Accident/insurance advice

Emp_Fab

I dunno.....  looking at the photos, I'd say it was all your fault.  Sorry !  That's some serious corner-cutting, if I'm making out the faded road markings correctly.

Edit: Mmmm.... looking at the first photo, it appears that your rear wheel is inside the white line - i.e. you're completely in your lane, in which case, I'm talking out of my arse.

Poor choice of words perhaps.

skunkwerx

This thread will give you an idea of the correspondence the insurers are getting into... lol.. 

You fault, no its your fault.. nope its your fault, no its yours.... 
eh, 50/50 and call it quits? 

fastonebaz

I'm curious about the incorrectly spaced numberplate letters you had in 2017.  Was it a fancy private plate?   T3 XME X

Tex Mexico

Having read all your comments (thanks by the way), I'm increasingly sure of two things:

1. He was in the wrong. It wasn't my cutting the corner that caused the accident. It was him swinging out onto the wrong side of the road at sufficient speed that he was unable to stop before he hit me. Whereas I did cut the corner, the part of my vehicle he hit was in the position my vehicle would have been had I not cut the corner. He told me he was doing about 10mph, which is 4.5m/s. I don't think he was over the line before I stopped. And yes, @Emp_Fab , on the top photo if you look at my rear driver wheel, that white line next to it is the centre-line. My car was fully on my side, and stopped, at the moment of impact.

2. The insurance company will take my corner-cutting as an excuse to refuse the claim.

So what now? I'm going to contact my insurance regardless to advise them of the incident but should I wait for the other insurance's ruling? Will they fight the refusal or just address it as a 50/50 claim?

I've added some graphics showing the white lines, where I cut the corner and how far over his wagon was at the point of impact. 

https://i.imgur.com/Jjbv7bk.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/p9pKMWS.jpeg

duotone

If he was less further over it looks like he would be extremely close to the hedge. The angle of your car cutting across his lane from the photos doesn’t look very good on you either tbh.

Verdict 60/40 him/you imo.

p90fool

That looks worse if anything. While it shows you're entirely in you own lane it also shows you sliced right across the other one. 

It'll probably go 50/50. 

Stratavarious

Their video must clearly show you cutting the corner quite considerably and that a moment before you were right in his path. 

The driver was manoeuvring around the bend as close as the dimensions of his vehicle allowed, if he had gone inside the line he would have hit the hedge looking at that pic. He could not have known if there was a cyclist or a pedestrian there either given the height of the hedge.

So they may say theIr driver was not at fault in any way in the end and driving safely and appropriately for the situation.  There are even signs on lorries saying they may make wide turns, exactly allowing for this manoeuvring. 

Purely as an observer of a couple of pics, with the damage toward your front end too, I’d say 50:50 might be best you can hope for.  

But honestly it looks like a hasty, very early cutting across of the line into a blind corner with the consequent accident situation arising.  Assumption is the mother of all fuckups.    

Bad luck situation.. suck it up.

shaunyshaun1234

Adding the road markings definitely makes it look more obvious as to how far you actually cut the corner! Don't send them to your insurer! 

strtdv

Looks 50:50.

The dash cam will be placed at the top of the lorry windscreen in the centre, won't show the front corner of the truck.

Unless you have your own dashcam footage proving the truck was well out (and tbh even then it looks like the truck couldn't have reasonably been any further in) I can't see it not being 50:50


Get a dashcam and hardwire it. Even a cheap £40 from Amazon will shoot in full HD and give you evidence in the event of an idiot crashing into you then claiming it was your fault

Stratavarious

The road marking are abysmal.

siremoon

You won't like this but the angle of your vehicle relative to the white line strongly suggests that you cut the corner.  Given the size of his vehicle and the proximity of his nearside kerb then it looks as though he had no choice but to position himself where he did.  Any fault on his part would thus relate to speed and observation approaching a junction with a sharp left hand corner in front of him.  Had you been further left and parallel with the white line as it appears you could have been (and given the white line should have been) then it's entirely possible the collision would have been avoided.  Ergo the positioning of your vehicle was a contributory factor so I'm not surprised they are wanting to apportion some of the blame to you.

fastonebaz

Ultimately the lorry crashed into you not vice versa, and he failed to travel at speed at which he could stop sufficiently in an emergency.  You could have been a child standing directly in his lane that was struck.  Still his fault. 

strtdv

fastonebaz said:

Ultimately the lorry crashed into you not vice versa, and he failed to travel at speed at which he could stop sufficiently in an emergency.  You could have been a child standing directly in his lane that was struck.  Still his fault. 

A child isn't responsible for their position in the road though.

Emp_Fab

I'm blaming the kid's parents.  Clearly, any parent that allows a child loose on a road like that is grossly irresponsible.

