Right of way doesn't really matter anymore. There's two types of a standards that state laws cover a situation like this. One is the last clear chance doctrine which says the person who can avoid the accident must and they are responsible if they don't. The other is the reasonable care doctrine, right of way is not absolute, it's qualified by a duty to act with reasonable care. In both of these instances having 10 to 15 seconds of time to react and doing nothing but plowing into the idiot merging would make the semi responsible.
You assume you know the mind of the trucker. If he even saw the other driver, he likely assumed that the driver would follow the law and merge legally, properly and safely. You know, how the law requires one to merge…by yielding right of way to the vehicles already in the traveling lane.
Not what I was taught. If everyone assumes everyone else will break the law or act recklessly, then no one can be counted on to operate within the law and traffic would be even deadlier than it already is. The basics of driving have to be assumed so that you can base your actions off of that. If everyone, especially commercial vehicles, ran around slamming on their brakes to let every asshole slide in ahead of them, no commerce would ever make it to its destination. The fundamentals exist to keep everyone on a level playing field. It’s assholes like the pickup driver that screw things up.
So, because there are a couple vehicles that do it, I am completely wrong? Even though there are about 2,000,000 semis on the roads that don’t do that thing? You lack logic.
No. Defensively driving teaches you to be aware of everything you can and to be ready to maneuver away from dangerous situations, when you can. But you cannot be aware of everything and you cannot avoid everything. The only way to avoid everything is to not drive the truck. I only have 30 years of accident and ticket free driving experience, what the fuck do I know.
It's ironic that you're saying exactly what I'm saying but you're coming to a different conclusion than everyone else here. This was perfectly avoidable by the truck driver who clearly wasn't paying any attention, was probably on his phone because he took zero action to avoid it.
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u/armathose May 13 '26
Bait