Right turn on red - valid distance from corner?

Question

After a vehicle makes a right turn on a red light, and an oncoming car rear-ends the first car, how far from the intersection should the first car be in order to claim that it is established in the lane?

Are there rules or rules-of-thumb, either in car lengths or distance?

Answer 1

if you pulled out and got rear ended you did not have enough room to pull out. let the ins. co. sort it out. my guess is you will be partly to blame. there is a common misconception that the car running into the rear of another is always at fault no matter what. this is not the case.

Answer 2

Right turns always yield to oncoming traffic......

Answer 3

No rule of thumb...........you turned into oncoming traffic and this would be your fault.............

Answer 4

Agree with the 1st poster, no rule of thumb. You can, however, contest the belief that you were FULLY at fault. You'll have to go to court and provide proof of how fast the other car was going, how far it takes the other car to stop , how fast YOUR car can accelerate from a standing start (these are all standard performance figures you can find on the web, by the way) and how far from the intersect you were when you got rearended, you can claim that the other driver failed to avoid the accident... that he could have, reasonably, avoided the accident but failed to do so through his own actions. This will be especially effective if you can prove he was speeding at the time he hit you.

If you can do that, you can probably get off the hook, or (at least) not be hit with the full value of the repair bills.

What kind of car was the other guy driving and how fast was he going? Also, what kind of car were you driving? And lastly, how far from the turn were you hit (roughly)?

Answer 5

I think the car that turned on the red light is always in the wrong, no matter what the distance.

The obligation when turning right on a red is to proceed when absolutely clear of uncoming traffic.