Car crash - Who is to blame for this then?

[Saracen]

Mr wavy arms mans car was not involved in the accident therefore he is parked, there's no reason why he should not have his lights off.

I didn't pick 30 Mph out of the air, consider that parked cars don't need to have lights on, on roads at or below 30 Mph.
To me this implies that you should be able to see things at 30 regardless of lights.

I think you're missing the point.

Each and every driver is required to be doing a speed appropriate for the circumstances, and that certainly includes the fact that driving at night might reduce that speed, since it clearly often adversely affects visibility.

If you're driving at a speed where you cannot stop within the limits of your visibility, then you're going too fast. Period. End of.

Whether the other cars had lights on, whether wavy-arms-man should have been standing in the road, etc, are all immaterial to the question of whether the driver should have been able to stop, because he should have been able to, and patently didn't. Your work mate SHOULD have been able to stop when he saw there was an obstruction. That obstruction could have been someone that had had a heart attack and fallen into the road, or a cyclist knocked off his bike by another car, or a car with an electrical short that took out his lights, or ..... etc, etc. It matters not what it actually was.

The FACT remains that the bloke that couldn't stop couldn't stop. Ergo, he was going too fast for the visibility .... or wasn't paying adequate attention.

Should the wavy arms man's car lights have been on? Probably. Might he get done for that? Maybe .... if it was actually the case. Does it affect the liability of the driver that swerved? Nope, not at all. He was, quite simply, either going sufficiently fast so that he couldn't stop when he should have, or was not paying sufficient attention so that he didn't stop when (had he reacted properly) he could have.

I can see any escape from either him going too fast, or not paying proper attention .... or both.

It might be fully understandable, and it might well be something we're all guilty off, and if any of us had been driving, we may well have been similarly caught out, but I simply can't see any way he wasn't either going too fast or paying inadequate attention, because the facts as presented don't permit any other interpretation.

[Kumagoro]

Haha I was waiting for that one to come up. Definitely not me, never have crashed and never been crashed into. I think the bloke is in idiot for carrying seven people.

Going on what he told me (which I find somewhat hard to believe) I think that the people involved were in some way responsible for what happened through their own negligence.

I'm not arguing in his favour, I am trying to put myself in the same situation. If something similar like that happened to me and they didn't have their lights on AT ALL I would argue against liability. I find it strange that people would just say 'yep its all my fault'.

[Kumagoro]

The law states you have to have your lights on this is the point your missing, Wavy arms didn't, as such broke the law. His actions of standing in the road with no visibility equipment and having turned his lights off means he contributed to or indirectly caused the accident. Had he not been in the road, had he had his lights on in all likely hood I would expect it not to have happened. He didnt have a heart attack he chose to do what he did there is a difference which I thought was not hard to see.

There's nothing quite like a good discussion on a Sunday.

[herulach]

WE dont know if he might have had a dud battery, hence no lights, and the guy in the accident was because he swerved to avoid him.

Parked cars are a hazard, but theyre there, it doesnt matter whether it was anything to do with an accident, he could have parked to walk his dog. If you drive into a parked car its your fault. I find it hard to belive that you couldnt jus tmove into the other lane As said before no oncoming traffic = full beam, so he should easily have been able to see him. I can easily see far enough to emergency stop from 60 with the beam on on a straight road. (70m according to the highway code, but in actually probably more like 60 if youve got abs etc). More than likely he was having a chat/too busy swearing at the guy would been stood in the road.

[Saracen]

... Going on what he told me (which I find somewhat hard to believe) I think that the people involved were in some way responsible for what happened through their own negligence.

I'm not arguing in his favour, I am trying to put myself in the same situation. If something similar like that happened to me and they didn't have their lights on AT ALL I would argue against liability. I find it strange that people would just say 'yep its all my fault'.

I understand your point, and I agree that it may be that the other parties have some issues to answer .... like why lights weren't on. They may have been committing an offence .... and it certainly strikes me as stupid.

But as for actual liability for the accident your mate was in, I still see it as entirely down to him for the reasons given above, and that had he been doing a speed where he could stop within the range of his visibility (as he should have been, regardless of the nature of the obstruction), then no accident (to him) would have occurred, regardless of the actions or faults of anybody else.

Suppose he'd swerved round wavy arms man, and run over someone laying injured in the road right where the car he hit was? No, sorry, he was going too fast for his visibility.

What I do agree with you on, however, is that the account as given is thoroughly unconvincing. You say there were no bends, etc, and though there were no street lights, it was a straight road. Yet, he's only doing 45, but sees the wavy-arms man so late that he has to swerve round him? Sorry, but I find it hard to believe that if he was concentrating on driving, and only doing 45, that he would see a man standing in the middle of a clear, straight, unobstructed road waving his arms so late that he couldn't stop and had to serve at all? He should, after all, have been able to stop in what ... 150 feet? 10 or 12 car lengths? And he couldn't see that far, that he missed a bloke standing in the road waving his arms?

