I’ve had two accidents, for both I was legally considered as “at fault”. I believe I can be 100% honest about them, but I believe one was my fault, and one was not, regardless of the legal definition.
First accident, six years ago. I needed to pull out from in front of my house and turn around to go the other way. First thing of course is I did a mid street U turn…not saying this makes it right, but it’s just what we do in my neighborhood, because of the way the streets are, since there are no turns for about 3 blocks from my house to the corner, you end up driving 3 blocks to take a right at a busy 6 way intersection where there is no turn on red, then drive 3 more blocks to take a right onto a narrow side street with very little clearance on either side as cars part on both sides, and which is basically uphill all the way which can make it next to impossible to pass in the winter, and THEN take a left turn back onto my busy street, just to end up half a block from where I started. So, U turns were what we had always done (and what the neighbors and everyone else in the neighborhood has always done). Indeed, police have been driving down our street and witnessed people whipping around and no one to my knowledge has ever been even talked to about it, so it’s one of those things that yeah, it’s illegal, and yeah, if I do it, I accept the consequences and the fault. For what it’s worth, I just go to the extra hassle to turn around these days because of what happened.
There were two complicating factors. One was that it was snowing, and it was very difficult for me to keep my side mirrors clear, and with the humidity, it was really hard to keep everything from fogging up. I did everything right though…I fully scraped and brushed off my windows, mirrors, etc. I got in the car, and made sure I had visibility. Problem was the second factor. Three blocks the other direction is a set of train tracks, which can some times take up to 10 minutes for the trains to go. Well, my busy street (particularly busy in the morning when people…like me…are heading to work) will some times have a couple dozen cars backed up either direction when there’s a train, and just as I was ready to pull outthat’s when I noticed the train had gone all the way through the intersection and all the traffic that had been waiting for it was now coming my way.
I had already figured I’d be late, because I didn’t expect the snow and didn’t prepare for it, and I figured I had some leeway here, my boss wasn’t one to get too upset if I was late (in fact if I remember right, I was always there before he was anyway), so I wasn’t trying to rush. But I’d sit there and watch 5 cars go by, then my windows would fog up, my mirrors would get covered in snow, and I’d have to clear it all off. I’d look again and still more cars, more cars, more cars. I was waiting FOREVER. I kept clearing everything off, and looking…then the last time I did it, 1, 2, 3 cars went….I didn’t see anyone else in my side mirror or my rearview mirror….I had the rear defroster on, but by this time visibility had slightly decreased in the back as well, and there was a car parked right behind me, so my side view was the best bet. I did also look over my left shoulder, and I was about 99% sure everything was finally fine.
Now, I don’t know if I just didn’t see that other car, or if it had just turned onto the street or what, and I feel that for the road conditions, the driver was going pretty damn fast for a residential street, but I pulled out, and when I was sideways, this other car plowed right into the side of me and pushed me into a yard across the street and 3 houses away. I was not hurt…I did have small tinge of pain in my back. The driver got out and chatted with me, and said she saw me pull out but couldn’t stop, and some woman who was walking also saw that I pulled out in front of a moving car. My insurance paid up, I was considered at fault, so I had a 30% premium on my insurance for 3 year. However, they had to pay for two cars, each less than a year old, AND even though this girl said she was completely fine, wasn’t even going to go to a Dr., she apparently sued my insurance company and got 6 grand…I was never consulted about that. But in my opinion, I was 100% at fault, or at least 95%...I really think she was going WAY too fast, and I was patient and cautious almost to a fault, I spent literally 15 minutes waiting for my opportunity and I was not about to pull out until I was sure it was safe, but I thought for sure that it was, the shitty weather contributed, but I could have not done a U turn, I could have gotten out and wiped off my back window, I don’t know, it just happened, I screwed up, I was a victim of circumstance, but ultimately it was my fault.
About a year and a half later I had another accident, another total of my car and damage to another new car, I rear ended the car, being that I hit the car, I was at fault. Here’s the deal with that one. I was on a freeway, traffic was going along at the speed limit, it was very tight, and I was doing my absolute best to follow the 2 second rule, even though people kept pulling into the space I left between me and the car in front of me. I’m in the right lane and there are 2 lanes of traffic to the left of me. Suddenly all 3 lanes of traffic came to a dead stop….no warning whatsoever. I slammed on my brakes as hard as I could, but it was clear there was not enough distance to stop. I could not go to my left, because there were two lanes of stopped traffic completely tight, no spaces. To my right was an exit ramp, and cars were lined up on the exit ramp, again no space between cars, and other cars were veering into that lane both in front of and behind me to avoid hitting cars. In that split second, I saw what I THOUGHT would be my salvation. There was a little strip of grassy land between the exit ramp and the freeway, so I swerved onto that, it was the ONLY place where there were no cars. But, instead I hit a light post, knocked it down, and that would have been all well and good, but I bounced off the poll, swerved back onto the freeway, unable to stop, and rear ended a Jeep in front of me. No one was hurt, but despite my being in an impossible situation within a split second, despite having been paying attention, and despite having taken pretty impressive evasive measures, I could not avoid disaster. So, I accept SOME responsibility here, and I understand why legally I was considered 100% at fault, but I fail to see how I did anything “wrong”, I did the thing that probably caused the least amount of damage. I wasn’t the only car in an accident in that thing, but most of the people in front of me and behind me at least had a shoulder to go onto, which I just did not. I think had I been 100 feet further up or back, I wouldn’t have gotten in this accident, but what you gonna do? I guess what I did was to pay an additional 30% premium, so I was paying 75% more than normal for my insurance for about a year and a half until the first accident was off my record.
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