Who was in the wrong? (Driving related)

[PookieDo]

Car A and B are driving down a dual carriageway that has a section of 50mph speed limit and the rest is 70

Car A comes out of the 50 section in the left lane and picks up speed, coming up behind car C still going 50. The road is pretty empty bar car B which is in the right hand lane some distance behind - at least 20 + car lengths who has also just come out of the 50 zone and picking up speed

Car A sees car B in mirror but due to speed of car C either has to brake or overtake Car A pulls out and overtakes car C quickly going back into left lane but does not realise car B is going 90mph.

Car B is very angry and had to slam on brakes although car A does not stay in right hand lane for any longer than needed to overtake 1 car

Car B driver flashes lights beeps horn multiple times even once has passed car A, then makes offensive gestures pulling level with car A then at the next roundabout opens window and shouts at car A driver for being a stupid ***

Clearly car B did not react very well but was this proportionate to what car A did, a normal driving manoeuvre making the assumption that car B was going around 70mph and therefore had plenty of time?

It is always, without fail, the fault of the driver behind if he hits the car in front.

Even if the car in front rolls backwards downhill ?

All I know is that within any 20 minute car journey round my way they'll be at least 20 as in BMWs who haven't heard of indicators, and at least 20 w***s in Audis who have no idea of a safe gap to maintain while the rest of us try to drive like we're in some sort of vaguely civilised society.

If Car A has some share of the fault, I'm sure they'll be a bit more careful next time.

Car B definitely has either some share or all of the fault and I can bet they're not self-reflecting on how they might be safer next time. Car B is an accident waiting to happen.

Oh come on op, you have to tell us what hey we're driving. Audi or Beamer? 😉

*they were

Have people forgotten that they can also slow down if the car in front is going too slow? Then it would give them time to assess when best to overtake.
It's not a given right to drive at 70 mph just because you can - it's always dependant on road conditions and a driver overtaking you is never a good time to pull out and do the same in front of them.

The advanced driving course I went on told us that we shouldn't drive in a way which causes other drivers to have to suddenly adjust their speed or position.
Neither car was driving well but pulling out in front of a car is just unsafe as you are relying on the other car driver to adapt to keep you safe.

To all these Highway Code citers saying it's Car A's fault, I don't think it's quite that obvious. Obviously everyone knows you shouldn't change lanes if that causes someone else to swerve or slow down. Duh.

But it all really depends on how close Car B has got by the time you've actually completed the manouevre to change lanes.

There is no obligation to give these Toad of Toad Hall idiots completely free rein of the overtaking lane.
Provided you're fully in the overtaking lane and up to the speed limit before they are closer than a safe cruising gap, that's fine.

Wrong.

The thing is, only well calibrated equipment can tell you how fast a car is going so you have to make a judgement call and should err on the side of caution. Causing a car to brake by putting your own car in front of it can be a dangerous maneuver and there is no righteous exemption in physics and engineering for those sticking to the speed limit. This is what the highway code is trying to say. The line in the code does not mention speed limits because safety is the key point. Yes the speeding driver is not driving safely but, again, that does not give a reason for other driver to ignore safety rules.

People drive too fast and take too many risks. I can never understand why people put their lives and the lives of everyone else at risk just to get somewhere a little bit earlier, it’s madness.

Sorry I know that’s just a general comment but whenever I read stuff like this it makes me shudder.

I am a very safe, very boring, speed observing driver. The amount of people who regularly overtake me dangerously to then speed off at 90 or whatever mph is ridiculous. I have driven for nearly a decade and touch wood never had any accidents (hate saying that incase I jinx myself) I would not have overtaken in your situation.

Car B definitely has either some share or all of the fault and I can bet they're not self-reflecting on how they might be safer next time. Car B is an accident waiting to happen.

I don't agree that they have all the fault in this case (unless an accident was caused by their idiotic road rage) but you're right that they're probably not self reflective enough to come and ask and think if they could do better next time so in general I agree Car A is probably a much much safer driver and not a total dickhead unlike the driver of car B.

Car B was a knob but car A made the wrong judgement call.
Car A should shrug it off knowing car B was a knob.

scottishdiem

The highway code is talking about the manoeuvre of changing lanes. Not what happens after that.

Take it to extremes: an idiot is travelling 100mph and is 10 miles behind you. Do you have the right to move into the overtaking lane to overtake a long queue of traffic even though said idiot will have to slow down some time later when they eventually catch up with you?

It really does just depend on there being a nice safe gap by the time you've pulled out and completed the manouevre of changing lanes.

So are people saying that as the driver in front you are the sole responsible party in the event of any accident or incident even if the driver behind is speeding. The driver behind has no obligation to the road users in front

Your problem is that you weren't in front, were you? You were in a different lane. It is definitely the responsibility of the driver changing lanes to check that it is safe to do so.

I'm not even convinced from your posts that the driver of Car B was speeding, given that you've admitted you couldn't tell what speed he was doing when you looked in your mirror and he was coming out of a 50 zone. The fact that you perceive that he "zoomed off" afterwards tells us nothing about his speed beforehand.

