Almost got into car accident. Tell me who would be at fault.

[Anonymous]

Location: busy side residential street, close to businesses. 2-3hour street parking.

Car 1: Parked on the right side, legally. A few feet before the start of a driveway. Car proceeds to exit the street parking spot to proceed straight on street (fully clear in their direction, but does not signal that they are entering the street).

Car 2: Driving straight in the opposite direction. Turns into aforementioned driveway with no signal, and no stopping or slowing.

Accident almost ensues as Car 1 exits street parking and Car 2 turns into driveway. Nobody signaled - but if a collision occurred, who would be at fault?

[Anonymous]

Car 2

[Anonymous]

Tough one. Car 2 was making a left, so normally they have to yield, but Car 1 may not have yet been in the lane of travel, so Car 1 should yield to all traffic on the road itself.

[Anonymous]

Car 2 in your scenario.

I am often in car 2's place, but in my location I have the right of way because the cars coming from the opposite direction have a stop sign. Occasionally one of them doesn't stop, and if we ever collided, they would be at fault.

[Anonymous]

Car 1 needed to yield to all cars already in motion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tough one. Car 2 was making a left, so normally they have to yield, but Car 1 may not have yet been in the lane of travel, so Car 1 should yield to all traffic on the road itself.

This, though I think Car 1 needed to yield.

And everyone needs to learn how to use their signals. This is exactly what they are for.

[Anonymous]

Something very similar happened to me awhile ago and I thought it was a tough call but the insurance company did not -- Car 2.

[Anonymous]

always yield to car in motion

[Anonymous]

They would share the liability. Not every case is fully on one party or the other.

[Anonymous]

Once car 1 became in motion and was moving in the direction of lane, car 2 needed to yield as it was crossing in front of oncoming traffic (car1) in order to pull into driveway. Since car 1 was never really able to travel in lane, ambiguity cannot be fully cleared for either driver. No fault sounds like the result to me.

[Anonymous]

Lucky. Take it as a lesson learned today. This stuff happens all the time. Bummer no matter who caused an accident.

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys. Yes, thankfully no accident occurred. Would it matter if there were a double yellow line in between the lane directions?

[Anonymous]

The signals don’t make a difference to who is at fault, interestingly enough.

[Anonymous]

Car 2 is at fault as they are crossing the traffic lane and must yield to all vehicles. It’s not relevant when car one got into the traffic lane, he’s still considered all traffic

[Anonymous]

This is why you need camera a lot of stupid drivers, mostly from Maryland