Monday, May 29, 2017

Right of way is there for a reason

Right of way, or priority if you're American, is a basic driving concept that exists for a reason. For example when you're on a fast main road, you have right of way over people turning from side roads. You'd think it would be obvious but too many people today don't understand that.
Enter this Morgan 4/4 driver who, rather than wait in the central reservation for he traffic to pass, decided he had right of way instead and went on to cause a pretty substantial accident. The instant karma is so gratifying to watch.
Weirdly - and if you have any more info I'd like to know HOW this happened - the police apparently found the Peugeot driver to blame! Despite the Peugeot having right of way, despite the Morgan not looking, not giving way, not stopping in the designated area, despite the video evidence of it clearly being the Morgan's fault, somehow the police blamed the other driver.
This accident was 100% the Morgan driver's fault and the Peugeot driver should not be shouldering any of the blame or cost.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As ridiculous as it sounds, as long as the Morgan managed to fully turn right, police could blame the Peugeot for 'not keeping safe distance to car ahead' kind of offence.
Same as if the both would go in the same direction and the Morgan would suddenly stop to a standstill.
On the other hand, the Peugeout driver could, maybe, avoided it: brake harder, move to the left of the Morgan. Not saying that he/she shoudl have done it, just that it looked possible.

Will.C said...

Agreed with the previous poster. Clearly some fault must be apportioned to the Morgan driver as it doesn't seem he looked before pulling out. But based on the speed the Peugeot was doing at the point of impact I think it's likely they were speeding.

The limit is 50mph on that road. Based on when you hear the Peugeot's horn (about 2 seconds before impact) and assuming it was braking all that time, it should have been able to slow almost to a stop by the time it reached the Morgan.

Also as we can't see the road the Peugeot approaches from we don't know if it had just come around a bend or something (limiting visibility for both drivers).

So I think there are three reasons for this crash:
1. Inattentiveness on the part of the Peugeot driver, who seems to have sighted the Morgan rather late.
2. Excessive speed, compounding the first reason.
3. A careless manoeuvre from the Morgan driver, pulling out without checking the way was clear.