Who is at fault?

MangoLime

Hi all, just wondering if someone could help me with this-

There's a road by my house which I've driven up and down many times. Said road is quite narrow and cars are allowed to park on one side. However, my car is small enough so 9 times out of 10, if there's another car coming towards me, I can just drive past it with no problems i.e. not having to move over a small bit or pull in behind the parked cars to let them pass.

Today I was driving down the road as usual when I saw another car coming down towards me. All seemed fine, but it wasn't until the car was a few inches away from me that I saw there were about 5 or 6 cars behind him. Having passed the space behind the parked cars, all I could do was stop and wait for the others to pass me. Embarrasing, but not dangerous. They just had to move slowly.

However, as one of the cars was passing, our side mirrors bumped off each other. Nothing major, they weren't damaged but it did make a noise. He kept going though as if nothing had happened.

My question is, if my and/or his mirror had been damaged, would it be my fault or his? He was the one moving, but I should have stopped further down the road in order for there to be more room.

Sorry for the length of this post but I'm just curious, if someone could answer this for me I would be very grateful!

drunkmonkey

Sounds like it's your fault, you should have stopped and waited for your chance to pass the parked car. Instead you went to pass the parked car, hadn't enough space to keep going so parked in the middle of the road causing the other cars to squeeze past.
It's the other drivers fault for hitting the mirror but you shouldn't have stopped where you did. If you wanted to get funny about paying for the mirror I'm sure the other driver could have reported you for careless driving.

johnmcdnl

well it initially sounds like your fault because you should have given way to oncoming traffic when you had a chance....

but saying that you stopped so it's his fault for hitting a car that's essentially a parked car...

I'd have done what you did but I really don't know how it'd be viewed by insurance companies when they try to decide who caused to accident had damage been done....


the thing about this situation is that I drive on back roads a lot because of where I live and the road isn't wide enough for 2 cars to pass at the widest part of the road so if you see a car coming you just pull into the first gap you find... now if the other car tips me passing by I assume he's responsible and that's the way I'm viewing the situation you had....

look at it this way - if you were coming up a road and seen cars double parked on the other side of the road and you clipped a car's mirror... it'd be your fault for hitting a car that was stopped... even though the other car was wrong to be there in the first place...


my call - his fault but don't be proud of yourself because it "wasn't your fault" - if you'd taken more precaution the event would have happened so your not blameless but it's his fault at the end of the day for hitting a car that's stopped...

MangoLime

thanks for the replies!

Yeah, I would see it as my fault. It's the first time I've ever done something like that so certainly not proud of myself.

But hey,we all make mistakes.

thanks again

Mint Sauce

The other arguement is, that if there are parked cars on your side of the road and traffic coming towards you with no parked cars on there side, they have right of way.

If there was no traffic coming towards you at the point when you started to pass the parked cars, you then have right of way if any cars start coming towards you after that point. They would have to wait on you to pass the parked cars.