ugh i hate stupid drivers, almost wrecked SC

so after a day of graduation, and a dinner party and swimming at the pool at my parents hotel, i make the long drive (1.5 miles) back to my apartment....

well on the way back im driving down the side road for 1 block before i turn onto my apartment road (i go for a block)

and i see no oncoming cars, so i signal, and take a moving turn...... then as im halfway through the turn, i see it, a neon driving with only his parking lights on (its a dim lit street so i didnt see the parking lights or the car since he wasnt under a light)

anyway, i see him, give it some gas, he slows down, and missed me, but it was close, had he been some kid who wouldnt have given a rats ***, he could have hit me.....

hypothetical legal question........ its night, you turn in front of someone who has no headlights on, and they hit you, your fault or theirs?

crappy

I think if you went into the books, it would mostly your fault.... personally i dont think it's right. I mean he wouldve been wrong for driving without his lights on, but in the books, it would probably show to be mostly your fault because you are the one who is crossing through "traffic" where he is not. sucks to be like that, but that would be my guess as what it would be. Glad to hear nothing happened though! im sure you'll ALWAYS looks about 5 times now before turning there at night again. lol. go find him and race him
-Damon

After dark, He would be listed as "Party One", at least in California. He was operating a car illegally, since he was driving without proper illumination. His bad.

If you were driving over the speed limit, or DUI, or whatever, you would also be listed as at least partially to blame.

BTW, The stats are that about one out of every three cars stopped for driving at night without lights on has a drunk behind the wheel. Dude would've cared, but he was probably drunk!

nope i was going about 20-25mph in a 30 zone, on a side street, with my turn signal on... only thing possibly illegal i did was i cut the corner turning (ie didnt stop and then turn) but then again, that was because i didnt see any traffic.... and there was no traffic on the side street so i wasnt cutting osmeone off there by cutting a close corner.

oh and one more thing, i had my headlights on...

Yeah, unless there was a stop sign at the turn (Which he would've probably been running as well) , his fault all the way. Always a gamble getting t-boned though. you could've been hurt, and your SC totaled.

Besides, you know what they say; Never let anything cheaper then a Mercedes hit you on purpose. I'm still waiting to get hit by a Ferrari.


KA Ching!

ok let me rephrase that a bit..... he and i were on the same road heading twords each other.... i turned left onto the side street in front of him.... didnt see him because of his lack of headlights (i dont think his lights were on upstairs at the time either)

neither of us had a stopsign or a light or anything...

so under normal circumstances it would have been my fault for failing to yield to him, but i didnt see him because he didnt have his lights on... thats why im questioning whos fault it would be.

hmm..

Your fault, plain and simple. Aren't you in michigan like me? It doesn't matter if he was running down the road driving backwards, no tires, no brakes, and blindfolded. Its still your fault. You turned in front of him where technically he has the right of way and you have to wait for him. It sucks, but we gotta live with it

no im in indiana.

Re: hmm..

91BLOWNSC said:

Your fault, plain and simple. Aren't you in michigan like me? It doesn't matter if he was running down the road driving backwards, no tires, no brakes, and blindfolded. Its still your fault. You turned in front of him where technically he has the right of way and you have to wait for him. It sucks, but we gotta live with it

Click to expand...

Yeah, except that in pretty much any state, failure to yield is dependant on circumstance. If the other guy cannot physically be seen because he is driving illegally with his headlights off, he is party one. My neighbor was hit during a left hand turn when a driver coming from the opposite direction passed a school bus (Turning in front of my neighbor) by swerving into the bike lane and passing on the right. The other driver paid.

Michigan Law

In Michigan...You must have your headlights on 30 minutes after sunset and 30 minutes prior to sunrise. Failure to have headlights on is a civil infraction. But there can be arguments for both sides. Both were wrong......both could end up with citations. You do forfiet the right of way if traveling in an unlawfull speed. Uniform Traffic Code 28.1441 Sec.
5.41.
Parking lights don't count as lights....They must illuminate to see 500 feet ahead on a flat level surface. MI. Motor Vehicle Code 257.684

do you mean my 20-25mph on a 30 zone being unlawful.... i have to disagree with you there....

the road i was on, i turned right onto at a light, thus i was stopped.... then went over 2 railroad tracks which are bumpy so i had to take them slow, and my turn was only about 50 feet after the tracks, no sense in speeding up and then slowing back down...


i dont know how fast the other guy was going, i just know i didnt see his dumbass cause he might have been going kind of fast, and his little parking lights werent big enough for me to see very far away. oh and this happened at like 9:30 pm at night, long after sunset. it was night black out.

