Whos to blame car accident

AdrianC

tmckenzie wrote: »

https /ibb.co/nL3rQ5

Your car?

Let's see the damage to the other car.

DUTR

tmckenzie wrote: »

https /ibb.co/kaOmsk

Could you not have taken pictures at the scene?

Jackmydad

Reality is that collisions are rarely as clear cut as being 100% one parties' fault. You have to drive defensively. As if every other person is going to do something they shouldn't be doing, or something is going to be on the wrong side of the road around the next blind corner, or appear from where it shouldn't.

A mate of mine rode motorbikes, as did I back then. He had several collisions, one after the other, where the other party was 100% to blame. I said to him that although he might not be to blame, he was the one getting hurt, and that he wasn't paying enough attention himself to what could possibly happen. That car in the side road waiting to pull out might just go. . . "Right of way" is all very well, but if someone else ignores it, you don't want to collide with them.

tmckenzie

I dont get involved in many car crashs so unfortunately after dealing with the being shaken up feeling, Last thing on my mind was taking pictures my first concern was the health of my family and then the driver of the other car, Damn wish it didnt happen so much agro and stress for nothing, if i didnt break and he didnt try speed past i would of hit more to the front of his car rather than middle of their car
grrr so stressed out

lister

tmckenzie wrote: »

It honestly happend so quickly, I had literally 1 second to react, and i slammed the breaks on, instantly , the view infront is very limited especially how busy the road was at the time, Whatever will be will be but i really hope i am not to blame for this, If it could of been avoided it would of been especially with my children in the car i would never purposely put them at risk

You only reacting a second before impact (even if your time estimate is right, and in the heat of the action noone can be that precise), doesn't mean that was only a second to react in.

If you walk through on street view, you'll see that his entrance starts to become visible almost immediately after entry to the roundabout, and is fully visible from just as you begin to get level with the 1st exit. At that point you are over 30m (in a straight line - I haven't allowed for the curvature) from the second exit.

If from that point to the point of impact you averaged 25mph (not outrageous acceleration on that roundabout - I know it somewhat), it would take about 3 seconds from full vision to impact.

The official stopping distance at 30mph (in a 1960s Ford Anglia IIRC) is 23m, so a modern vehicle with a driver properly alert to the risks of a busy roundabout should be able to easily allow for the car entering from the left (unless it was some kind of supercar being given the beans).

To further break it down, the distance from the third parties entry to the point of impact is on the order of 17m. Even with very rapid acceleration from 0 or near 0mph, that should be a couple of seconds.

So I would ask again (and I am not being mean - it is my day job to make people understand how easy it is to go wrong on the road, and how simple it is to seriously reduce the risks), were you inattentive to the principle risks (for whatever reason) or travelling too fast to stop in the road which was clear (and could reasonably be expected to remain so?

EDIT: And experience of training drivers, both learners and experienced, suggests to me that the most likely thing is a combination. Once on the roundabout probably a little too much progress (I know the tendency for folks to indulge in the Chichester bypass drag race away from roundabouts) and and unthinking assumption that once established noone would pull on in front of you in the manner that they did - hence not really watching for the risk.

Inevitably after an accident (especially if in principle it was your 'priority' or 'right of way' - with all the caveats that entails) people always feel there was nothing they could do - it is human nature. They are almost always wrong. This feels to me, as Adrian has suggested above, that it was easily avoidable by simply slowing slightly - but only if you are aware of and alert to the risk of people entering unwisely from your left.

tmckenzie

i wasnt going too fast not excessively at all , As i said it was soo busy, Im just hoping where they cut across me they will be at fault from me coming from the right there are plenty of cars with speed coming round the corner but if there is a possibilty of not making the gap i would never take it, even with sport mode enabled

Jackmydad

I'd read the previous posts. You might not to be to blame, but you still have all the hassle of sorting this out.
If you'd been going a bit more cautiously , and seen the possible dangers you might well have avoided it.
If you look at people like emergency service drivers, they often drive thousands of miles a year, at much quicker speeds than normal. They have a lot less accidents than the general public because they are trained to see and assess the risks.
Unless you take an advanced driving course, you have to learn to assess the risks for yourself.
Nobody is getting at you, but as I said earlier the reality of collisions is rarely anyone being absolutely 100% to blame.

lister

tmckenzie wrote: »

i wasnt going too fast not excessively at all , As i said it was soo busy, Im just hoping where they cut across me they will be at fault from me coming from the right there are plenty of cars with speed coming round the corner but if there is a possibilty of not making the gap i would never take it, even with sport mode enabled

You've driven into someone cutting across you (however unwisely - and personally I am happy from your description it is essentially 'their bad' in modern parlance) on a busy roundabout. This is not a risk it is impossible to foresee - indeed it is pretty much on top of my roundabout risk list along with someone suddenly changing lanes without looking.

Were your speed, anticipation and observation adequate for the predictable risk? The presence of two mangled cars implies beyond any reasonable doubt that one or more weren't appropriate for the prevailing conditions and risks.

What I would ask my clients is: "What are you going to do differently next time?" (EDIT - because hopefully you will do something different in case the same thing happens again - once you have decided that, you'll understand what your weakness was this time).

EDIT: And perhaps a second question: Do you think that any driver entering the roundabout when you did, with the person pulling out when they did, would also have the same accident?

tmckenzie

Thank you for your input I definitely think if another car was in same position the same thing would of happens, I think the other driver got impatient and bored of waiting and decided to just pull Obviously a older man in his 70s has different judgments i think it was just the very busy roundabout that was the problem everybody hates waiting around and personally I think that extra lane on the round about just in front of the eastbound exit is dangerous , even the police said that at the time, I will keep the forum updated just fingers crossed next time I think I will be a lot more cautious and be more aware they say it takes something to happen to be aware of these things, I hope and pray they will be solely liable thank you

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

I will repeat my advice. I hope OP is fully comp. Do not admit anything.