My guess would be that the situation, as explained to you, has been ... erm .... 'spun' in his favour.

[Saracen]

The law states you have to have your lights on this is the point your missing, Wavy arms didn't, as such broke the law. His actions of standing in the road with no visibility equipment and having turned his lights off means he contributed to or indirectly caused the accident. Had he not been in the road, had he had his lights on in all likely hood I would expect it not to have happened. He didnt have a heart attack he chose to do what he did there is a difference which I thought was not hard to see.

There's nothing quite like a good discussion on a Sunday.

I presume that refers to me. I'm not missing it at all. As I said, others may have committed offences too. But it doesn't change the simple fact that the driver either was going so fast that once he saw the obstruction he couldn't stop, or that he wasn't paying adequate attention, and didn't see the obstruction when he should have. Either way, it's his fault.

Lights or no lights, he should have been able to stop. And couldn't. That applies regardless of what the obstruction was, and whether it's lit, and I don't see any way round that.

Yeah, sure, wavy-arms man's lights (and hazards) probably should have been on, and (unless there's a reason), it's pretty stupid them not being on (if they weren't), but it doesn't change the simple fact that the driver has a duty to be doing a speed appropriate to circumstance and visibility, and wasn't.

[Butcher]

Highway code says you need side lights (for parking) and hazards (for an accident / breakdown). If Mr Wavy Arms stopped because of the accident, whether or not he was involved, he should have put both his hazards and side lights on.
Warnings triangles aren't a legal requirement, but their use is encouraged (except on motorways).

Also the higheway code specifically says never stand between your car and oncoming traffic and not to obstruct the view of your lights if you've broken down or had an accident. So Mr Wavy Arms was also wrong there.

If not for the 7 people thing, I think it could go either way. If it's an unlit road away from any houses then it's not reasonable to expect a person to be standing in the middle of the road. People are not very visible at all if they aren't wearing reflective clothing, even with full beams on. There's absolutely no reason for someone to ever stand in the path of oncoming traffic in the middle of nowhere.

[Andeh13]

The law states you have to have your lights on this is the point your missing, Wavy arms didn't, as such broke the law. His actions of standing in the road with no visibility equipment and having turned his lights off means he contributed to or indirectly caused the accident. Had he not been in the road, had he had his lights on in all likely hood I would expect it not to have happened. He didnt have a heart attack he chose to do what he did there is a difference which I thought was not hard to see.

There's nothing quite like a good discussion on a Sunday.

Exactly. If he was standing in the road(causing 'work mate' to swerve) then he directly contributed to the accident. If the car did have a dud battery(unlikely) then fair enough, all blame is on 'work mate'. However if the car did have working lights and they werent in use then it is that car drivers fault as side lights should be turned on when parking in a 30mph+ zone.


edit: Chances are the insurance company wont bother with any of it though, 7 people in a 5 people car will invalidate his insurance. Meaning the insurance company can just shrug and walk off without paying a penny.

[Saracen]

Exactly. If he was standing in the road(causing 'work mate' to swerve) then he directly contributed to the accident. If the car did have a dud battery(unlikely) then fair enough, all blame is on 'work mate'. However if the car did have working lights and they werent in use then it is that car drivers fault as side lights should be turned on when parking in a 30mph+ zone.

If 'work-mate' had been driving at a safe speed, he would have seen 'wavy-arms' and been able to stop without swerving at all. Wavy-arms could well have been, as the Highway Code requires, 'warning oncoming traffic'. We only have third-hand accounts for exactly where wavy-arms was standing, with "in the middle of the road" being rather vague and subjective.

edit: Chances are the insurance company wont bother with any of it though, 7 people in a 5 people car will invalidate his insurance. Meaning the insurance company can just shrug and walk off without paying a penny.

Indeed. As well as overloading your car being an offence carrying a fine of up to £5000, and if it was deemed to be dangerously overloaded (perhaps such as to obscure his visibility or distract his attention), then it could be dangerous driving as well, which could get him two years inside. Those are maximums, and aren't likely, but it does show the severity with which overloading can be seen by the authorities.

[SilentDeath]

The "work mate" is a idiot. Overloading a car with 7 people is beyond stupidity, and I really dont see why anyone would acctually want to be in an overloaded car unless its a bunch of 13 your old joyriders (in which case please do overload your car so when you crash you can reduce your population!)

