Should illegally parked vehicles bear some share of the blame in a collision?

Soldato
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If you park your car illegally or obstructively and it's damaged by a passing vehicle, should you share a least a small portion of the blame & have an 'at-fault' claim registered, using the logical argument that if you had followed the laws and rules of the road, your vehicle wouldn't have been there to be hit?

Do you think a shift into this way of operating would kerb illegal/obstructive parking? Would it lead to more collisions?

It's a thought that came about between colleagues as one had a minor scrape with a car illegally parked in a bus stop so the bus was force to pull up at an odd angle and as he left the tail caught the wing mirror, literally only folded it forward but now the car owner is claiming the vehicle is a write off (2017 Auris). At the time of the collision the car owner just pushed the mirror back into position and there was no sign of damage ever occurring. All on CCTV.
 
If you hit an illegally parked car and damage your vehicle/theirs, it's still your fault as you should have assessed the situation and done better imo.

The bus driver could have blocked the road to drop off/pick up instead of taking the risk of clipping the car. Sucks for everyone, but that's the fault of the illegally parked car.

Every day I see people parked where they shouldn't and you get people pushing their luck to gain nothing instead of allowing traffic to flow. Must be some reward to get to the next red lights 5 seconds quicker
 
If you hit an illegally parked car and damage your vehicle/theirs, it's still your fault as you should have assessed the situation and done better imo.

The bus driver could have blocked the road to drop off/pick up instead of taking the risk of clipping the car. Sucks for everyone, but that's the fault of the illegally parked car.

Every day I see people parked where they shouldn't and you get people pushing their luck to gain nothing instead of allowing traffic to flow. Must be some reward to get to the next red lights 5 seconds quicker


Unfortunately it's not that black and white. If you've got an elderly/infirm/wheelchair user alighting then you need to be at the kerbside. If you don't and that passenger falls, you're personally liable as the driver and could face prosecution for negligence. (yes it's happened before)
 
If you park your car illegally or obstructively and it's damaged by a passing vehicle, should you share a least a small portion of the blame & have an 'at-fault' claim registered, using the logical argument that if you had followed the laws and rules of the road, your vehicle wouldn't have been there to be hit?

Way back, a colleague told me that a mate of his had successfully defended being prosecuted by claiming that were it not for an illegally parked car (which he hit) he would have recovered control of his car. That's about all I recall.
 
If your vehicle is parked in a way that it forseeably could present a hazard to other road users, then yes you should be held to account. This includes when you're not technically parked illegally, but just badly and without consideration for the situation.

For example, our road has a downhill stretch, with a tight left hander at the bottom which you can not see around. People regularly park both sides of the road, right up to the bend, usually for deliveries or oil/pit tankering and such and you can come round that to get a faceful of LED headlight as they park on the wrong side. The local school recently got given an extra plot of land on which the council built them a car park, as it was just solid during school-run times and cars were forever getting bashed.

The guy living on the right side of that bend sold his place recently, because since 2012 five people have come off the road and taken out the front half of his house. Two fatalities from that alone, plus another driver who hit the guy's tree and fired his own dad through the windscreen.

It's a 40 limit and locals know the danger points, but you get a lot of traffic heading to/from the De Vere hotel and BMW training centre who think they can drive at 40 (or more) without worry.
 
Unfortunately it's not that black and white. If you've got an elderly/infirm/wheelchair user alighting then you need to be at the kerbside. If you don't and that passenger falls, you're personally liable as the driver and could face prosecution for negligence. (yes it's happened before)

I'm sure there are loads of rules like not dropping people where it's not a designated stop for bus drivers, but was that the case in the scenario you proposed? The bus driver made a judgment call and got it wrong, hitting a parked car in the process.

Back when I was getting the bus, they'd often shut a stop for safety reasons where there was roadworks on the other side of the road etc. You had no choice but to get off a stop early (if you knew, which you often wouldn't) or a stop after, wheelchair/pushchair etc or not
 
No. The parking illegally is a separate issue to the person not having the driving ability to avoid not just every day traffic issues, but also emergency or unexpected situations.
 
should you share a least a small portion of the blame & have an 'at-fault' claim registered,
they don't get away scot free - even if you don't have an at-fault, that's academic, your premium will increase as a function of declaring it,
(as already commented the classic case of people parking near bends, double parking, bottom of hill where everyone slips when it's icy)

It would be interesting to know how insurance companies appraise these accidents for subsequent premium setting (a database of idiots)
 
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