Long story short, I got into a car accident recently and the two insurance companies are fighting over it (been about 2 weeks) and I would really like to fix my car so I want this to be settled soon. I'm just wondering if anyone on TL has had a similar experience and how it ended.
Road Conditions So the road itself is a 2 lane and on the right side there is a merging lane. Also right before the merge there is a yield sign for the car that is merging to yield obviously.
What Happened I'm driving at speed limit (60km/h) on the left lane and the right lane it completely empty. I see a car coming in from the merging lane and notice that it doesn't even slow down but it's only going around 40km/h so I just continue on. However, even though the right lane is completely empty the lady driving the car doesn't yield and then turns straight into the left lane at 40km/h which leads to our cars hitting one another. I assumed that she would turn into the right lane because that's what any normal person would do or at least turn into the right lane first AND THEN lane change to the left but she just goes diagonally straight into the left lane.
Now the way I see it, she made 3 mistakes which lead to the crash itself.
1. Did not yield when merging. 2. Going 20km/h under speed limit while merging. 3. Why would you turn into the left lane when the right lane is still open?
The old lady is saying that I rear ended her and that she won't pay for damages to my car, while my insurance company is clearly saying that it was because of her that the accident happened in the first place.
Here's a picture below in case the description above is not enough.
Green dots are where the cars hit Red car is my G35 Blue car is the old lady's car
Is there anything that I can do to speed up this entire process? The repairs will cost me about 3000 dollars and that would jack up my insurance if they fix it, but if I fix it my insurance won't go up.
wow 3k o.O. i dont really have anything to say that would help, but bad luck and i hope you aren't injured physically. old people are a serious fucking menace on the roads, they should be banned from driving and restricted to using the bus, or maybe those pensioner vans driven by a non-oldie
i dont know much about this sort of thing, but if i was an insurance agency and an old lady was telling me she WASN'T at fault, i wouldnt believe her lol
edit: wow looking at that picture, what a retard. i have no idea why the old crone would do something so retarded and at 40km too :S
hehe man rear ended hits always suck because in most cases u lose if youre the one thats behind the other T.T no wonder its taking long for them to sort out the payment
I remember when I was taking driving lessons, my instructor told me that when I'm joining the main street from the street with the yield sign, if the driver in the main street is forced to slow down to let me thru, I will fail the driving test. The cars in the main street should basically be able to drive as if there was no street merging with it.
The yield sign is there for a reason - SHE is the one who has to make sure she's not invading anyone's space, her argument is really pathetic and should stand no chance.
I hope everything will be normal and you get the money. It'd be really freaky if it happened otherwise.
On April 26 2010 18:31 ShaperofDreams wrote: Assuming you are in Korea, the driver was:
- Senile - Asian - Female
I guess stereotypes have some substance
Actually I'm in Calgary, Alberta I should really change my location ... it was a white old lady ... sigh ... people over 60 should not be allowed to drive especially old people.
I've always been told that in rear enders, the person that was behind is 'always' responsible. A cop told my friend exactly that when he was in an accident.
Which is fucking stupid in your scenario, as it's not your fault at all.
That's not a rear-end though. A rear-end is if you crash into someone you were following directly behind. The corner of your car hitting the corner of her car would indicate she pulled out in front of you and therefore failed to give way (yield? I assume yield means what give way does in Aus). Failure to give way always puts you at fault.
Putting aside the fact that she was merging, she essentially swerved in front of you going 20 under the limit while you were going at the speed limit. It can be very difficult for you to avoid an accident there. Even though people behind are often at fault, there are exceptions and this should be one of them if your diagram is accurate.
If you already gave your insurance company all of this info then I don't think there's really anything else you can do to speed it up. My friend was just in a similarly stupid accident that wasn't his fault and the other person is lying about what happened and it's taking a while to sort out also.
Not sure about the laws where you live, but here I think this could be considered passing on the right, which is illegal (tho never enforced). Also, don't bring up the speed at which she was going, it changes nothing strictly law-speaking.
Well I guess now you know when you see people merging onto the road you are driving be more cautious and make sure you know what lane they are headed towards. Yeah it sounds like it was the lady's fault, but I am sure if you smashed down on your accelerator to get past her before she merged on. Usually when I am driving on the freeway and I see people merging onto it next to me I make sure I am either way in front of them or way behind them because I know how much people like to get in the fast lane as fast as possible.
