ACCIDENT! - you be the judgge.?

Question

Someone I know recently got in an ugly car accident. We reconstruced what happend with the following gif animation:

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/7194/accident0xx1.gif

and here are the actual cars:

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/9181/resultsov7.png

So who is at fault here?

Answer 1

the one going straight always has the right of way when they stop at the same time- not one that is turning infront of the car.

This is because the one turning left has to cross over the other lane of traffic. Same reason why if one person is turning right at a green light and someone from the opposite way is turning left into the same lane- the one turning left has to wait because it has to cross over the lane of traffic.

Answer 2

I'd say the red car, in the animation.

Answer 3

if its stop sign its the red cars faultbecause the red had to stop because the gold reached the stop sign first.

if its traffic light its the gold cars faul because red would've had right of way.

Answer 4

If it was a 4 way stop sign, then the red car is at fault because he reached the intersection after the yellow car. However if it was not an all way stop sign, then the yellow car was supposed to yield to the oncoming traffic.

That aside, how retarded are these drivers that they couldn't avoid such a silly collision? The red driver had a lot of time to slow down. The yellow driver should not have stayed behind hte line so long, although that's the "legal" thing to do. In the real world, people don't drive so passively. He needed to move up a little while waiting for the green car to go. That way the red car would have known in no uncertain terms that the yellow car was turning left.

Answer 5

the car that crosses the intersection is at fault. anyone turning left has to grant right of way.

Answer 6

the gold car unsafe lane change

Answer 7

A key bit of information is missing here.  Is the intersection controlled with lights, 4 way flashing, stop signs???   If it is controlled with trafic lights who had the red, green or amber light?  Is there a left turn light?  Not enough information.

Answer 8

The red car. At a 4-way stop sign each car has to wait for the other cars that arrived before it to pass. The red car did not allow the yellow car to do that. So, I would pin the blame squarely on the red car driver. Hope this helps.

Answer 9

the gold car, it turned in front of the red car, you have the right away when you are going straight.

thank you

Answer 10

Judging the actual photos, it looks like the red car had plenty of time to slow down or stop to prevent the accident considering it hit the rear end of the gold car.

Answer 11

I think the red car is at fault. If it actually arrived at the intersection after the yellow car, it should have waited for the yellow car to finish turning before it started.

However, it looks to me like the red car did not know the yellow car was turning, did the yellow car forget to signal? If the red car thought the yellow car was going straight, it was okay for it to go forward. If the yellow did not use their signal, I would say it is both their faults.

Answer 12

Red car.  Close call though.  General rules:

1.  FIFO.  First to the stop sign, First out.

2.  First in the intersection has the right of way

2.  Yield on Left turn.

3.  Last clear chance to avoid accident.

Here, the gold car was hit in the back.  It had nearly completed the turn.  It had a longer path and would generally be not accelerating as hard.

Further, it looks like the red car was going about ~15 mph.  The damage was significant and it gave the gold car a good hard knock.  To get that kind of speed, he either had to accelerate hard, roll through the stop sign, or ignore the stop sign.  Under any of those scenarios, he entered the intersection after the gold car.  

[You will note that on your film, you start the gold car first.  If you started them at the same time, it would look very funny because the red car would have to go very slow -- to slow to give such a knock]