UK Incident Scenario Question

[laperlenoire]

A question was raised by a colleague about the following accident scenario and I could not answer it:
1. You are riding on a 30mph zone and there is a car (car-A) in front of you driving within the speed limit and you are following the 2 seconds rule.
2. On the oncoming traffic, there are cars parked on the left hand side of the road and for some reason a oncoming car (car-B) decides to pull out and drive between you and the parked cars .
3. As car-B is using half on the rider lane, you sacrifice your position ( in order to avoid a front collision ) and move to the left and back to the centre.
4. Meanwhile, you see that car-A hit the brakes and you do the same ( e.g. front brakes ) but slides as your front wheel is not straight and you bike is on the tarmac about 2 yards behind car-A. no physical contacts during the incident.

Who's fault is it ?
Is it the fault of car-B as the rider tried to avoid colliding against car-B's right hand side ?

Thanks.

[NTECUK]

The rider for there assessment of the situation should have been prepared.

[SvNewbie]

Rider for not being able to use their brakes properly. Unless there was wet / diesel / gravel around.

[Bibio]

rider, due to not being able to control their vehicle in an emergency situation. they don't do the emergency stop in your test for giggles. slow speed control and observation is far more important than anything.

[Spank86]

Rider.

[Bluepete]

Rider

[DJ123]

Keith_D

[Red Herring]

Potentially you might try and shift some responsibility onto the driver of car B as it was their actions that compromised your ability to deal with the developing situation in front of you, however the fact that the bike still stopped before running into the vehicle ahead does tend to suggest rider incompetence was mainly to blame (bikes tend to stop better whilst upright on their tyres rather than sliding on their fairings......)

Why did car A hit the brakes?

[tonyk]

Rider.......
Had it not been a car on the the other side, but a child running into the road the car infront would brake quickly......
Sorry but riders fault.....
Funny thing but this did happen to me....lucky there was enough space between me and the car infront.

[laperlenoire]

Honestly I have seen so many drivers avoiding oncoming traffic on tight roads and hitting the breaks to stop closer to the kerb - I guess this is the result of fear.
Potentially you might try and shift some responsibility onto the driver of car B as it was their actions that compromised your ability to deal with the developing situation in front of you, however the fact that the bike still stopped before running into the vehicle ahead does tend to suggest rider incompetence was mainly to blame (bikes tend to stop better whilst upright on their tyres rather than sliding on their fairings......)

Why did car A hit the brakes?

[laperlenoire]

I thought that the car-B was to blame as it created dangerous situation for the rider who had to take radical action. Luckily the rider managed to avoid a crash.
In the worst case if there has been a crash between rider and car-B: car-B is faulty I guess.As there has been no crash then the rider is to blame.
That is a bit awkward, isn't it ?

[chris SVK3]

I had a very similar accident to this my self last year. I was coming round a bend when a car pulled in front of me and stopped ( rabbit in the headlights when they saw me) this blocked my side of the road. I slammed the brakes on and locked the front end. I hit the ground hard and got a flashing taxi straight to hospital. Not good.
This accident has now been deemed the drivers fault as there is a limit to what you can reasonable anticipate happening otherwise we would have to drive around a walking pace. ;)

[NTECUK]

Who takes responsibility legally and who should be looking out for themselves is very often two different things.
It's always being told to me that you have to be capplable of stopping in the distance you can see. This was reinforced by the loss of two lives in 2012 when a motorcycle collided with a tractor. No amount of prosecuting the tractor driver will ever bring those two lives back.
Yes we all enjoy fast cornners.But we share the roads with frackwards, idiots and things that don't have the experience or knowledge what's going on.
Enjoy your self but ride safe.

[ophic]

You don't have to actually hit the car for them to be responsible. I had a car pull out of a side road right in front of me. I avoided it but dumped the bike in the process. Their fault. Their insurance company admitted liability quite quickly - this was probably helped by a little old lady who saw the whole thing.

I can't quite see though how the rider in the scenario could possibly manage to lose traction if they were following the 2 second rule at 30mph. Moving to the left of your lane doesn't move your wheel enough to slide it if you hit the brakes - the wheel just straightens itself and you stop. If you lock it and hit the deck then you panic braked which also means you weren't paying attention to what's directly ahead of you - therefore rider's fault.

[Bibio]

i think i get the drift of what you are saying. there is a road with parked cars on one side and the opposite side to the driver in car A in front of the bike so car A continues. along comes driver in car B on the opposite side of the road where the parked cars are and decides that there is enough room so pulls out and continues on. this causes car A to suddenly brake due to thinking there is not enough room?

if so then it's still the bike riders fault.

now, if car A had hit car B then car B would be to blame. if bike crashed into the back of car A then its still the bikes fault.

why? if you crash into the back of someone its YOUR fault for not leaving enough room to be safe.

side on collisions due to people pulling out of side roads is an entirely different thing.

[laperlenoire]

i think i get the drift of what you are saying. there is a road with parked cars on one side and the opposite side to the driver in car A in front of the bike so car A continues. along comes driver in car B on the opposite side of the road where the parked cars are and decides that there is enough room so pulls out and continues on. this causes car A to suddenly brake due to thinking there is not enough room?



That is exactly the scenario I wanted to describe. Sorry if that was unclear.

[Red Herring]

The way I read the original post was that car A was past vehicle B when vehicle B decided to swerve towards the motorcycle causing the rider to swerve, and whilst they were doing so car A hit the brakes.......

If what caused car A to brake was car B crossing into it's path then the driver of car B does carry some responsibility for the ensuing incident. The Road Traffic Act states:

owing to the presence of a mechanically propelled vehicle on a road or other public place, an accident occurs by which— (a)personal injury is caused to a person other than the driver of that mechanically propelled vehicle, or
(b)damage is caused—
(i)to a vehicle other than that mechanically propelled vehicle......

Clearly had it not been for the presence of vehicle B the incident would not have occurred. You could try and take it to the nth degree and involve the parked cars however if they were lawfully parked then it moves the responsibility of the other traffic to safely avoid them which the driver of car B clearly didn't do if by doing so he forced another driver (car A) to take evasive action.

This does not however absolve the rider of the motorcycle from riding with due care and attention both of which require them to be able to stop safely in the distance they can see to be clear.

[punyXpress]

It's always being told to me that you have to be capable of stopping in the distance you can see.
Not only that but be able to stop 'if I met myself' coming the other way.
That would halve the available stopping distance. :(

[ophic]

Not only that but be able to stop 'if I met myself' coming the other way.
That would halve the available stopping distance. :(

and tear a big hole in the spacetime continuum.

[NTECUK]

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/1EyN0cLF9if_B3BrycE6E1SAUTPNEbMjvbC8OvVpnSE=w125-h207-p-no
http://forums.sv650.org/stop as a car pulls out into his path or justif its like tempel lane, the car "A" might want to turn right and someone crosses the junction ahead .
Mr cheeky esscort is already pushing up to past the cars on the right of the pic,
you not wanting to ride in the pot holes want to keep out of the gutter ,so your distracted .looking at the escort(so you unconsciously go towards them ) look up and suddenly see the car you were following has stopped as John Doe ligitamitly crosses the road on the right of the crossroads.
you grab a hand full of front brake and down you go.
Still your fault.....