it's only an inconvenience to you if it causes you trouble. I hardly think stopping to let somebody out qualifies.
It
can be dangerous, if you're driving along a road with no other traffic on the main road, and a car just randomly stops, that's gonna be at least a little bit unexpected, isn't it?
And to back this up:
In Gussman v Gratton-Storey the Defendant applied her breaks violently in order to avoid hitting a pheasant running across the road. The driver behind was unable to stop and collided with the Defendant’s vehicle. The Defendant (lead driver) was held liable as the sudden stop was in effect held to be unreasonable.
You can see the difficult precedent that this case sets. It leaves a difficult decision as to just when it is reasonable to stop suddenly.
For example, would one type of animal running into the road cause a reasonable sudden stop and another type of animal running into the road cause a sudden stop that was unreasonable? It’s a bit like deciding which animals you can drive over and which ones must be treated as though they were human.
Each case is considered on its facts; if you collided into the back of another vehicle then it’s likely that a Court would hold you at fault. However, if the car in front stopped suddenly without any or any good reason, then the driver of the vehicle that stopped suddenly may be at fault. Say the driver stopped suddenly due to ducks in the road, a Court may say that this was an insufficient reason to brake and stop suddenly.
If stopping for a small animal running across the road is deemed as an unreasonable reason to stop, then stopping to let a car out onto a road on which you have right of way, I would think, would fall under this too.
Why would they be?
As the flashee, is is 100% YOUR responsibility to make sure it's safe to proceed. You NEVER rely on other people to tell you what's safe. That includes getting your passenger to check Left for you when pulling out, or the like. YOU are still 100% liable.
But feel free to Google it and find evidence to the contrary.
I 100% agree, it is the car pulling out's responsibility to check that it is safe to proceed. However, if you're the car letting a car out against the normal right of way, you should at least check that it's not going to cause an immediate accident. That's what my pet hate was. Cars letting other cars out when there's either no-where for them to go, or when it's dangerous for them to pull out. Often when this happens I won't pull out (because it's not safe to do so) and the car letting me out just sits there for 30 seconds, blocking the traffic behind, and gesticulating for me to pull out...
"No thanks mate, I'll choose when I want to pull out, thankyouverymuch!"
For instance, you're sat in a queue of traffic, barely crawling along, there's a car waiting at a side road to turn right, into the opposite lane. You notice a bike filtering (completely legally) down the outside of the traffic queue you're in. Do you still wave (or give any indication you see fit) to allow the car to pull out? The driver pulling out won't be able to see the biker until it's too late, and obviously the biker should be anticipating this sort of thing by looking for gaps in the traffic. The biker has right of way over the car pulling out. But, as the car on the main road signalling to the other driver 'yes, you may pull out in front of me' should there not be at least a small amount of responsibility on your part to make sure the you're not putting other road users in danger by giving that signal?
