I was in a minor accident who, is liable ?

shaydoc

Hi,
I was involved in a minor road accident outside my work earlier in the week.

It happen at about 16:23, my car was parked in a parking space in front on my office :

The image link is the following if you paste it into the address bar : 1drv.ms/1FZ7OXZ

I was in the car parked closest to the road behind the footpath,in marked office car parking space. I made my left turn to go down the the footpath at the corner to turn left up the side road. As I turned off the , I checked the main road in front of me was clear.

As I was about to turn left, suddenly from behind me on the main road a car came suddenly and braked rather hard and slowed quickly in the outside lane and turned left into the side road and manouevered around me, I hesitated and tried to move back, as I thought if I continued we would collide, as that car passed, I was unaware that coming directly behind him was a skip lorry who also made the left turn into the road from the outer left lane. I began to continue to move off as my nose was on the road and the arc of both of our turns cause a collision between my driver side wing/nose and a big steel ladder part just behind the skip lorry cab.

I have looked at CCTV footage and it shows the path of both vehicles coming up the outer left lane, I would suggest at higher speed than they should. As I had already began my move I thought that the fisrt car should have yielded to me as opposed to cutting out around me. His move bamboozled me and I didn't see the skip lorry coming straight behind him.

There was no damage to the skip lorry but, my driver side nose and wing is well damaged by the big steel ladder on his vehicle.

Do I have any sort of case in this situation ?

Cheers

Spicy_McHaggis

Sounds like you'll be at least partly liable.

Mav6215

The first car is irrelevent as you say there wasn't any impact with it but, as you were emerging into a road, I would say that you are at fault as you should have been aware of the lorry.

Unless there is an independent witness who could confirm whether the lorry was speeding or not using indicators I don't see how it would not be seen as you at fault.

martinsurrey

looks like your fault, the lorry had made his left turn and you emerged in front of him.

Also, you emerged over a none dipped curb on a corner, are those designated parking spaces with planning? looks to me like you've driven over the pavement, and pulled out in front of a lorry...

straighttalker

I'd say the onus would be on you to be aware of approaching vehicles prior to entering the carriageway. The parked area where you were coming from doesn't have a dropped kerb nor is it a minor road, you're technically just driving over a pavement to get onto the road. This maybe deemed as an illegal maneouvre.

In the circumstances, I would have thought that liability would attach to you.

shaydoc

martinsurrey wrote: »

looks like your fault, the lorry had made his left turn and you emerged in front of him.

Also, you emerged over a none dipped curb on a corner, are those designated parking spaces with planning? looks to me like you've driven over the pavement, and pulled out in front of a lorry...

The curb corner is actually dipped, I turned left into the dipped corner first and had my nose on the road, the first vehicle approached very fast and braked hard, then turn in on me, narrowly missing me. He was not stopping even though I was technically in his way.

shaydoc

martinsurrey wrote: »

looks like your fault, the lorry had made his left turn and you emerged in front of him.

Also, you emerged over a none dipped curb on a corner, are those designated parking spaces with planning? looks to me like you've driven over the pavement, and pulled out in front of a lorry...

My only issue with this, is that both vehicles approached and turned left, from the outer left lane of the main road as opposed to the inner left lane, they did not move into the left lane prior to turning left, this would not have help my viewing of things. Thanks for your views

Strider590

I have to agree that as a driver entering the carriageway, the responsibility for ensuring its clear does lie with you......

However, either the other driver was asleep OR he had the opportunity to avoid the collision and instead chose to barge through regardless. In which case, it can be said that his action or inaction was a contributing factor.

Now i'll no doubt get flamed for this by the monkey spanking experts, but i'll put this into perspective.......

If your driving down the road at 30mph and a pedestrian is crossing 200 yards ahead, where there is no crossing facility, and you choose not to slow down, but to drive instead straight into the pedestrian without even trying to slow/stop, you would be held accountable because you could have avoiding the accident EVEN THOUGH the pedestrian had walked out into the road and disregarded traffic.

So in the case of your incident, if the driver had the chance to prevent a collision and chose instead to bully his way past, then there is IMO a split liability.

harveybobbles

So your car was parked on the end of that row of cars?

You wanted to turn your car 180 degrees and go up the side road as if passing the silver Merc in the pic?

IF so, the skip lorry would have thought you were parked badly and didnt realise you were pulling out.

I personally would have stopped, but blasted my horn to tell you how much of a knob you were for doing such a silly and dangerous manouvure.

shaydoc

straighttalker wrote: »

I'd say the onus would be on you to be aware of approaching vehicles prior to entering the carriageway. The parked area where you were coming from doesn't have a dropped kerb nor is it a minor road, you're technically just driving over a pavement to get onto the road. This maybe deemed as an illegal maneouvre.

In the circumstances, I would have thought that liability would attach to you.

I entered the side street at the dipped curb first, hesitated due to being startled by a rather abrupt turn by vehicle from outer left lane as opposed to the inner left lane of the main road carriage way, if that makes sense, it all happened so quick after that unfortunately.

shaydoc

harveybobbles wrote: »

So your car was parked on the end of that row of cars?

You wanted to turn your car 180 degrees and go up the side road as if passing the silver Merc in the pic?

Yes, that is correct