50/50 split liability?

Mike_A

Hi all,

Long time reader but first time poster. I'd like to ask some advice if I may...

I was involved in a minor road traffic accident recently. Just me in my car, other driver + passenger in the other. I am approaching a roundabout and come to a stop, and when looking around and to my right see no approaching vehicles. So I proceed, but not long after I'm on the roundabout I see the other vehicle approaching from my driver's side window. I brake heavily but am not able to avoid a collision, so the front right of my bumper collides with the front passenger door of the other vehicle. The other vehicle was travelling a good bit faster than me, and so my bumper scraped backwards along the doors.

We pulled over, ascertained that nobody was injured, and exchanged details. I also reported the incident to the police, as I'm paranoid about not doing stuff like that. It was night, so we said we'd assess the damage in the morning and go from there.

I spoke to my insurance company, as I have to declare any incident to them. The day after, I thought it was probably best to let the insurance companies deal with it, and I suggested that to the other driver, which he was fine with.

I then described the incident to my insurance company, and I tried to be as objective as possible (impossible, I know). They were very keen to work out what speed the other car was driving. I said I had no way of knowing, but that there was no car there when I entered the roundabout. They said it will most likely end up split liability, but the other drive could contest this. Turns out he has, or at least that's what he said when he phoned my insurance company to have a go at them about their/my version of events. I also got a series of texts basically accusing me of being dishonest (which I am not), at which point I suggested we not continue our conversation.

I'll be honest and say I have basically no experience of how these things work. I don't think I'm at fault, definitely not entirely. I appreciate that accidents happen, and I don't want the hassle of pushing the third party or going to court or anything like that. Besides, there were no witnesses (save for the passenger in the other vehicle), cameras or CCTV so I don't know how I could prove anything.

Any advice as to how to proceed, or knowledge of how these things can play out, would be very much appreciated.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

As you described it above it seems you would be held at fault, Failure to give way to you're right when approaching or entering a roundabout/Failure to give way to those already on the roundabout.

You have given your version of events to your insurers and they will now start the ball rolling on what needs to be established.


Put it to the back of your mind till you hear something from your insurers likely after Christmas now.

Aylesbury_Duck

You sound pragmatic and reasonable. As the other poster has suggested, leave it to the insurers. I'm afraid it may very well come to the point where you are deemed to be entirely at fault, but what's done is done. All you can do is what you have done, give an honest account of what happened. Don't respond to the other party's communication but do inform your insurer of any messages they send you. Accidents happen, there's no excuse for them being aggressive.

Mike_A

atrixblue.-MFR-. wrote: »

As you described it above it seems you would be held at fault, Failure to give way to you're right when approaching or entering a roundabout/Failure to give way to those already on the roundabout.

You have given your version of events to your insurers and they will now start the ball rolling on what needs to be established.


Put it to the back of your mind till you hear something from your insurers likely after Christmas now.

Thanks for the quick response, very much appreciated.

I think I may have mis-explained (or misunderstood). I've reworded it in a hope to clear that up.

To be clear, as I made sure it was safe to enter the roundabout, there were no cars to my right to whom I could give way, and neither was there anybody already on the roundabout. If that still means it's my fault then I guess that's that.

Aylesbury_Duck

Mike_A wrote: »

Thanks for the quick response, very much appreciated.

I think I may have mis-explained (or misunderstood). I've reworded it in a hope to clear that up.

To be clear, as I made sure it was safe to enter the roundabout, there were no cars to my right to whom I could give way, and neither was there anybody already on the roundabout. If that still means it's my fault then I guess that's that.

The problem you have is that the other party sounds like he is disputing that, and in the absence of dash cam footage or independent witnesses, the insurer will probably accept that you are to blame, having failed to give way. That may be unfair if the other driver was driving excessively fast or recklessly, but you cannot prove that. Even dashcam footage would probably not help, because it wouldn't show the other party until the collision happened.

Mike_A

Aylesbury_Duck wrote: »

The problem you have is that the other party sounds like he is disputing that, and in the absence of dash cam footage or independent witnesses, the insurer will probably accept that you are to blame, having failed to give way. That may be unfair if the other driver was driving excessively fast or recklessly, but you cannot prove that. Even dashcam footage would probably not help, because it wouldn't show the other party until the collision happened.