MrsBethel, I think the fact that the driver of Car B had to slam his brakes on tells us that Car A driver didn't give him a safe braking gap.

not anticipating people changing lanes and behaving as if it should be left empty for you is taking it to a whole very unpleasant level.

This is ridiculous. No driver on a dual carriageway or motorway assumes that the lane in front will be left empty for them. However, what they are entitled to assume is that the people in front in the adjacent lanes won't move over without checking first and indicating. Obviously people do, so you still need to be alert, but if you drive constantly on the assumption that someone may hop into your lane in front of you without warning at any time you will never get above 10 mph.

No driver on a dual carriageway or motorway assumes that the lane in front will be left empty for them.

No driver

I can assure you I have met a few.

Take it to extremes: an idiot is travelling 100mph and is 10 miles behind you. Do you have the right to move into the overtaking lane to overtake a long queue of traffic even though said idiot will have to slow down some time later when they eventually catch up with you?

Well no. Silly example. Because you cant see 10 miles behind you.

And, in this case, the act of changing lanes caused the use of the brakes. There is always a point of when a manoeuvre ends. A car 10 miles away is not part of the manoeuvre. A car in your rear view mirror probably is.

Gersemi, yeah maybe.

Sometimes these idiots will deliberately close gaps aggressively to try to prove some sort of bizarre point, though. I just wonder what the gap was when Car A had completed the lane change, that's all. Not prepared to convict them without knowing this.

As an aside, I'm sure we've all been in the situation in heavy traffic where there is a nice big gap to pull out, you check it's safe, indicate, then you see some idiot has taken your use of the indicators as a cue to temporarily floor it and close off the gap. Some people are just bizarre.

scottishdiem

I can see a mile behind me.

Both. Car A knee car C was going slow- could see car B coming up the outside lane, and figured they would try to do a quick nip round before B barreled up. A shouldn't drive like a dick, B should have seen dickish behaviour and played safe. C should have sped the feck up- but A was also being a bit dickish if they were that far up C's arse they had to swerve out in front of a speeding car. So all three are arses. 😂

Nah buns. Mixed up my A's& B's.

Wasn’t up anyone’s arse - I planned it based on ‘do I slow down now or do I overtake?’

The way the road was positioned out of the 50 zone meant once I had seen car C, I was already gaining on it, brain checks ‘ok this is slower than me, what should I do’

Then checked Mirrors and thought ‘Ok well road behind me has one car I can see in the distance, I feel like I have enough time to warn them I am pulling out, pull out and get back in without causing them any issues’ - I was indisputably wrong, because they were going very fast. I know they were going very fast because even though I had accelerated to approx 70mph with enough space to get past car C, car B closed the gap between us at a rate which shocked me and I assumed from experience if we were travelling at similar speeds the laws of physics (Poss not my forte) suggest 2 people travelling approx 70mph with one of them at least 20 car lengths in front would not collide. So I made an assumption I should not have made, but I feel that car B made an assumption that the clear lane meant that they could go as fast as they wanted and assumed no one else would be trying to gain acceleration out of the 50 zone except them.

I never would have pulled out if I had really known their speed I am not an idiot. Accept I shouldn’t have tried to guess but also thought that was all part of motorway and dual carriageway driving that you make judgements on speed (and sometimes you are wrong, you can’t always be right). I didn’t know how many other cars were behind car B, therefore my mindset thought ‘ok well as we just got out of the 50 zone and everyone accelerates up to about 70, I could possibly be stuck here behind car C all the way to the junction’ as there could be 15 cars behind car B

Although I might have had to brake myself for car C it wouldn’t have been a hard brake, maybe touch and deceleration. Which in most circumstances I would do!

Car behind me possibly did accelerate when saw me pull out which ended up in a tailgate and then gave me a load of abuse. No accident happened and I didn’t think it was ALL my fault but both of ours, which is why I asked

I think the other thing you haven't factored in is differences in acceleration, I drive something rather like a tank, it has a decent top speed but takes a while to get there. My DH has a small, light car with much faster acceleration. Even if we both drive at 80 mph on a motorway he will reach that speed a noticeable amount before me. It isn't all about the final speed you drive at when you are changing speed zones on a road.

If someone does have actual maths I would be very impressed 😂

I learnt stopping distances was 1m for every MPH, so my brain clearly told me it was 20 car lengths which if a car is 2m or so approx max 40m which isn’t enough for that car to stop - but then I had not stopped in front of the car so 40m or so should be enough space? Is this not correct? There are 2 second chevrons on another nearby road which are really useful for this because you can time pulling out into lanes

So what is the gap you leave then?

@pumkinspicetime
Kind of my point re car B - you know that this going to be an issue coming out of the 50 zone, especially a bus or a lorry. Car B clearly was able to out accelerate all of us, doesn’t mean they SHOULD attempt this. You come out of zone knowing some cars will be at different speeds, so why risk going that fast?

Car A is at fault, my friend actually failed her driving test for something similar. She pulled out on someone who was driving well over the speed limit which caused the other driver to brake. The instructor said that if the other car was going at the speed limit she would have been perfectly fine to have pulled out but her misjudging the speed of the other car and causing it to take evasive action (braking) was a serious error and was enough to cause her to fail her test.