Forced off the road on M6 into traffic cones - they failed to stop. What are my options?
- Thread starter MrRockliffe
- Start date
If we were talking about approaching a merge point or something then I think @ICDP has a point but in the circumstances described, which is just a couple of cars driving along a 50mph average speed zone and one chooses to lane change into another out of the blue, I don't think even the harshest of insurance assessors is going to try to pin blame on you for not predicting that, just because they'd been slightly behind you in the adjacent lane for a while.
You give insurers far too much credit for not trying to find any reason to avoid liability.
They'd have to seriously seriously reach to drag the scenario described of a car suddenly lane changing into a space that's already occupied by a car that was clearly visible to them as anything other than entirely the fault of the car that changed lane.
Liability is a very nuanced and complicated issue with insurers. Especially if there is zero corroborating evidence other than opposing statements. So if the other driver claims they overtook safely and indicated before changing lane, but the other car speed up to stop them changing lanes safely.
Suddenly you have two opposing claims and the OP is not remotely considered a valid witness. It’s the wife’s testimony vs the Merc driver.
So in such scenarios with zero independent witness account, or dashcam footage with GPS speed, an insurer may attribute some liability to both drivers. It might only be 10/90 or or 20/80 but it still affects your premiums.
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So we're moving the goalposts to also assuming the other party will lie about it as well, with a completely bizarre lie to boot. I've seen people do some utterly stupid things on the road but accelerating just to stop people lane changing in 50mph average speed zones would be a new one for me.
This is seriously reaching now.
Edit - you don't drive a silver Mercedes by any chance do you?
This is seriously reaching now.
Edit - you don't drive a silver Mercedes by any chance do you?
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Soldato
And I'd take great pleasure in making sure that ended up costing them far more than doing their job properly in the first place
So we're moving the goalposts to also assuming the other party will lie about it as well, with a completely bizarre lie to boot. I've seen people do some utterly stupid things on the road but accelerating just to stop people lane changing in 50mph average speed zones would be a new one for me.
This is seriously reaching now.
Edit - you don't drive a silver Mercedes by any chance do you?
You must never have had dealing with insurers and other drivers
You must never have had dealing with insurers and other drivers
Not personally but even people I know who have, haven't faced their insurers or other involved parties borderline fabricating a different version of events as you're doing here just to try and avoid paying out, so I guess they've all been very lucky.
Edit - no actually, that's a lie, my dad was involved in an incident where someone tried to go all the way round a roundabout, through him, from the left lane. His insurance company backed him all the way, as far as going to court, which found in his favour. At no point did they try to just fob him off as 50/50 because they figured it was easier or cheaper to do so.
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Yes but it still had to go to court because the other insurance company and the other driver decided they wanted to dispute it. Thankfully your dad’s insurers decided to fight it. A decent dashcam would instantly stop that crap and have saved the OP a lot of money.
Soldato
Out of interest, when did this happen? I'm guessing it wasn't recent.
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I think no matter how much you try and dissect an incident over the internet the fact remains that the human instinct to try and avoid colliding with another car is very strong. That basically leaves you with steer or brake. Would brake have been better, who knows but the fact remains that saying to stand your ground and drive into another car should be going against all of your natural instincts when driving. I couldn't honestly say that I would ever choose that outcome even if it meant I bounced off an inanimate object while trying to avoid it.
The moment a moving object interacts with another moving object, especially when changes in friction are involved (e.g. caused by rubber), physics takes hold in ways you cannot predict.
I was chatting to a work colleague today about this and they had a friend who was seriously injured from colliding side by side with another vehicle in a similar situation - they just pulled across into their friend’s lane.
Their tyres connected and the friend’s car rotated on the motorway, causing another vehicle to travel into the drivers door
We definitely could have been better off colliding with the other vehicle, if only because we may not have stopped and could have stayed level with them to get their registration. But in hindsight I do think the risk would have been greater for serious injury.
As it stands, the only damage which has occurred is my other half’s ego and physical damage to just our car.
Ultimately, you need to do what feels right at the time, and the way she reacted was based on the information she had available during that split second of “oh they’re actually going to hit me if I do nothing”.
While Im gutted the car is damaged, I am proud that she did manage to avoid a much more serious situation - if only by luck.
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It wasn't, quite a few years ago now
No I’m not, get a dashcam is right there in my list. But I also caveat that you should be aware that your own dashcam footage can implicate you if you drive poorly.
In your case a dashcam would have showed the culprit was the Merc driver and would most likely captured their licence plate details.
My posts about your pitfalls of liability revolve around how insurance companies work in many cases, and how most other drivers will have a very different interpretation of who was to blame.
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either way you and your wife are unhurt cars can be repaired could have been a lot worse but thankfully it wasnt. may have to explain on future insurance forms and pay a little extra if you claim but hey ho better that than being in hospital.
wife had a bump in car park minor damage to other car details exchanged cost us about 50 quid the following year, (out of interest she asked for details of the claim turns out it was for nearly 4k damage to the other vehicle.....kid you not i checked the damage at the time and apart from a small dent on the white car the rest would have polished out....)
insurance never even contacted us after they received the claim we had no damage. were we annoyed yes but chalk it up to paying insurance. crack open a bottle and relax
wife had a bump in car park minor damage to other car details exchanged cost us about 50 quid the following year, (out of interest she asked for details of the claim turns out it was for nearly 4k damage to the other vehicle.....kid you not i checked the damage at the time and apart from a small dent on the white car the rest would have polished out....)
insurance never even contacted us after they received the claim we had no damage. were we annoyed yes but chalk it up to paying insurance. crack open a bottle and relax
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Caporegime
I see this happen more often than you'd believe, generally, it's caused by the car/vehicle that ends up ploughing into the cones not reading the road ahead and getting into the respective open lane in plenty of time.
On the face of it, this sounds pretty much the same thing.
Correct me if I'm wrong by all means, but, unfortunately you have plenty of notice of a lane closure and ample time to react if you had chosen to do so....
I'm sorry if this comes across as harsh, I'm just reflecting what I see on an almost daily basis and judging from my own experiences.
On the face of it, this sounds pretty much the same thing.
Correct me if I'm wrong by all means, but, unfortunately you have plenty of notice of a lane closure and ample time to react if you had chosen to do so....
I'm sorry if this comes across as harsh, I'm just reflecting what I see on an almost daily basis and judging from my own experiences.
I don't think any lanes were closing in this scenario at all