Ok, thank you. That sort of makes sense, but it also shows my lack of understanding of how assigning fault works.

I was under the impression that you needed witnesses/evidence of somebody being at fault. Much as I can't seemingly prove I'm not in the wrong, the other party can't prove that I am, and neither can they prove that they themselves are not in the wrong?

Without evidence, how can one assign blame? (This is largely why I said I wasn't going to fight for a total no-fault on my part, because I have neither witnesses nor evidence) Am I misunderstanding this? That was what my insurers said to me anyway...

Aylesbury_Duck

There's a difference between "real fault" and "assumed blame", the latter being what insurers have to do in the absence of independent evidence. Blame has to be assigned for insurance purposes and in the absence of independent evidence, they'll probably resort to the balance of probabilities and the Highway Code. For example, a front-to-rear collision will almost always be pinned on the driver behind. In your case, you entered a roundabout when traffic from the right had priority. In the majority of similar collisions, the drivers in your situation would be genuinely to blame, so that's what will probably be assumed in your situation, even if the other driver was speeding.

You can dispute it and it may yet end up as shared blame, but that won't help you. You will still have an at-fault accident on your insurance and will still have to pay your excess. Only if you are deemed to be blameless would you be able to declare it as a non-fault accident and not have to pay the excess for repairs to your car.

Mike_A

That’s really useful, thank you for taking the time.

If that’s what I’ve got to accept then that may be it, unless the insurers decide to split liability. I don’t like the idea of being officially “blamed” for something I don’t consider to be my fault (still my responsibility of course).

One last question then if I may - with regards to increasing insurance premiums, is there really no difference between partial fault and entirely-at-fault? I don’t want it to go up at all but it obviously will, I’m just trying to work out to what degree.

Marvel1

You have done right in replying saying not to bother im conversation, if they carry on block the number.

Aylesbury_Duck

Mike_A wrote: »

That’s really useful, thank you for taking the time.

If that’s what I’ve got to accept then that may be it, unless the insurers decide to split liability. I don’t like the idea of being officially “blamed” for something I don’t consider to be my fault (still my responsibility of course).

One last question then if I may - with regards to increasing insurance premiums, is there really no difference between partial fault and entirely-at-fault? I don’t want it to go up at all but it obviously will, I’m just trying to work out to what degree.

That will vary from insurer to insurer and is pretty difficult to ascertain. All you can really do is get some dummy quotes and see the effect of various hypothetical scenarios. Do you have NCB and Is your no claims bonus protected? If not, and if you are even held partially to blame, that will probably account for the largest part of any premium increase.

lister

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but experience and your description strongly suggests to me that you are at fault. Perhaps a google maps location would help to add clarity, but unless it was a very unusual roundabout, I'm struggling.

How long between checking it was safe and impact? 2 seconds, 3 seconds? If you consider that apart from very large major roundabouts, there are very few that are big enough to negotiate in excess of 30mph. So if we assume the 3rd party was doing 30mph, they would cover roughly 40m in 3 seconds, 8 car lengths. Was your view to the right greater than 8 car lengths? There are very few roundabouts with a shorter view than this.

Also a car at 30mph can stop in about 23m based on highway code distances (in other words, probably a good bit less if the driver is alert). So unless they were very close to you as you entered, even at 30mph approach speed on the roundabout a collision is very unlikely.

Where was this 3rd party to begin with, that they couldn't stop, you couldn't see them, yet at even rapid roundabout speeds could get to you in a few seconds?

Sounds like the kind of situation I see daily with my learners. Had one today, very confident driver (and full licence holder for a bike for some years, so knows his road craft). Approaches a roundabout, looks right, sees the second car approaching and decides he can get on ahead. Didn't see the first car - it was there to be seen, but he didn't see it or didn't realise where it was headed, either way without me there a collision would have been inevitable.

So unless you can demonstrate a highly compromised sightline on approach (extremely unusual at roundabouts, other than where idiotic road engineers feel the need to build baffles or hedges to deliberately block the view), then it feels to me like it has to be your fault. If there was an extremely compromised sightline, then you need to consider why you were entering without near continuous monitoring to your right as you proceeded, rather than suddenly becoming aware of the vehicle.

And a golden rule of road incidents (near misses or actual collisions), if you don't know where the other vehicle(s) came from, you weren't maintaining effective observation.