Mrs had a car accident

[div0]

Why would the council make it so wide if not to fit two cars?

Probably so that large vehicles have enough room to safely negotiate the junction and join a faster moving dual carriageway.

I understand that at this sort of junction it is common courtesy for drivers crossing the dual carriageway (straight on, or turning right), to position themselves to the right, allowing other drivers to pass and turn left.

No-one is debating that, in fact most people will have been in a situation where they've done similar to your wife and moved past on the inside.

What people are saying is:

a) the vehicle in question was a large vehicle (larger than a car), so more caution should have been applied. A more defensive driving style would have avoided this accident.

b) even if 'everyone does it', doesn't mean you can expect to be blameless.

No-one here can give you a firm answer on how this will go, all we can give is our opinions. It may end up that the van is found at fault and you can come back here and tell us all how we got it wrong. But all we have to go on is your explanation of the events, and from what you've told us, most people seem to be in agreement that at best your wife was at least partially at fault.

 

[MooMoo444]

If it's single lane and he wasn't indicating, then she should have stayed well clear.

If she was infront of the van upon reaching the junction, which I've still not managed to work out, then she has a right to be livid, but without witness then it's simply a case of tough.

 

[Orangest]

Your biggest problem in this thread, the story and diagrams as to the van's position keep changing with each post (There's another picture in your photobucket album with the car and van side by side).

In the most recent one the van is so far back from the junction it makes it irrelevant, he's just driven up and crashed straight into your wife.

I'd say the only chance is to slap a few signs on nearby lamp posts asking for any witnesses to an accident, as anyone walking past at 8:45 was likely on their way to work/dropping kids at school etc. so may walk it regularly. Hopefully they'd corroborate your wife's account.

 

[Rainmaker]

road markings or road users are clearly wrong there!
there's a big arrow pointing to turn right off the dual carriageway but then there's a car sitting in the middle of it going the opposite way on the streetview - imagine someone coming off the dual carriageway to turn right there, ridiculous

This was brought up by me earlier, and you're right. Looking at the streetview there's a sign directly facing the junction for people turning right, though as pointed out the road markings don't allow for it. The two 'right turn' boxes for traffic already on the DC should be shorter with an 'island' box in the middle for traffic emerging to turn right ONTO the DC. Else, it should be no right turn. That doesn't change the facts of the accident, however.

Your description says your Mrs thought he was going to park on Whinney Lane, but if this diagram is correct it is clear he wasn't going to park at all, unless he intended to reverse back up the lane some distance.

Indeed.

 

[Maundie]

My uncle had a similar accident a couple of years ago, was in the middle of the road with his right hand indicator on to turn onto my Grans drive, when he got there he saw a car already on the drive so turned his indicator off and moved left hitting the car on the inside, now I would've said the fault laid soley with my uncle for his direction change without looking but for some reason the insurance companies agreed it was the fault of the chap 'under-cutting' him as it was a 1 lane road and he should've waited behind until my uncle had made his moved 1 way or the other!!

 

[~Divine~Wind~]

At that dual carriage way you can go straight, left or right. If you want to go straight or right you go across into the middle bit, it's on the satellite view.Everyone at this junction stays left of the single lane of Whinney Lane to turn left, right of the single lane to go straight or right... it's just the said thing especially when Whinney Lane is really wide here so it can take two cars side by side in the single lane. People do this so if they are turning right but cant at least the people behind wanting to go left can get through and turn left. This is a common practice everywhere.

When turning right on a street don't you manoeuvre your car to the right a bit to let the cars behind you pass you on the left?

Yep you can turn right, you have to go into he central reservation bit.

Surely, you need to turn left first into the carriageway and then right if you wanted to go "across" the carriageway. there is clearly no right turn from where you indicate the van has stopped.

From where you indicate the cars are its clear that you can only "turn" left as if you turned right at this point you'd be heading head on into traffic.

If it's single lane and he wasn't indicating, then she should have stayed well clear.

If she was infront of the van upon reaching the junction, which I've still not managed to work out, then she has a right to be livid, but without witness then it's simply a case of tough.

Even if it made me late for work I'd have stopped and got witnesss info.
Knowing for a fact my Excess is £x for most people this would be way more than a couple of hours late.

 

[div0]

Surely, you need to turn left first into the carriageway and then right if you wanted to go "across" the carriageway. there is clearly no right turn from where you indicate the van has stopped.

From where you indicate the cars are its clear that you can only "turn" left as if you turned right at this point you'd be heading head on into traffic.

You can turn right. Move forward towards the junction in the streetview link below. You can see a car mid-turn.

But it still doesn't change much - it's unlikely to be anything other than 50/50, especially as it is just one word against the other.

http://goo.gl/maps/f44tB

 

[Moley]

Google Streetview is quite revealing about traffic behaviour at that junction:

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=A6...ear=A6119,+Blackburn+BB1,+United+Kingdom&z=17

Zoom in and look at the gold coloured car - bet that is what the van driver was planning to do.

 

[ChocolateStarfishRammer]

Even though its a really wide end of a road and everyone does it and you can easily fit two cars there:



That pic shows Mrs waiting to go left and the van, which looks like he might want to have wanted to turn right into that little road also called You Tree Drive but then decided he wanted to turn left onto the dual carriage way... how could he have not seen her!?

Looking at google maps at the junction, assuming she was turning onto the A6119, then she is in the wrong. Its clearly a single lane TJunction. Regardless of what everyone else does and if there was enough room.. she was in the wrong.

He was at the junction, she should have waited till he left till pulling up.

If it was designed for two cars, there would be checkered marking in the middle to indicate its two lanes.

 

[Maccy]

Even though its a really wide end of a road and everyone does it and you can easily fit two cars there:

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa35/elrasho/accidentsateltie.png

That pic shows Mrs waiting to go left and the van, which looks like he might want to have wanted to turn right into that little road also called You Tree Drive but then decided he wanted to turn left onto the dual carriage way... how could he have not seen her!?

Regardless, there's no road markings to suggest that it's 2 lanes.
I've been in situations before when people try to create 2 lanes out of one, I'm sure we've all been there, doesn't make it right though.

 

[blueboy2001]

In the absence of a no right turn sign at the junction, I can so no reason why you can't turn right at the junction. The lines splitting the central reservation are legally meaningless really, they're there just help people filter into into the appropriate part of the reservation so they don't block traffic going turning across the opposite way. They don't work for traffic from the side roads and in that respect are a bit ill-conceived.

I think the problem here is establishing the starting position of the van and your wife and in the absence of any solid evidence in this respect I think it will go down as your wifes fault.

I don't believe the van stopped as far short of the junction as your second image claims - because if he did, your wife would have struggled to get past due to the bend in the road. Maybe he was only stopped there momentarily, perhaps the car in front had gone and he was a little slow to move off, maybe he stalled and couldn't get started, who knows. I think the van driver was level with, or beyond the side road and your wife may well have used the side road to go by. At this point, the van driver is looking right for a gap in the traffic, and has stayed right to get a better view, see one, goes and finds a car has undertaken him.

50/50 is the best you can hope for, but I suspect this will go down as your wife's fault unfortunately.