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right of way - 4 way intersection- update- salvage title y/n?
mehmehmeh
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So my brother got in a minor car accident, no one was injured. The other driver, represented by the brown arrow, holds my brother at fault. My brother is represented by the blue arrow in this beautiful diagram.
the setting:
4 way intersection, with two stop signs, cross traffic does not stop.
brown car pulls up to intersection first, or just slightly ahead of the time blue car comes to stop at the intersection. Brown car may or may not have it's left turn signal on.
Both cars wait for clearing in cross traffic
Both cars simultaneously make their moves, resulting in the brown car hitting the blue car on the drivers side rear door/rear tire.
our DMV driving manual says
I read this as a car turning left must always yield regardless of the order the cars arrive at the intersection. But I remember in driver's ed you should try and go by order of arrival, I assume that this is more of a courtesy vs law then? So who is at fault in this accident?
also this happened in minneapolis, MN, MN is a no fault state but i've read differing things about this only applying to medical injuries rather than damage to the vehicles.
the setting:
4 way intersection, with two stop signs, cross traffic does not stop.
brown car pulls up to intersection first, or just slightly ahead of the time blue car comes to stop at the intersection. Brown car may or may not have it's left turn signal on.
Both cars wait for clearing in cross traffic
Both cars simultaneously make their moves, resulting in the brown car hitting the blue car on the drivers side rear door/rear tire.
our DMV driving manual says
•When two vehicles reach an intersection at the same time, and
there is no traffic light or signal, the driver of the vehicle on the
left must yield to the vehicle on the right.
• When two vehicles reach an intersection at the same time,
and all-way stop signs or flashing red traffic lights control
the intersection, the driver on the left must yield right of way
to the driver on the right.
• A driver who wishes to make a left turn must yield to vehicles
approaching from the opposite direction when these vehicles are
in the intersection or are near enough to pose the risk of a crash.
I read this as a car turning left must always yield regardless of the order the cars arrive at the intersection. But I remember in driver's ed you should try and go by order of arrival, I assume that this is more of a courtesy vs law then? So who is at fault in this accident?
also this happened in minneapolis, MN, MN is a no fault state but i've read differing things about this only applying to medical injuries rather than damage to the vehicles.
mehmehmeh on
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You're going to need to clear up this "May or may not have had its turn signal on thing" though.
edit: So maybe I'm mistaken since three people above me disagree with my view, but I was under the impression that the getting there first no longer matters if you have to wait for crossing traffic since this isn't a four way stop.
Edit: I didn't even realize this wasn't a 4-way stop. Yah, who got there first seems irrelevant to me in this case, these cars aren't BOTH traveling straight and therefore don't need the rules to accommodate who gets to go straight first. The car that is turning yields to the cars that are going straight. That's my understanding of it, and that seems backed up by his quote from the book
It's the same justification as the "hitting a car from behind is always at fault, almost irregardless of the situation, because you should've left enough space"; basically any time you're making a non-protected (i.e., non green arrow) left turn, you have to yield to other traffic. Otherwise it turns into a he-said she-said of "I stopped at the intersection .2 seconds before they did, therefore it's completely their fault!" which is unresolvable without a camera at every intersection.
As soon as they both went at about the same time, the car going straight could either go faster or stop, and it wouldn't be obvious to the driver which, if either, of those choices would avert a wreck. The turning driver had plenty of time to see it coming and his choice was obvious (STOP!) so he either wasn't paying attention (and is in NO position then to be saying who got there first) or was being a jerk and driving aggressively.
Edit: To clarify, just because you have the right of way, you aren't allowed to just blindly ram into a car, you're usually legally obligated to avoid a wreck, if possible.
Based on the rules, for that matter, even if the first two points do apply, the turner still yields and the blue car has right of way - the "who got there first" rule isn't in writing, it's a "don't be a dick" rule, just a courtesy people pay one another. And you always assume the other driver is going to be a dick - because when he is and you hit him, you're at fault.
Also, what John Matrix said. When there's any doubt, and I don't see much here, the circumstances of the collision itself are also relevant. If things were a bit different and the blue car hit the brown car in the side, things would look different - the brown car would have been well into its turn before the blue car entered the intersection in that case.
it does not matter what the driver of the brown car says, the insurance company and the police will hold him at fault.
