Thoughts on accident, who's at fault?

T-Sil

Hi there

Hoping for some views on this please!
Last Thursday I was on a busy main road, waiting to turn left when a white van sped past on the inside (undercut me), and hit my car on the front left wheel/panel area.
There were two cyclists riding double across my turning so I couldn't pull all the way over, so I admit I was slightly in the middle of the road (however there are no road marking to suggest its a two lane road). I waited for them to pass, started to turn (very slowly, I was pretty much stationery). I checked my mirror, saw this white blur going fast so I breaked but he sped past me and hit my car.

I have attached an image to show you. I am the yellow car, the blue cars was traffic behind me and the red is the van and where he came from.

He said he didn't see I was indicating (I was) and that he was in the left hand lane, even though it's just one lane?
What do you think?

He was in such a rush to get going, it was only after he had gone that I saw the car that was behind me (also turning left) was also in the car park so I went over to ask him what he saw. he said he was a bit unsure what I was doing (I guess he didn't see I was waiting for the cyclists to pass), and he didn't notice my indicator but it looked to him that the white van undercut me, which is not allowed. So I took his details and hopefully he will be a witness.

Having spoken to my insurance comp, the lady there thought the road was a two lane road...even though it's not marked. I would really like some other thoughts, hope all this makes sense! Prob gona cost around £2k damage on my car...



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Thanks for any advice

Strider590

Not sure why you were positioned to the RH side of your lane, if turning left.....?

T-Sil

I would say I was middle to left of the lane, because there were two cyclists riding double width that I had spotted on approach to the turning..

Chimpofdoom

Tough one.. the straight ahead and right hand arrow would suggest it becomes two lanes.. and generally most people would perceive it to be two lanes.

But...

Until the marking appears, I would argue single carriage way (plus car parking area would suggest that too)

colino

You were so far over to the right that a van passed you on the left? Good luck on defending why you drove into the van.

neilmcl

T-Sil wrote: »

I would say I was middle to left of the lane, because there were two cyclists riding double width that I had spotted on approach to the turning..

Why did you not stay behind them until they'd passed the turning instead of putting yourself in an incorrect position?

Geodark

neilmcl wrote: »

Why did you not stay behind them and let them them pass the turning instead of putting yourself incorrect position?

Have to say that this is the first question that popped into my mind.

T-Sil

colino wrote: »

You were so far over to the right that a van passed you on the left? Good luck on defending why you drove into the van.

Actually he mounted the curb on the left hand side. He was going fast too. My car was literally rolling, I was hardly driving it because I saw him speeding up alongside me.

Because of the parked cars on the left, it is single file road then when space becomes available I guess you can then filter out, even though the road markings are not there until later on.

I am not trying to shy away from blame here, I think it was a mix of lots of different things on a very busy road. I just wanted to get an idea of others perception

scotsbob

neilmcl wrote: »

Why did you not stay behind them until they'd passed the turning instead of putting yourself in an incorrect position?

Also my thoughts exactly, you should have been on the left side of the road behind the cyclists and when they cleared the junction you would have turned left.

T-Sil

Geodark wrote: »

Have to say that this is the first question that popped into my mind.

Fair question and I honestly don't know...if you see on the photo, the distance from the end of the parked cars to the turning is very short and it was only when I was past the parked cars did I see them. Not giving very long to decide so i think I just slowed down, and moved over as much as I could..

neilmcl

I think there's enough doubt, and no witnesses, for this to go 50:50.