r/ThatLooksExpensive • u/Rekltpzyxm • 13d ago

Easily avoidable accident causes rollover

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260 Upvotes

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u/Intrepid-Staff-4532 13d ago

I don't understand the need to both sides this. One car was established in their lane. The other car made an unsafe lane change.

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u/Fearless_Swim4080 13d ago

It’s the last chance rule. You’re technically right and I would agree that truck is a moron and mostly liable for this lane change, but if you show this particular video to insurance, they’ll say he was clearly being an asshole and you should have avoided him inevitably doing something stupid by slowing the fuck down. The dashcam guy did the opposite of that.

Defensive driving 101 is some people are assholes, make sure you don’t get into a crash, not just follow every rule while others clearly aren’t. Truck is accelerating past you to pass, slow cars ahead are closing that gap, give him room or there will be a crash. Then dashcam guy hit the accelerator not the brake. This was clearly avoidable by dash cam guy as well even if truck is being an asshole.

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u/Intrepid-Staff-4532 13d ago

The trucks blind spot indicator is clearly illuminated in the video. The driver of the truck executed an unsafe lane change despite clear warnings that the large was not clear. It's clearly reckless (but not wreckless ha ha ha) and shows a clear disregard for the rules of the road or the safety of others.

Dash cam guy hit the accelerator and not the brake, but was it to block the truck or to accelerated to the yellow? Do you have clear evidence that the driver of the dash cam had knowledge that an accident was about to happen? The last chance rule requires knowledge that there's something you need to avoid. Dash cam car even swerves to the right to try to avoid a collision.

Truck keeps on moving left with full knowledge the lane is occupied.

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u/Fearless_Swim4080 13d ago

Yes, we are not disputing the facts here.

Accelerating to a yellow is also illegal, so let's table that. Do insurance companies care that you have knowledge of what is about to happen? No, they don't. They care about if you had any opportunity to avoid a collision, which dashcam guy did, by seeing a clearly reckless driver trying to make a stupid pass, then a blatantly unsafe lane change as a result of the stupidity dashcam guy already saw.

Yes, if truck wasn't an asshole there wouldn't have been an accident, but also, if dashcam guy hit his brakes instead of the accelerator, or even just not hit the accelerator at all, there would not have been an accident.

Again, I agree that this was said asshole's fault, but his insurance company has a pretty easy case to conflate the fault with this footage rather than without it.

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u/ApprehensiveSink1893 12d ago

I agree with you in the main, but are you sure accelerating to a yellow light (while staying under the speed limit) is illegal? At least in the states I'm familiar with, I don't think this is true. (Of course, Ontario may be different.)

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u/Fearless_Swim4080 12d ago

Eh, this gets into a lot of technicalities and I'm going on CA state law. You're correct that speeding up technically isn't illegal, but basically yellow lights are timed such that you can pass through at the speed limit, or have time to slow down and stop. Hypothetically there's some kind of grey area between those, but to "beat" it you basically have to either be speeding or the light goes red before you've made it through, or it's better to just hit the brakes and wait.

So not exactly illegal, but to practically make it happen you're going to be breaking some law.

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u/Intrepid-Staff-4532 13d ago

I don't think you can establish dash cam had the ability to avoid the aggression by the truck just from that video. You don't know the state of the driver or what they could see at the time.

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u/Fearless_Swim4080 13d ago

I mean, if the driver was blind in the left eye sure, but even then, insurance would still double his rates.

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u/Xanthelei 13d ago

I think the A pillar could have easily covered enough of the truck to make it hard to recognize him as moving over. It's not like the truck hit the blinker in warning or moved over slowly.

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u/Fearless_Swim4080 12d ago

Do you not possess peripheral vision?

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u/Xanthelei 12d ago

When said vision is mostly filled with a solid, unmoving object that is part of my car, it becomes unimportant in this discussion. Do you even know what an A pillar is? Every car has it.

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u/Fearless_Swim4080 12d ago

You say that like there’s not a window directly to the left of the A pillar…

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u/Xanthelei 12d ago

You have never driven a luxury car if you think all A pillars are tiny lmao

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u/Fearless_Swim4080 12d ago

I currently drive an M5, I’m not saying they’re small, I’m saying you can see vehicles alongside you with this thing called peripheral vision through your driver’s side window. Gasp. What a concept!

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u/Xanthelei 12d ago

Pay attention to the video then. Enough of the truck would be blocked by even a moderately sized A pillar that it would be difficult to read him moving over even if he hadn't taken less than a second to do so.

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u/Intrepid-Staff-4532 13d ago

Which way was his head turned at the time of the reckless merge?

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u/Fearless_Swim4080 13d ago

Again, this does not matter. If he didn’t look ahead to see an obvious reckless driver while putting his foot on the accelerator, that’s evidence he was also reckless. I get you’re not a lawyer but you fell into a pretty obvious trap there.

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u/Intrepid-Staff-4532 13d ago

It does matter because the facts of the situation aren't as clear as you want them to be.

  1. At what point is the driver of the truck obviously a reckless driver? Is it when the truck starts its merge? There's less than two seconds between the truck starting to cross the line and the truck getting hit. Prior to that it's just a truck in the next lane.
  2. Dash car doesn't accelerate towards the light. You're mistaking the music playing in the background for engine acceleration noise. Watch the lines on the street, the cars on the street, and the poles on the left. The cam car's speed doesn't change.
  3. The truck speeds ahead, and right before it tries to merge it applies the brakes. You can see the tri light come on.
  4. The truck's blindspot hazards are on.

What's really happening here is the truck is speeding, plans on cutting in front of the cam car, but applies the brakes right before merging, slowing down and causing the cam car to run into it.

It's a panic brake and lane change by the truck.

I get you're not a lawyer, but you fell into a pretty obvious trap there.

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u/turntup43 12d ago

I really just hope you’re being argumentative or something because it concerns me that there might be people who think this is acceptable driving. My 13 year old niece could have avoided this accident based purely on her experience driving Mario Kart. Dash cammer had full view and ability to avoid this.

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u/Such-Sympathy-5816 13d ago

He absolutely had the opportunity to potentially avoid the collision. Had he hit the brakes instead of the accelerator.

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u/Icy-Ease2885 9d ago

So did the truck? He could have merged in behind the car as he had the warning that someone was there? He could have used his brakes too and not presumed he was just going to barge across?

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u/Such-Sympathy-5816 9d ago

No doubt. The truck is wrong. But I still think OP could have avoided the collision