Unless you know the guy ran a light and t-bones the everloving crap out of you. True story I once had a buick in my passenger seat it wasn't fun.
Its really his word vs the other drivers word, I could see it going either way unless the guy didn't have his turn signal on.
But as your saying its the rear of the vehicle that was hit my thoughts are (and they don't mean squat) that the driver making the turn was at fault. He had to travel farther and unless he was cutting the turn (which it would seem he wasn't) should have been paying enough attention to avoid/slow/stop for the accident to be avoided. Around here at a two way stop oncoming traffic has the right away unless your waved through.
This. When I was testing to get my license, I was nearly rear-ended by another driver after I hesitated to stop at a yellow and ended up braking hard. The DMV-rep sitting in wasn't too impressed but didn't fail me on the spot and told me that it is very difficult to get rear-ended and end up at fault. She then said that another similar situation is making a left turn, except it's the opposite - there is almost no way to get in an accident while making an unprotected left turn and not be at fault.
Reality - Brown car at fault as he had the ability to avoid the accident if he was paying attention to the fact that there was now a car in the way of him turning. Avoiding an accident should always take precedence over having right of way.
This.
While he has the right of way, right of way does not basically give you the right to ram someone because olol I got there first. Dude in the brown, like others have been saying, is liable for the damage because all he had to do was not be a dick.
I mean like, not even half a second of wait time was really worth getting into an accident for? What the fuck dude.
IMO, right of way really only applies to "I've been here for 15 minutes and you're an asshole who didn't yield." Not really "I GOT HERE .0000002 SECONDS BEFORE YOU DID YOU DICKNUT!"
If your brother is being pegged by the other as being at fault I would turn it around and peg the fault on the other guy. I feel this does not admit fault if there is no need to, and he may be able to argue and let some higher authority make the "proper" decision.
Furthermore was there a police report filed?
In my opinion I feel the brown car is at fault based on point #3. He failed to yield before crossing traffic. If this occurred at a intersection where both had no stop then it would be the fault of the brown car. How is this that much different.
True, but this guy is still probably liable. Why the shit would you hit someone because you got there first? I will never get people, I guess.
approaching from the opposite direction when these vehicles are
in the intersection or are near enough to pose the risk of a crash.
In my experience in driving, if you're making a left turn you should wait until oncoming traffic has either completely passed, or is far away to not cause an issue. In this case oncoming traffic was close enough to make pose a risk and the brown car took the turn anyway. In my opinion it's his fault.
I'm pretty sure left turns without exceptions require the person making the turn to make sure oncoming traffic isn't posing a risk.
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However, i got rear ended and my insurance "enrolled me in a new plan" which raised my rates. I quickly dropped them like it was hot.
I'd be interested to see a reference for the "book" that declares otherwise.
Brown car is being held 100% at fault
Our insurance company wants to total the blue car and pay us blue book value for it. Anyone know how a salvage sale works (where you buy the totaled car back from the insurance company) ? The doors still close and it seems drivable. We still need to get the axel and other guts looked at to make sure the cars is still safe and not slowly destroying itself. assuming it is still safe or cheap enough to fix to "safe but dented" condition is a salvage sale a good idea?
It's excellent to hear that the other driver was found at fault here. I recently had my 2005 srt4 totalled in a very similar accident(only I was turning right instead of going straight and the guy smashed the entire rear left quarter of my car), and I love the car, so I decided to keep it.
What I ended up doing was simply approaching my insurance agent about it, and they went into the bulk of the details, I ended up getting about a grand in cash on top of the wreck, not really financially wise, but like I said, I love the car, and will be fixing the damage by hand.
Just know this for a fact, it's going to sell and insure for peanuts now that it's a salvage title, so I'd only recommend it if your brother is actually attached to the car.
We purchased it for a bit under blue book value so as long as the salvage purchase price and necessary repair costs are low we could come out ahead on this. But as of right now we don't know the extend of the damage or what the salvage purchase price would be.
I got another $1,000 from them after sending receipts for recent brake work and new tires. Still got screwed, but less so.
Ask if you can get a copy of that estimate. Sit down and figure out what needs to be done to make it driveable, as opposed to return it to its pre-accident condition, then figure out if you can do that work yourself and how much it's realistically going to cost (in time, money, or both).