Geez, if I put this much effort into this board about my daily life, we'd need another host.

lol, i was just curious......

these boards arent totally my life, well um, not this one, lol.

if you are making a left turn you are at fault no matter what. Doesn't matter if he ran a red light you would still be at fault. Just a thought, but maybe you would have seen his parking lights had you stopped to look.

i did look before i made the turn, i did not see him, he wasnt close enough to me for me to see his little *** parking lights..... remember it was dark, but the road had some street lights that distracted from seeing anything dark coming from that direction.. if it was pitch black i probably would have seen them, but sincei t wasnt i needed to see his headlights.

moral to all this taken from short circuit

"you know what many people are liking at night?"
"no what?"
"HEADLIGHTS!"

Minnesota is a no Fault state. What that typically means is that it's everybody's falt.

I would think you could get tagged for failure to yield. He could get tagged for driving after dark without headlights. The rest of it would be up to the insurance companies.

One would think your headlights would have illuminated him, but headlights are adjusted with a bias towards the right side of the road, not the left.

I've seen more close calls like that in daylight. People get impatient and can't either determine range, or speed very well and will just turn right in front of a car that may be traveling 55mph.

I almost got into two accidents on Friday. In one, I was turning left in the outer lane of a two left turn lane road. In the left turn lane was a 22 foot straight truck. When turning with a green arrow, the straight truck tried to take the turn wide to switch into the right lane. Exactly where I was!!! My ranger had just enough oomph to pull ahead at the last second. The car behind me slammed on his brakes.

On the way home I was crusing at 45mph when I saw a pair of motorcyles waiting to turn right on to the same road I was on. I was about 500 yards from them when the driver of one motor cycle decided to get in front of me on the road. Fine, it's a motorcycle, it should be able to get up to speed rapidly. But the driver didn't speed up. I had to slam on the brakes and switch into the left lane to avoid hitting him. Yikes! Then he and his co-hort hassled traffic behind me. I saw them cut across two lanes right in front of another car going the other direction. I got the impression they were new to driving cycles.

My brother had a bad accident related to a left turn. Driving a 1978 VW Scirocco (a very fun car) he was following a car on a 2 lane country road at 50. The speed limit was 55, and tired of going slow he decided to pass the person. Bad choice. The gal driving the car in front decided to turn left at the same time he pulled out to pass. He swerved to miss her, clipped the front corner of her car, and launched his car off the side of the road. There was a deep gulley, that he flew over, clipping off the street sign post, and landing about 200 yards past the corner where the incident began. His car literally split in half at the driver's seat. The floor gave way. The driver of the other car spun around 3 times (on it's tires) and came to a stop with only minor damage. His car was totaled and he was tagged for failure to yield. He's about 6'2" so was wedged into that VW already, so his biggest problem was bruised knees from hitting the dash. He got lucky. (My younger brother didn't get lucky, fell asleep at the wheel, hit a telephone pole at 50mph, totalling the car, breaking his shoulder, leg, and getting his face wired back together.)

Mike, so your brother was passing on an intersection?

Passing as he came to an T in the road. He was on the through part of the road with a left turn availble onto a dirt road, that lead to a single home driveway.

So he was on a two lane paved rural road. For him the issue became that she didn't use her turn signals. She said she did. When the cop checked, her turn signal was functional.

So while he was attempting to pass they were coming upon an intersection.

When I look at it, it was his failure. He had a car driving below the posted speed on an open road in front of him. He had a residence coming up on the left. Personally I would make an assumption that the person may be preparing to turn, regardless of if they have turn signals on or not. I think my brother is much more aware of the road now than he was then.