Got into my first major car accident

Sorry you were in an accident. I'm glad you were ok. You'd probably want to take it easy a few days... perhaps seeing a doc wouldn't hurt either. From the sound of it, the lady that turned in front of you will surely go to one of those "special" injuiry lawyer docs.

In either case, if the light was yellow on both sides, she was supposed to yield to oncoming traffic but failed to do so. And if you were going 40 in a 30 mph zone, you could be in the wrong for speeding or just out right running the light. I think there's error on both ends so they may nullify each other...

Let us know what happens... and if your car is repairable.

 

It's a sad story repeated far too often.

Two people...
Going in opposite directions...
Through a yellow light...
One makes a left turn in front of the other...

Ya' know... that almost never works out well.

 

I'm very sorry to hear about your accident. Let this be a lesson to all of us: Yellow means stop if you possibly can; keep going only if it is impossible to stop safely.

I think we all tend to treat yellow as if it meant "Speed up so you can get through before the red."

I don't know what happened in this case, so I am speaking now only of driving habits in general: We have all seen where a car is waiting to turn left, having advanced into the intersection. When the light turns yellow the driver expects the oncoming traffic to stop so he can make his turn before the red, or if it turns red, he is permitted to complete his turn, being already in the intersection. But the driver behind is in a hurry and follows through, thinking that the cross traffic won't start up for a moment yet. But as mentioned above, most of us will speed up when we see a yellow, in order to make it through. And the combination of several drivers all trying to get through the yellow light leads to accidents.

 

I hope the court never sees this tread and puts 2 and 2 together. Lots of incriminating info here. Admitting to all you were speeding certainly does not serve your best interests.

 

We've had this discussion before on PC, and Schmika ( a police sergeant) said that you are fine as long as the light isn't red as you enter the intersection. Entering the intersection on yellow is NOT illegal, just sometimes dangerous, as you have seen. There are a few changes in my driving habits since getting my Prius that bother me, and going through yellow lights to avoid having to stop/start again is one of them. I also am sometimes now victim to the problem mentioned in another ticket thread: rolling through stop signs.

 

In drivers ed we were taught that yellow means "clear the intersection". If you're in the intersection (crossing the big white line that indicates where the intersection begins), then you have to get out of the intersection (turn or drive through). Technically speaking, if you aren't in the intersection when the light turns yellow, you have to stop; failure to do so means that you, again, technically speaking, have failed to obey a traffic control device. If you hit someone or they hit you, it's also failure to yield the right of way.

 

i don't think speeding will have anything to do with it.

i had a car accident when i was 17 that went something like that, except i was turning left out of a parking lot (in a 15 mph zone so i should have been able to see if anyone made that sharp curve 6 ft from the intersection) and some jerk in a huge suburban came flying around the curve at maybe 30-40. my car was shifted to the right about 5 feet, tire marks to prove where the front end was dragged. the fender, hood, and nosepiece of my car almost disintegrated. had they been going much faster it would have cracked the battery open.

who was at fault? me.

of course that could have been the cop defaulting to the assumption that the younger one is at fault, but i'd assume 30-40 in a 15 zone was reckless. why did the other woman not get a ticket? "oh, but she's making that up. i was going 18, tops" yeah lady, that would maybe fit the evidence if you were driving a dump truck.

as a side note, i complained to the property's public safety manager about that curve, and how there was no way you could see in time if someone came barrelling around that corner. the response i got was "but the speed limit is 15." i asked why they couldn't install speed bumps to ENSURE that people were going the speed limit before hitting that curve and i was told it wasn't necessary.

i stopped shopping there.

 

Every traffic regulation I have ever read says Yellow requires you to stop, IF YOU CAN SAFELY STOP. It is not a blanket requirement to stop. If it were it wouldn't be any different from a Red light.

If you can't safely stop, you are perfectly within your rights and, in fact, your duty to enter the intersection, and to clear it as soon as you can safely clear it.

If you enter the intersection on a yellow light, and are hit, you have not failed to yield. You have no fault at all, because the guy that hit you ran a red light to get to you (except, as in this case, where the guy was turning, and the turning party has the obligation to yield). You can't be cited for failure to yield, because you still have the right of way until the light is red.

 

Here in San Diego almost every traffic light has arrows for left turns - even at small intersections. So you almost never see the type of accident described here. But of course you also spend more time waiting at traffic lights...

Funny thing is, I once got into an accident anyway at one such intersection. I was making the left turn on a green arrow, and the guy approaching from the other direction ran the red light. Phooey. At least in this situation fault is easy to assign.

 

Sorry to hear about your accident and glad that no one was seriuosly hurt.

On a side (weird) note, if the person got out of their car and started dropping the f-bomb, you can press charges for sexual assault. I know, this sounds completely ridiculous.

REAL LIFE EXAMPLE:A friend of mine dropped the f-bomb a couple of times after an accident and the other driver pressed charges and he ended up going to court a couple of times and paying the other driver a couple hundred dollars, plus all the time he spent defended his actions/language.

 

The California Vehicle Code is ambiguous.

Its clear from other sections what Green and Red mean but on Yellow I guess you takes your chances.

 

An important point here is whether the OP could have safely stopped before entering the intersection, from the time the light turned yellow. The drivers turning left had an obligation to yield, but if the OP was far enough from the intersection when the light turned yellow to have been able to stop safely, they might have been reasonable in assuming that they could finish their turns and clear the intersection, as required by law. Another critical point is whether the second left-turner (the one involved in the accident) was already in the intersection before the light turned yellow. If she was (as could be possible in some intersections) then she had an obligation to complete her turn. If she was not, then she should have stopped. And if the light was already red when she entered, thinking she could follow the car in front of her, then she clearly broke the law.

The devil's in the details here. We have no way of knowing what actually happened. Chances are, the court won't have any way of knowing what actually happened, either. Even a black box in the car won't show exactly when the lights changed.

Is there really a black box? I thought that was an urban legend.

 

My Dad was in the same exact type of accident. He was going straight and sped up at the yellow light to make it through the intersection. The other car was turning left and was clearly there first. HOWEVER, because my dad was going straight and the other guy was turning, they faulted the other driver. They issued a ticket at the scene. This was in Florida. Unfortunately, the other driver was an uninsured motorist and my dad's company still had to pay. At least he got out of the "fault".