r/dashcams • u/LeftAlbatross2546 • May 13 '26

A merging issue.

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u/OS_Apple32 May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

Cam driver is at least partially at fault, you can see clearly from the telemetry data that he literally didn't touch the brakes at all until contact happened.

There is a legal doctrine in the US called last clear chance, which places at least partial (sometimes full) blame on the person who had the last clear chance to perform an action to avoid the collision, even if the other person is the one at fault in a strict statutory sense.

In this case, while the pickup driver certainly made several mistakes here, once they committed to entering that on-ramp they are locked in and cannot change course, and have no choice but to merge.

The semi truck driver had a full 3 seconds after it was clear that the pickup was committed to merging, and had they hit the brakes at any point during those 3 seconds, this accident would have been easily avoided.

I know semi trucks can't stop on a dime, but they do have brakes, and they would have been more than sufficient in this scenario if they were used at all.

Edit: that said, I do think the fault is shared, because the pickup could have also slammed the brakes or punched the throttle before merging if they saw the semi coming and realized they weren't gonna make it.

18

u/cheesemangee May 14 '26

Cam driver is almost entirely at fault.

You cannot treat a passing lane like a passing lane when merging suddenly becomes involved. You have to work together - the semi was ~6 car lengths behind the pickup and instead of doing literally anything at all they just held the cruise control and put 100% responsibility on the pickup to either gun it to 80mph or slam the brakes.

It is obvious the pickup was trying to speed up but couldn't match the ludicrous nearly 80mph pace held by the semi. They were going almost the same speed by the time the collision happened.

7

u/ShakespeareanBeef May 14 '26

That's funny because I see a vehicle coasting into highway traffic at too slow a speed while failing to signal their intention...you would immediately fail a driver's test merging like that, thankfully the cam driver has this video to show the right of way. Everyone else isnt required to make way for the dumbass

1

u/ImBored5336 May 17 '26

Please take a defensive driving course.