked and which was moving? (And yes, it’s possible that the moving car was in reverse.)
When the swiper hits the victim’s corner with his broadside, it’s easy to tell who side-swept who. If both get scratches on their broadsides with reasonably equal scratch lengths:
Or the other way round, if the swiper was reversing.
Is the parked car in the same position as it was when (or just after being) sideswiped?
But we don’t know whether he was reversing.
No. Not even in the same location.
If the two cars were parallel when they touched, it might not be possible to tell. But in most cases I would expect the swiper to have damage on the corner of his car, while the swipee would have damage in the middle of a panel. The swipee"s damage might look like a ‘scoop’ was taken out of the side caused by the curved path of the swiper.
But doesn’t that also have to do with the different shapes of the surfaces? A car with a somewhat flat shape would sustain a longer swipe, but a car with a protruding surface (like a wheel well) might be damaged mostly on the protrusion . . . regardless of which car did the swiping.