Illegal left turn?

[Minie]

I have a question:

Imagine an apartment-complex- parking lot that looks like the letter E. The long strip is the main road in the parking lot and the other three strips are just little roads.

I was on the strip to the far right attmepting to make a left onto the main strip.

There was a second car on the little strip to my left attempting to make a right onto the main strip.

Technically there is enough room for me to make my left, when I did that I got hit by that second car which was flying down the parking lot. I actually did not see the car drive fast, it went from the little strip to the main strip and hit me so quikly.

Normally, I would assume it's my fault since I made a left turn onto a main strip and got hit. But does it matter that the other car was flying down the parking lot and there is a witness that saw the car driving soooo fast?

I tried my best to explain how it happened, hopefully it makes sense.

[vengeance05]

From the way it sounds you were making a left turn across the other person's lane of travel. Because of that, if I were writing an accident report I would note that a cause of the accident was your failure to yield right of way. I would not note that the person was "speeding" unless there was evidence to show that. Since this sounds like it was in a private parking lot I would most likely not cite either driver. If your insurance company wants to dispute liability with the other insurance company they may do so. If the car made a 90* right turn onto the "main strip" just before he struck your vehicle you and your witness/friend may be exagerating the other drivers speed.

[mobrien316]

In Connecticut no one would be deemed at fault for an accident on private property.

If it had been on a public road then I probably would have ticketed you for failure to yield, and (if I could prove the other car was speeding) ticketed the other car for speeding. You would have been at fault.

Generally when someone pulling out says that the car that hit them was going too fast it is easy to prove they weren't just paying attention. Unless you are talking about a blind corner with no line of sight, there is always enough time to see an oncoming car if you are looking.

This happens all the time, and it takes me all of about ten seconds to show that the oncoming car would have had to have been traveling at 1000 miles an hour (or some other ridiculously high number) to have covered the distance in question in such a short period of time that you couldn't have avoided pulling out in front of them.

[MOCOP]

My Dept. wouldn't even work a TC on private property.

[Minie]

No one got cited. Where I live, you either don't get cited for private property violations or maybe the officer just choose not to cite, I'm not sure.

I did not know that there was a witness until few days after the accident when a woman who lives in the same complex asked what's going on with the case and I told her it's going to be my fault since I made a left turn, that's when she said that she SAW the other car going sooo fast and she packed up my story.

So, I called the insurance calims guy and he said if the police officer would be willing to change the police report and add the witnesses statement to it that this would show negligance on the other party and hence won't be my fault.

Long story short, the police officer did interview the witness and added her statement to the polce report.

when I called the insurance calims guy to tell him to go get the new report, he said "it's too late we already paid the other party, since the damages were not that bad, it's not worth furhter investigation".

I were sooooo pissed since he's the one who told me to call the cop and have him interview the witness and all.

[mobrien316]

Witness statements regarding the speed of a vehicle in an MVA are completely worthless 99.99% of the time. The .01% of the time they are within 5 MPH of the actual speed of the vehicle is mostly likely due to sheer luck.

The investigating officer could have determined from the physical evidence if the car that hit you was traveling at or near the speed limit, but most likely didn't get involved in measurements for a private property accident.

[Cat_Doc]

The bottom line is you have to yield right of way making a left turn. As Mobrien said, if it can be proved the other driving was speeding, that driver would be at fault for speeding, but you still have to yield.

If you claimed you did not see him coming, then your inattention also contributed to the collision.

[Minie]

The bottom line is you have to yield right of way making a left turn. As Mobrien said, if it can be proved the other driving was speeding, that driver would be at fault for speeding, but you still have to yield.

If you claimed you did not see him coming, then your inattention also contributed to the collision.

I figured as much. Thanks for the reply though.