Who would have been at fault.

EDIT: Sorry if this is in the wrong section or something, but I'm a little rattled.

I almost got in an accident tonight and wanted to make sure I wasn't the one being an idiot.

Ok, so I'm driving down the access road that goes to all the parking lots. I don't have a stop sign. Neither does the guy coming from the parking lot. I'm doing 15. He's doing a bare minimum of 25, probable closer to 30. He doesn't stop coming out of the parking lot. Once I realized he wasn't going to I slam on my breaks.

The access road is well illuminated, but the parking lot isn't.

In this case, I did manage to stop before hitting him. Only by about 18 inches or so, but I did stop. He wasn't able to. He was half way out into the road before he could. It's two lanes.

If I hadn't been able to stop for some reason, would I have been at fault or would he have been? My understanding is that if you are exiting a parking lot onto any kind of road whoever is on the road has the right of way.

I hope some of the law enforcement guys here will weigh in.

 

Yeah I think you had the right of way, free moving traffic.

 

just trying to picture in my head the scenario i would say he woulda been at fault. you were traveling straight where as he would have had to turn meaning, he needs to stop to make sure traffic is clear before entering said access road that you are traveling.

 

Yea if your going straight you have the right of way in that situation.

 

Please post a picture of the google maps satellite view of this parking lot & street. Please put marks where the 2 vehicles were heading.

 

His fault. He needs to stop for moving traffic.

 

Would have been his fault. Did you need a new bumper??

 

Define 'access road'......?

Does the 'access road' have a street name? If not, then its questionable whether its the 'right of way' situation.

What's the speed limit of the access road/parking lot? If he was speeding, might be enough to cause fault on his behalf.

 

i say you would not have been at fault. he was turning onto your road of travel. therefore he has to yield to you.

 

No posted speed limit. This is an old mall, so "access road" means a two lane road with no name that wraps around 3 sides of the build and provides access to the various parking lots.

Thank you for asking for this. There was something screwy about this near accident that I couldn't put my finger on. When I started plotting the vehicle paths though it cleared up. He was in the left lane.

Paths start,as near as I can remember, at the point I noticed him moving. His is red, mine is blue. The colors lighten at the point where I was sure he wasn't going to stop and slammed on my breaks. Really glad I replaced them when I got my truck now. The yellow outlined area is a slope. The black dotted part of the lines is where he should have been able to see me. I've driven in that parking lot in a grande prix and the height of his car looks about the same. The entrance to parking lot he is coming out of slopes upward to meet the access road. Only a couple feet though.



What I now realize is that, since he bypassed all the speed bumps and was in the left lane, he was to close to the slope during the critical point where he should be decelerating to stop for traffic to see me. I was up on the slope so I could see him the whole time. By the time he could see me it was to late for him to stop. He couldn't tell I was there by light reflection on the road because of the excellent light coming off the side of the parking structure on the right.

So basically he did a suicide turn. He was going to fast to stop and there was no way he could see if there was traffic.

Definitely not my fault if I had hit him then. Still glad I didn't.

 

yeh def. would have been his fault

 

Roads > Parking lots

 

I'd much rather stop than take the chance the the other guy won't. They may not have insurance.

 

I don't know about the laws in CO....but here in NM....if there's no stop sign or not....you still must make a complete stop when exiting a parking lot.

 

But that's not an "intersection" It's an access from a private lot to a public road.

If you hit him broad side- It would probably be some apportioned blame. He'd be mostly at fault but depending on where you hit him and speeds involved you could be assigned some blame too.
If you hit him in the rear or side in the back end- you might be found more at fault...If you clipped his front end- Maybe not at fault at all. But those are all legal technicalities for the insurance companies to fight about.

For the most part-I'd say he was to blame and either way- you made the right reaction by stopping, even if he was in the wrong. Insurance is great- IF something happens. But avoiding the situation all together is FAR better.

 

I'm pretty sure he would have been. Glad you were able to stop and avoid an accident.

Where are our law enforcement folks? I'd like to see what their response is....

 

I took out some guys Datsun pick up with my 65 Oldsmobile once in the same situation. He tried to sue me, and I won. I had the right of way, it was his duty as a driver to check for oncoming traffic before pulling out. The funny part was that I didn't care about the damage to my car, it was a beater but he got all upset claiming it was my fault. By the time it was done he ended up paying me more for the damage to my car than the car was worth. I think he paid me $700 for a car I paid $100 for.

 

Honestly- LEO's don't decide or adjudge blame.

They just write a report. It'll have a little diagram of the intersection or road with 'X' and 'O' and direction of travel arrows and a narrative.
The insurance companies use that info to fight between themselves who is at fault...

Their insight into the situation is still helpful- but even their opinions/impressions could be different than the final result.

 

In Texas, traffic laws do not exist in parking lots and private drives. There would be no ticket. The at fault unit is always unit 1, unless its a commercial vehicle, then its unit 1. So yes, in a way we assign at fault but the insurance companies would have figured out who pays what themselves. If there was under $1000 in damage to both vehicles, most officers are not going to write a report in that situation and will just have you do a blue form (driver accident report) but that just gives you a wreck on your record with no advantage... better off just reporting it to your insurance company and the other driver's insurance.