I've never quite understood why cases like this take so long to resolve. Surely as long as you weren't speeding then it's obviously the other driver's fault? I cant think of a situation where a car should legitamately pull into a main road from a side road into a position where an oncoming car wouldn't be able to stop in time (or would even have to brake significantly at all).
Whats the point for taking the blaim and responsibility when you ran someone over due to a text message while driving ?
It just doesnt sink in with you. You play with lives for that idotic text message you have to do while driving. Has nothing to do with taking responsibility after.
You actually saying that you rather ruin someones live because you must text message while driving a car. Now that is showing some responsibilty !!!
Get a grip dude you really should go back to driving school. They shouldnt take the N down from you. Which doesnt mean novice but in your case NOOB.
She pulled out turning right across another lane that had stopped traffic. A car flashed her to go out, and she didn't even glance my way. I was braking from ~60 km/h, I started as soon as I saw the nose of her car, but I hit the back left corner as she was halfway turned. The problem was she pulled in 50 yards up the road, as she claimed she didn't notice the crash, even though her rear bumper had disintegrated. Thankfully I took a photo at the time before my car was moved, which showed it stopped in the centre of the road directly across from the junction with two dirty black skidmarks approx 10 metres behind me. Gards were called out, said speed wasn't a factor, took two statements and said it was a civil matter, and fecked off.
She later claimed (presumably after talking to a solicitor) that she was fully turned when the collision occurred, and that I must have been excessively speeding, so it must be my fault. This led to many many weeks of giving statements and showing the damage to assessors, who decided there was no way her car was straightened up when I hit it. And then many more weeks of actually getting the compensation off her insurance company, who decided they weren't accepting liability, on the grounds that their client said not to pay out. A solicitor's letter eventually sorted that out.
What I don't get is that she admitted liability to the Gards at the time, she said "I didn't even look, I didn't see him" in her statement. This is supposedly the one thing you never ever do at the scene and nothing came of it I don't mind that it took so long really, my solicitor added 3 months car rental into the claim for the amount of time the insurance company stalled. I was still driving my car away though
Well look at this video and think about what you said here in this thread.
That you are able to take your mind of driving for a few seconds.
You cant !!!!. Simple as that. Now watch the video and it makes sense.
As much as I agree that people do a lot of dumb things while driving, videos like this one actually make the situation worse. About 50 % of accidents that take place there are not the driver's fault and the rest of them just makes me laugh. It's no wonder people keep don't take it seriously when it's presented like this.
More facts and actual demonstrations of how certain things affect your performance while driving instead of this mayhem, gallons of tears and spectacular crashes would be much more effective...
Yet the video makes perfect sense. Simple message is, keep your eyes on the road.
I've crashed into the back of a car (luckily at a low speed) because i was looking at my radio for a second... while the car in front of me stopped, to let a pedestrian cross the road.
I've nearly drove off a street because of writing a text message.
I still do it occasionally (looking at the phone, etc), but i admit it's bad and can be VERY dangerous. If you argue against that, you're just a bit stupid to be honest (directed at dustin).
In town, sure it's a bad idea because conditions do change very rapidly (pedestrians, cars stop, construction, emergency vehicles).. but on a highway, where lanes are gaping and margin of error is measured in months. I could probably write an essay before I crash.
You cannot predict the unexpected. I have seen a lot of nasty wrecks because a tyre let go, the last crash was because the driver didn't see some debris on the road which ripped off the whole front right quarter, sending him uncontrollably off the road.
I have no idea what caused him to not notice the debris, but all it takes is a small lapses of concentration and you find yourself under the wheels of a lorry.
Chances are you'll cover hundreds of thousands of miles and nothing goes wrong. But look at it like this, the guys in bomb squads can get lucky and defuse hundreds if not thousands of bombs without issue. Some will turn into pink mist first time in the field. It is dangerous business and you cannot predict what will happen.
Unless something unexpected happens, not like the list of things that could go wrong is short. Doesn't necessarily have to be something crazy, like people throwing stuff from bridges, or jumping onto the highway to commit suicide (but both these things happen), someone could lose their cargo, or experience some sort of sudden defect. Hell, someone could simply have a heart attack and become completely unpredictable as a result.
Granted, most of things that can go wrong on the highway produce a lot of noise before contact with your vehicle occurs, but even then you lose at least a second reacting and are less likely to react correctly.
Psycho beat me to it but I had this written already so ima post it anyway :P
They choose that as their job. Many here choose to not look off the road while driving, while some multi-task while driving.
At the end of the day, it's a choice, with no difference than a simple opinion. Last time I checked people are entitled to their opinions, so Dustin and whoever can text in one hand and wank with the other, just keep the **** away from me in the process.