Hope you get this resolved soon. This almost happened to me once, I had to go into the bumpy thing on the left side of the highway near the separator, and was using the horn nonstop to get the old woman's attention.
km/hour....guessing this isn't USA. Oh SK. I'm guessing that's like $800 US? That's still pretty harsh The lady has no case though. You were going the speed limit and had the right of way. She didn't yield while merging, that alone should rest on her insurance, not to mention the fact that she didn't yield while merging illegally, crossing two lanes of traffic without signaling(i'm assuming she didn't signal because she was in a merging lane and immediately cut in front of you)
Old people shouldn't just have their licenses taken away; they should instead be required to do some sort of secondary driving training, or basically complete their drivers test again. A lot of the really old people have been driving since the '40's and '30's, not only is their judgment lessened by age but also they might not remember the rules of the road that well. If they fail when they retake their test, shove them on a bus to protect people who aren't too senile to drive.
And as far as dealing with the insurance companies, if push comes to shove it may be easiest to put a lawyer on retainer to deal with the problem for you, he'[ll be much better at manhadnling the insurance company to do what you want. It will probably cost you less than going through the whole process yourself anyway, and there might even be some people out there willling to do it for you pro bono, once you explain you're a "poor student who has never had a problem like this T____T"
On April 26 2010 22:56 Antimage wrote: well the G35 helps me to share his pain =(
Hope you get this resolved soon. This almost happened to me once, I had to go into the bumpy thing on the left side of the highway near the separator, and was using the horn nonstop to get the old woman's attention.
If it was a crap car I wouldn't be all to worried about it lol and I'd just let the insurance company do their thing, but since it's the 35 I kinda wanna speed it up
hmm unfortunaly your gonna possilbe have a greater change being at fault b/c u hit her car from behind, it is a retarted rule but pretty much if it is, your gonna get fucked >.<
Depends where the damages on her car are. If they are on her left rear light only, then it's pretty clear she cut him off and was the cause of the accident.
HOWEVER, if the damages are along the whole rear end, then an argument might be made that she was already in the lane, and you didn't slow down and just rear ended her.
Is it clearly her fault. How can she discuss about that? lol
This fact can be easily confirmed by collision points on the cars. However you can't speed up the process...simply be sure that you have writen everything clear in the incident declaration
Really in Alberta it comes down to how old you are vs how old she is. Speeding it up is near impossible, friend of mine in SK hit a couch with their truck that fell out of some guys truck on the highway took them a month to figure out who was at fault. If you are confident you will win this, get the car estimated for the repairs (unless the adjuster has taken a look at it and given you an estimate on how much they can cover) If this is the case then get the car fixed pay the money to get it fixed asap and then get the reinbursement when they make the decision. (Different provinces with different rules so check with them first if this will work out)
On April 27 2010 01:33 LuDwig- wrote: Is it clearly her fault. How can she discuss about that? lol
This fact can be easily confirmed by collision points on the cars. However you can't speed up the process...simply be sure that you have writen everything clear in the incident declaration
Um. The collision points actually show him at fault. If there's no witnesses they just go "oh you hit her from behind obv". Pretty much what Chill said.
Good luck man, car accidents are a pita. Actually, I just crashed too! I fell asleep while driving and even the crash didn't wake me up (yes, I was THAT tired).
On April 27 2010 02:48 Caos2 wrote: Good luck man, car accidents are a pita. Actually, I just crashed too! I fell asleep while driving and even the crash didn't wake me up (yes, I was THAT tired).
Wow?
And this sucks. totally not your fault at all. Hopefully things work out
If your impact point is indeed on her rear left bumper you're at a much larger advantage than if you just smashed into her rear. As people have said, its very hard to prove that you weren't at fault if it was a straight up rear ender. Did you get a police report at the time of the accident? I know in the US its very common to have the police inspect the scene of the crime, talk to the parties involved and submit their report for the insurance co's to see and that generally makes things a lot easier.
I actually got in an accident about a year ago where some lady on her cell phone rear ended me when I stopped because someone in front of me needed to turn left. The woman was driving a Benz so I figured we would get paid quick but it turned out she hadn't been paying her premiums and technically had no insurance. Then the insurance company tried to fuck us by saying our insurance didn't cover instances where the party at fault is uninsured. At that point we got a lawyer friend to call them up and that did speed things up a bit. That whole ordeal did take about 3 weeks though and the whole time me and my gf didn't have a car because we weren't sure if we would be reimbursed so I understand what you're going through. Call frequently to push them along and if they try to fuck you don't be afraid to fuck them back. You should get your car fixed if the illustration is true, even if that old lady is trying to cover up the fact she's too old to drive.
EPT![[image loading]](http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/5087/accident.png)
