Totaled car for my birthday

[arch stanton]

i was driving home from work and a lady in her 08 toyota highlander makes a left turn out of the grocery store. some idiot in the center turn lane waved her on. nice thought but i hate that guy. she makes a left across the thru lane and the center turn lane. i didnt see her until her lights shone out in front of me.

i was going 35 didnt see her untill 20 feet away at most. she stopped sideways halfway in my lane. and going 35 in 2 inches of snow had no chance to stop or swerve.

my front left corner hit her front right just in front of her tire. spun her 180, when that happend her tail whipped around and hit me off the road into a fence.

But i am proud to say my 1993 XL Explorer didnt leave ONE piece on the road. it was truly built ford tuff. her car was scattered across 2 lanes and up the road 30 feet. she had no bumper, no grill, no headlights, and tire was bent severely inward. smashed all the way into her engine. they had to tow her off

since my car was slightly higher it smashed the front corner into the wheel well. my wheel was bent too. i hope the frames not bent probably is. i had to reset the fuel shut off. but was able to drive it the last 100 yards home on the shoulder. my truck can barely turn left because the bumpers in the wheel well

needless to say i didnt have a very good 17th birthday. that was on the 20th and the insurance still hasnt decided who's at fault. they cop gave her a ticket how dont they understand that means its her fault.

do you think our insurance will pay for it? she got towed the next morning from our condo

 

[BP_93explorer]

I don't know about the insurance thing but I understand the birthday accident. My only accident happened on my birthday back in October. I was in the outside lane of a double turn lane and a woman didn't turn when she was supposed to. She came into my lane and I heard the contact. We stopped. No damage to my baby but she had a nice long scratch on little dinky car. We didn't even exchange info.

 

[cybergasm]

do you think our insurance will pay for it? she got towed the next morning from our condo

It got towed where? most likely if the insurance does pay they will total it since it a bit old. And new body parts are hard to find these days

so most likely you'll have to buy it back from the insurance and fix it yourself if ya wanna keep it.

 

[Donner]

What was the citation for?

There has to be an investigation by the insurance company(s) in order to determine fault. What was the posted speed limit?

(Do you need to edit out the speed you were going?)

 

[WizardOfOdds]

Not sure about in the States but in Canada if the lady was turning left she would always be at fault. The person who is turning left is always at fault no matter what. Works the same way with reversing, the person reversing is always at fault. So you probably have a good chance of winning.

And yeah, the insurance will probably give you what your truck is worth (93 explorers aren't worth much) especially if the frame is bent. And if your wheel is bent too, it just adds to the repair cost.

 

[Donner]

Left turn in CA too..

Not sure about in the States but in Canada if the lady was turning left she would always be at fault. The person who is turning left is always at fault no matter what. Works the same way with reversing, the person reversing is always at fault. So you probably have a good chance of winning.

And yeah, the insurance will probably give you what your truck is worth (93 explorers aren't worth much) especially if the frame is bent. And if your wheel is bent too, it just adds to the repair cost.

We have that left turn law, it's about 95% likely that a left turn will be found responsible. But doing the driver's speed in 2 inches of snow sounds excessive... but I don't know. Would that be considered excessive under those conditions? From the description by the poster, it sounds like speed was a major factor... and the damage to the other vehicle is alarming, sounds like trouble.

 

[arch stanton]

posted speed was 40 maybe a little fast but everybody else was going 35 in the snow. if it was dry pavement there is no way i could have slowed below 25. its hard to see other cars that drive across the entire road in a gap 2 people made to be nice. she wont call the insurance company back. got towed to a collision center.

 

[Donner]

Understood...

People try to be nice and things like that can happen, however just to be safe - I wouldn't reference the speed involved. I'm sure the officer(s) have all of that info, but just in case it might be a good idea to edit the speed involved.

And she was cited for what?

 

[davesexplorer]

Crash report should show fault, and a citation if applicable.

 

[Donner]

the citation remains a mystery...

She could have been cited for a number of things not related to the crash... In this case it sounds like a good argument for speed v. weather conditions noting that other drivers had either stopped and that no others were involved. This will be a good one to follow... If they go by the book, left turn lady is sol on this one. But if they want this to blame the driver because of his age (experience) v. left turn lady, this could drag on for a very long time...