Tex Mexico

Yeah, it's interesting on reviewing this that I hadn't realised the extent to which I cut the corner. As someone has pointed out, the road markings are fucked so it's hard to see from the main road where the actual corner is.

So again, yeah, they'll say 50/50 based on that.

However I do maintain that I was completely in my lane and at a full stop when he hit me. The reason I stopped is because I saw him swinging into my lane. He swung out and hit me, I presume either because he was going too fast or because he didn't react soon enough, or given the position of his wheels it looks like he tried to turn away instead of stopping. I think if I hadn't cut the corner I still would have had to be more than two feet into my lane to avoid being sideswiped. The part of my car he hit was positioned relative to the centre-line as it would have been had I not cut the corner.

I get that it's necessary for other drivers to give lorries a wide berth but by the same token it was reasonable for him to expect vehicles would be turning into the road, and he should have proceeded with way more caution if he was crossing the centre-line. On seeing the situation I had time to stop, but he didn't. I realise this likely won't have any bearing on the verdict.

fastonebaz

This child has just turned 16, I didn't know at first it was their birthday the day before. 

Snags

There's an implication in an earlier comment that you haven't notified your own insurers yet. You need to do that pronto - they'll fight your corner (hopefully) with the other party's insurer, and other than providing your statement and supporting evidence you should let them get in with it. Even if it doesn't go your way. In fact,  especially if it might not, because you'll probably find you're obliged to notify them as part of your cover.

If I've mis-read and your lot are already on the case, apologies  

Tex Mexico

Snags said:

There's an implication in an earlier comment that you haven't notified your own insurers yet. You need to do that pronto - they'll fight your corner (hopefully) with the other party's insurer, and other than providing your statement and supporting evidence you should let them get in with it. Even if it doesn't go your way. In fact,  especially if it might not, because you'll probably find you're obliged to notify them as part of your cover.

If I've mis-read and your lot are already on the case, apologies  

No you're correct. I've submitted my claim and evidence via the portal this morning though so I'm going to try to put it out of mind for now. If it costs me it costs me. TBF I probably deserve it for cutting in, even if that's not what caused the accident.

Drive safe, everyone.

Dominic

Having had a 2 year battle with somebody who pulled straight out of a petrol station across the road and despite 2 favourable witnesses who are prepared to go to court it has panned out as follows ;
 Irrespective of fault both insurers are incredibly inefficient ,lazy and want to do as little as possible unless the evidence is extremely clear cut.
We have the other driver on film confessing his fault and apologising...........goes for nothing (16 months later he totally disputes and says he was shocked and confused at the time ..........he has also produced a witness who never surfaced until 18 months after the accident and is completely fake.) The "witness "curiously lives in the same obscure village as the other driver and is on the same facebook groups ......Insurers say it means nothing of value !
Lawyers are a basically claims processors in pro bono disguise who want to do nothing unless we lie and pretend that we have trauma injuries and other vexatious nonsense to make their percentage of a personal injury claim worthwhile !
 Apparently "we must surely have sleep difficulty ,flashbacks and problems at work and sexually " !!!!!!
Insurers will not spend money going to court and between the two insurers have basically tried to agree a mexican stand-off on a 50/50 basis without liability !!!
.......basically there is zero regard for right and wrong or morality and commercialism means that they have agreed to disagree so they can minimalise their input and costs and simply close a file .

Hattigol

Dominic said:

Having had a 2 year battle with somebody who pulled straight out of a petrol station across the road and despite 2 favourable witnesses who are prepared to go to court it has panned out as follows ;
 Irrespective of fault both insurers are incredibly inefficient ,lazy and want to do as little as possible unless the evidence is extremely clear cut.
We have the other driver on film confessing his fault and apologising...........goes for nothing (16 months later he totally disputes and says he was shocked and confused at the time ..........he has also produced a witness who never surfaced until 18 months after the accident and is completely fake.) The "witness "curiously lives in the same obscure village as the other driver and is on the same facebook groups ......Insurers say it means nothing of value !
Lawyers are a basically claims processors in pro bono disguise who want to do nothing unless we lie and pretend that we have trauma injuries and other vexatious nonsense to make their percentage of a personal injury claim worthwhile !
 Apparently "we must surely have sleep difficulty ,flashbacks and problems at work and sexually " !!!!!!
Insurers will not spend money going to court and between the two insurers have basically tried to agree a mexican stand-off on a 50/50 basis without liability !!!
.......basically there is zero regard for right and wrong or morality and commercialism means that they have agreed to disagree so they can minimalise their input and costs and simply close a file .

Did you go with the lawyers your insurers recommended by any chance?