Who was at fault?

The Merc driver should have made sure it was safe to pull out. Because the Nissan was forced to do an emergency stop, clearly the Merc driver failed to check the for traffic on the road before pulling out.

The Fiat driver should have left a safe distance between their car and the car in front (the Nissan). They are definitely at fault and responsible for any damage to the Nissan in my eyes.

In hindsight, the Nissan driver would probably have been better off just ploughing straight into the Merc.
 
500 is responsible.

Merc pulled out, big deal as stuff happens but no accident occurred as the primera driver was alert. The 500 must have been asleep as he should have seen the merc pull out at the same time as the primera and reacted accordingly
 
PobodY said:
I didn't think that was part of the witness statement; aren't you just supposed to give them the facts and let the police (or insurance) decide who's at fault?
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Westyfield2 said:
This.

I guess a witness statement is just writing the facts though, and insurance/plod decide the blame?
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I was instructed by Tesco Insurance to write down that I a) witnessed the accident, and b) who I thought was to blame.
 
500, if you go into the back of someone you are at fault.

I was following a chain of cars tonight, a "slow" driver at the front, with an fully stickered up ambulance car following it (mondeo I think) followed by a few others.

The ambulance was driving feet off the back of the front car, funny how other cars were driving a distance off until they realised it was an ambulance and not a police car, as soon as they realised they then started driving too close to the ambulance. This happened as people pulled off and got closer to the ambulance, I certainly thought it was apolice car until I got closer, i was thinking to myself those people are brave practiacally tailgating a police car until I got close enough to see the ambulance written on the rear bumper. I bet the slow driver had assumed it was a police car hence the fcat they were driving everywhere at 3-4mph below the speed limit (mix of 30/40/60)

The state of some peoples tailgating beggars belief with me at times.
 
rodenal said:
Cut and dry 500 for me

Merc shouldn't have encroached onto the main road, but made a mistake then stopped. Nissan driver was driving at appropriate speed and with enough awareness to stop in time, 500 did not. Fiat at fault
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CUt and dried to me also as above.
 
Haggisman said:
What if the nissan had swerved to avoid the merc instead of braking and crashed - still feel the merc has no responsibility?

Regardless of the fact that they weren't directly involved in the collision, it was still their inability to drive that instigated the chain of events leading up to the accident.
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In that scenario, no, the Nissan driver would have been in the wrong for not driving in such a manner to be able to react in a given situation.

As a driver, you have to read the road ahead, anticipate situations and drive accordingly.

The Nissan driver swerving into oncoming traffic in the scenario you describe would imply to me that he clearly was not driving in the manner I describe.

Whatever the chain of events leading upto the accident, the perceived cause of the accident the Merc driver, wasn't the one who had the accident.

I know of plenty of similar such accidents at my workplace where drivers have ended up having accidents due to the action of somebody or something else, they have been found to be at fault on each occasion I'm aware of.
Unfortunately, morals don't come into it.
 
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Scania said:
Whatever the chain of events leading upto the accident, the perceived cause of the accident the Merc driver, wasn't the one who had the accident.

I know of plenty of similar such accidents at my workplace where drivers have ended up having accidents due to the action of somebody or something else, they have been found to be at fault on each occasion I'm aware of.
Unfortunately, morals don't come into it.
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I'm not arguing with who would be found at fault, or the fact that morals (unfortunately) don't come into it, but there is a massive difference between insurance "fault" and actual fault ;)

Not sure how you can argue that it wasn't the actions of the merc that caused the accident?
 
div0 said:
Isn't that the definition of following too close?

That the driver didn't leave enough 'thinking' time to work out what the car in front was doing and then react accordingly.
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Not really, being too close to think and react accordingly is one thing, but being far enough away to think/react but make the wrong reaction is another. The are a large amount of rear impacts caused due to drivers "thinking" that the car in front is slowing so they only apply moderate breaking and by the time it dawns on them that the car in front is actually performing a complete stop and their not breaking hard enough its then too late to correct. This usually takes place on the approach to junctions like in the OP. (Again I'm not saying this is what happened just that it is a possibility).
 
C.O.A.S.T. (Concentration, Observation, Anticipation, Space and Time)

The above is a very simple acronym that if you use when driving you shouldn't get into any trouble.

The last two are pretty important. If you give yourself enough space to the car in front and enough time to react then you can't hit anything.





Unless some numpty pulls into your path
 
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i would say in principle the mercedes is at fault however the way insurance companies look at it, they will argue that the fiat was driving too close to the car in front and therefore is at fault.
 
Simon said:
500 is responsible.

Merc pulled out, big deal as stuff happens but no accident occurred as the primera driver was alert. The 500 must have been asleep as he should have seen the merc pull out at the same time as the primera and reacted accordingly
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That is the fundamental problem with a lot of drivers, they don't read the road ahead. Many look just beyond their bonnet and that's it, my wife is a prime example of that.
 
-westy- said:
Well if you consider that the Primera was performing an emergency stop but was caught short by hitting the Merc, then the distance available for the Fiat to stop was reduced - this could be considered critical to the possibility of the 500 hitting the Primera.
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Having someone pull out immediately in front of you cannot be compensated by leaving a larger gap to the car in front. The distance available for the Fiat to stop could be 0m to anything tending towards miles, it was the Fiats driver choice to drive too close. The Nissan driver had no such choice.
 
As others have said probably by the insurer's point of view it is the fiat 500 driver's fault. Which is probably true as they were too close to stop safely.

That said you don't expect someone to pull an emergency stop in front of you (which was caused by a careless mercedes driver). I'd say it would be easier for the primera driver to react (they can see the merc driver overshooting the line / going to fast), I doubt the fiat 500 driver would see this so would have less time to react, but they were almost certainly too close.

If I were a witness to such an accident and giving a statement as I think the moral responsibility (and original cause of the fault) lies with the merc driver that would be who I would be blaming. Whether that was actually the result is another matter as technically the fiat 500 driver was the only car that hit another.

On the other issue I'm reasonably sure the mercedes driver 'could' be done for careless driving, significantly overshooting a give way line and essentially causing an accident is careless driving (but then so is driving too close and hitting another car like the fiat 500 did).
 
Orion21 said:
That said you don't expect someone to pull an emergency stop in front of you.
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The whole point is that you should be driving at all times with the view that YOU may need to make an emergency stop. Whatever the reason.

One of the big problems with driving too close is it severly restricts your visibility around the vehicle in front, drop back a bit and its surprising how much more you can see in front of that vehicle, especially if its a van or lorry or similar.
 
would have been no accident if the 500 wasnt there. you could take away the merc and replace it with the primera having to do an emergency stop or even just stopping for the sake of stopping

if the primera had hit the merc then id blame the merc but the primera managed to avoid this and move onto the next turn of events which was being rear ended by someone driving too close or not carefully enough

blaming the merc is just a tailgaters excuse that thankfully wont hold up legally
 
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