(I would say she didn't have to turn out... waived on or not, it wasn't safe. She should have waited)

 

[arch stanton]

i'm not to concerned about her trying to blame me. my dads a lawyer and he came to the crash and took like 50 pictures. hes already planning on sueing our insurance because they wouldn't give a rental car until they decided who was at fault. so he rented a 08 explorer on his card and told them it was a like for like rental and they would pay for it.

 

[arch stanton]

the other cars were stopped because they were all backed up at the light for 300 yards. and somebody figured that they were blocking a lady from turning out of the parking lot and wouldn't be going anywhere anyway so they waved her across two completely stopped lanes. i was heading the other direction and t boned her when she came out. it wasn't like she turned left because she had to go straight between the cars gap. she hadn't even stared to turn left when she came into my lane. it was such a small gap she couldn't start turning until she was in my lane. she stopped half in my lane perpendicular to me and i couldn't swerve because a telephone pole and the snow wouldn't let me swerve going that fast anyway.

 

[arch stanton]

the insurance company said that they would fix my explorer. so now we wait for it to be done. i hope they don't just fix the panels and bumper and light. they should check upper and lower ball joints, suspension, check to see if the rim is still round engine block mounts radiator etc... i hope so at least.

 

[dmorris]

I had a sim crash (there are very very few "accidents" IMHO) anyway lady was cited by officer, I was sent on my merry way. Later I get a summons to appear in court, seems lady fought it, cop does not show, judge ask me what happens, I did my best at explaining what happened, Judge says nobody was at fault, just an "acccident".

the way most people drive (too fast, too close, too agressive, too distracted, etc...) most crashes can be attributed to driver error. I also think rules of the road must not be taught or ignored in the driver ed these days, as in the case of your nice guy waving on someone, Right of way rules exist for a reason to prevent this kind of stuff.

 

[Rick]

She turned across the path of oncoming traffic. Sounds pretty cut and dry to me. Has to be her fault

 

[Donner]

It depends... It sounds like speed and weather played a major role in the crash. And with her vehicle being obliterated, it sounds like the driver/arch never had a chance to see her and she couldn't see him - I still say she should have stayed put until traffic cleared. I would say this sounds like it could easily be no fault if the court/arb doesn't really want to invest much time on this, or if she has witnesses and the investigation shows excessive speed unfit for the weather, arch might have a problem due to age. This one has a few possibilities...

 

[clarkkent]

wher are the pictures??!

 

[pierce79]

Who is your insurance company? I can't believe they would be jerking you around like that.

 

[v1rotv2]

The one problem you may have.

If the insurance company wants to slight you, they can say you were driving too fast for the conditions. In 40 mph zone, slowing to only 5 under with 2 in. of snow on the roadway may, to them, not seem like enough of a reduction. Hope your insurance co. doesn't do this but you never know.

Sometimes I really don't folks know that they are still responsible for an accident when they go on a "it's clear" from another driver.

 

[Donner]

Dad should know

wher are the pictures??!

He said dad was taking pics, and dad probably doesn't know this thread is here. And would probably be a little upset with son...

Who is your insurance company? I can't believe they would be jerking you around like that.

It's a stipulation in their particular contract. Some get you into a rental w/o issue, other's not so easy. And son says dad, an atty, is preparing to take action against said insurer... Not good timing, and again, dad probably hasn't seen this thread.

If the insurance company wants to slight you, they can say you were driving too fast for the conditions. In 40 mph zone, slowing to only 5 under with 2 in. of snow on the roadway may, to them, not seem like enough of a reduction. Hope your insurance co. doesn't do this but you never know.

Sometimes I really don't folks know that they are still responsible for an accident when they go on a "it's clear" from another driver.

Some insurance companies don't allow minors behind the wheel of 4x4 vehicles... it depends on what stipulations they have in their coverage, but the insurance co might be saying son should not have been operating the vehicle; also we are hearing one side of the story - I don't know that dad would approve of minor son posting all of this information. Don't know if the poster has a DL or permit, and there are restrictions on when a minor can operate a motor vehicle (time of day/night)

Also, poster says driver waiving on the lady driver, did poster see that? then time to slow down, but poster didn't have time to stop? - poster was not paying attention? If dad doesn't know about this thread, he would likely be horrified because the information provided in the posting is enough to put the poster at fault and/or horrify the insurance company also.