I would like to ignore the fact he car was overloaded, that just complicates (or simplyfies?) the question, since the insurance company will probably invalidate the insurance, and we dont know the details of what could happen.. so pointless.

However back to the rest of the crash.. we all make some very stupid mistakes while driving, (most shortly after learning...) and its possible this was one of them (not the overloading!).

If I saw a wavy-arms bloke in the middle of the road, I would possibly judge its safer to avoid him by swerving, rather than try to stop in time. I dont have abs brakes so it would probably make me judge more to swerving. This would depend a LOT on distance. if you spot him far away enough, i would definatly move and slow slightly, rather than stop if I thought nothing was seriously wrong (like an accident) as I got closer.


I still think that most drivers, especially new drivers, are not taught how to handle emergency situations properly. You dont have time to think and in one off situations, with little experience of these situations, its *very* easy to do the wrong thing.
Also, you are definatly not shown how to properly correct (or feel!) under steer or anything - only told. When I passed last year my knowledge of controlling a car was steer into any spins, and with no abs keep pressing the pedal rapidly.... thats it (+ all the stuff for ice/cold weather...)

He probably saw the idiot, swerved, slowed down a bit - not yet seeing anything in front (which could be quite well hidden, we dont even know how far away it was), then looked back for a second to see why he was there and BANG.

Accidents happen and I think this is probably one of them. I cant see how overloading the car would have greatly affected the cars performance (unless it was over the fully loaded wieght limits, which I doubt considering we are talking about 150kg extra.. and the other people would have been quite small to fit the other 2 ), only that the 7 people (especially the extra 2) would have likely to been very seriously injured if there was a crash, or probably killed. With this in mind, its possible the insurance wont get out of paying up to the other motorists (if found liable) but cover will be reduced to the minimum required by law for "work mate" and everyone in the car.

"work mate" will almost definatly be fined, and or banned from driving/points and possibly jail, as said above. I read of another overloading-bad driving crash recently. I wouldnt be suprised if somone decided to make some examples in order to deter other people.



Is it possible for the quick reply box to scale with monitor res? I almost feel like im typing on a console with the box so small.



Thought I would add to my already veeeery long post with something 3/4 irrelevant.. but its 4am so now going to sleep...
Along my street is a slope on a right hand turn, with parking spaces. There is a lot of very bad parking, and a few weeks ago somone was parked on the corner of the right hand slope, sticking out (a LOT), sitting in the car with lights off (possibly just parked). I was driving very slowley (so slowley I was very bored) and misjudged his car, the side of my rear bumper lightly scraped his rear bumper. I got a dent (which sorta looks better, is not very noticable without studing both sides), he got a small bit of scuffed plastic. It was dark, we couldnt see the damage, and I gave him £30 for my stupidity.

[robbo]

what a mess.

from the insurance point of view the insurance company have a statutory duty to pay any third party injury claims. they do reserve the right to recover these amounts in certain circumstances.(this would probably be one)


good luck

[Kumagoro]

First off I agree silentdeath about the reply box that has been bothering me for ages it should be at least 20 words wide.
--
I briefly asked him about what happened again and I got a bit more detail he doesn't want to talk about it much.

The man was standing in the middle of the left hand lane between him (work colleague) and his (Mr Wavy) car.

He braked but couldn't be sure that he would have stopped in time so swerved around him. There was a truck on the right hand side which was involved in the accident. As such he had dipped his headlights down earlier.

Anyway,

Things happen no matter what speed you are going there is no such thing as a safe speed. If the road had caved in (if you live in bath) you wouldn't see it till you were in it.

A man wearing dark clothing will be very hard as to see in the dark he shouldn't have been in the road where he was, it says it explicitly in the highway code.

Do you really think you would definitely spot a man wearing black in the middle of your path and would be able to stop at 60 miles an hour?

--

I'm going to ask him about insurance stuff later and see what he says maybe in a week or two.

[eggman]

carrying too many people = not a leg to stand on

true

i always see chav cars loaded with a driver and thier 6 man crew. silly people

[pak000]

....He braked but couldn't be sure that he would have stopped in time so swerved around him. There was a truck on the right hand side which was involved in the accident. As such he had dipped his headlights down earlier.

So he saw a vehicle that was involved in the accident before the person in the road and instead of slowing down for the accident, he just dipped his lights and so was therefore not able to see the idiot in the road wearing dark clothing.

That makes it sound even worse! - why wasn't he already slowing down!

[Kumagoro]

No hazards on the truck.

[pak000]

but it had stopped and he saw it! it was a hazard on the road. if you see a lorry on a road thats stopped and blocking the lane (even the other lane) you have to consider whats going on.

Even if it wasn't an accident there could be other cars trying to pass it