You’re parked in a grocery store parking lot, and when you return to your car you notice one of those extra long pickup trucks has parked next to you, so when you pull back, you do so v-e-r-y slowly (1 MPH) because you have no visibility, and BAMMO, you get creamed by someone who’s driving down the lane not paying attention.
Yup. Happened today, but not to me. I was a witness though, and had to leave before the police arrived. I gave the “victim” driver my name and number after ascertaining that no one was hurt.
I’ve been in that not-being-able-to-see situation myself. Have y’all?
Yeah, but the bone-head not paying attention is still at fault…it could have been a kid.
Its incredible the number of accidents that occur in parking lots. Too many people seem to think that the rules of the road cease to exist when they enter the magical realm of a parking lot.
The worst are those jack-asses that ding your car and figure its “OK” if they just go park in another spot…don’t get me started.
Okay, here’s one for you: the normal speed limit for a parking lot is: 15 mph. There is a reason for that, folks. That might go toward shifting the blame onto the “not-paying attention” driver.
I was in the parking lot of a liquor store, and you could exit the parking lot and turn right onto the street. There was also angle parking on the street for the liquor store.
I pulled into the entryway for the street, looked carefully to the left, then began to turn right into the rightmost lane.
I swiveled my head to the right in time to see a HUGE white pickup backing up. I got to my feeble little horn (it’s a Corsica…has a horn like an asthmatic kitten) just in time to let him know that he was backing OVER my hood. He stopped and pulled off my car.
The entire damage was: one dent on my hood, one small smudge mark on his bumper. Since we couldn’t decide between ourselves who would be at fault, and figured ONE of us would get a ticket, especially with it being the liquor store parking lot, we just shook hands on it and drove off, without calling the cops.
I think the other driver was pretty relieved at that, since I suspect he had been drinking (I had not). But oh well, it might have been “my fault” for practically parking myself UNDER his car.
Not that this rambling story has anything to do with your story, really, but I just wanted to share what we did in a case where we couldn’t figure it out.
The dent on my hood is still there. Makes it easy to find MY white Corsica out of the 14 in the parking lot.
Corr, who’s wondering if she should call her car the Corrsica
I’m really not sure who would be legally at fault. I’m leaning towards the person not paying attention. Although he probably did have the right of way so unless he was speeding it would have to be the person who was pulling out. I beleive you are obligated to give a warning honk in the case of limited visibilty.
I’ve always figured that if you’re in reverse, you do not have the right-of-way. You’re entering the right-of-way, and thus must yield to anyone who’s already there. Tricky to do that when you can’t see, I know. I also figure that you have to be a little more cautious in a parking lot where you expect people to be backing out (and half of them not paying attention anyway.)
If the person was indeed backing out very slowly, I’d suspect that the person driving down the aisle was either going too fast or spacing off. How hard is it to notice someone who’s already pulled out far enough that you’d hit them?
There’s no reason why they BOTH can’t be at fault. It’s about comparative negligence. thinksnow hit part of it with the 15 MPH rule.
Whatever the speed limit, one question is: if the person was going over that limit, and if, had the person been going under that limit they would have avoided that accident, then they are partially at fault. In other words, if the person is going 30 in a 15 and, had they been going 15 in the 15 they would have avoided the accident, they will be at fault for going 30. If they couldn’t have avoided the accident even at 15 MPH, they aren’t at fault even going 30.
That’s really a question for the jury, though.
I am in an ornery mood this morning, so even though there is no legal precedence for this, I will go out on a limb and vote that whoever owned the really long pick up truck that obscured the view was at fault.