Car accident on roundabout - who's at fault?

[RoundaboutRacer]

I can add a diagram if needed.

Who's at fault in this situation.

Driver in outer lane of roundabout starts to leave roundabout at the exit they're indicating to.

Then after starting to exit changes their mind and swerved back onto the roundabout, in front of another car who wasn't going to exit the roundabout. So the front of that car went into the side door of the swerver.

Swerver is claiming it's not his fault as the front of the other drivers car went into the side of his car.

It's very obvious who made the error. But what's the legal take please if anyone knows?

Swerver sounds like a fool but agree that the striking car might not have been leaning enough space. There's a weird presumption on MN often that if someone's not in the right place then you can hit em with impunity

I don't think it is at all clear how far along with "exiting" the car was before it swerved back in.

Arguably, the car behind it should have been further back from the exiting car or going slower. I imagine it will go 50/50.

"morally" I think the exiting car is at fault though, however it doesn't always work like that with insurance.

Most of the time fault doesnt really matter - if both raise it with insurance it tends to fall to 50/50

www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/using-the-road-159-to-203

Rule 187
In all cases watch out for and give plenty of room to
traffic which may be straddling lanes or positioned incorrectly

It is every person's job on the road to avoid accidents - that is the fundamental basics of our traffic law. We don't have rights, we have priorities etc. And the highway code is very clear - all users should give plenty of room to others, even if positioned incorrectly - there is other similar entry in the highway code...

so, I suspect it will be 50/50 as neither car was taking appropriate care.

They were in the outside lane and cut across someone in the inside lane? Then changed their mind and decided to stay on the roundabout in the inside lane? Surely the car never actually left the roundabout otherwise how did they get back on?
I'm finding it difficult to imagine what happened.

If car A goes into the back of car B, then the driver of car A is normally held at fault by the insurance company. This is probably what the other driver is thinking of in saying it is your fault.

However in this case you went into the side of their car, so it seems fairly clear cut that they were at fault by swerving in front of you.

I had a similar crash a few years ago. The other driver denied responsibility and there were no witnesses. However with lots of photos, diagrams and description of the incident I was able to convince my insurance company it was definitely the other drivers fault. It dragged on for a while with them denying it. It was only when my insurer set a court date to recover the costs from them, that that their insurer finally paid up.

So my advice is take photos of the damage, and road where it happened. Argue your case. Do not give up or accept 50 50, and hopefully you’ll get a sucessful outcome.

Oh and get a dashcam!

Driver behind should be able to stop if something happens in front of them.

I’d bet on this going 50/50

Sorry for the delay in replying.

Diagram attached. Swerver is yellow. So if they weren't going fully around the roundabout (like green was) then they were in the wrong lane.

There's never a point where you ever move inwards on a roundabout, only ever outwards, so the swerver is at fault. However, other driver should be leaving more space and checking so it'll likely go 50/50.

You’ll need a witness. They were in the wrong lane for any other exit.
however expect it to go 50/50

I would say yellow is definitely at fault.

50/50.
The person who changed their mind and swerved back on to the roundabout was at fault, they should have continued exiting the roundabout.
That said the onus is on people to allow enough room to allow for the drivers in front to to stupid things

The swerver.

So they were on the inside lane, not the outside lane and they swerved back onto the roundabout still in the inside lane. How did the green car hit them? Did the yellow car swerve over into the outside lane? Or did the green car move over into the inside lane to come off at the next junction? Because it looks like the green car just stayed in the outside lane.

This happened to us many years ago - I’m still bitter about it! No dashcams back then and we couldn’t get any witnesses - it went 50/50 as we couldn’t prove the van swerved into us. Bastard that he was.

There aren't two lanes. Only one and a half really. It's a bad roundabout.

Green was behind yellow but kept going once yellow had started to leave the roundabout. Which was enough time to be hit once they'd changed their minds.

There's a witness who agrees yellow was at fault who was waiting to join the roundabout and saw yellow change their mind and swerve back in.

If the yellow car left the roundabout, including its back end, so that it looped round in the exit lane and then turned to enter the roundabout from the exit side of the road and drove into the side of you, I'd think they'd be responsible.

It might be more complicated, though, if there aren't two clear lanes. And in my experience, insurance companies are very quick to find each party responsible. Which is VERY annoying. Good luck.

The driver was not in front anymore, they were off in another direction.

100% yellow car fault.

Having worked in car insurance claims unless the driver who is at fault accepts liability from an insurance perspective it would be a 50:50 sadly.

It's not fair and very annoying.
My advice would be if it's minor damage on both cars just repair your own.

I work for one of the biggest motor insurers and don't agree it would inevitably be dealt with 50/50, we run quite a few cases like this on liability and win at court (or the claims are withdrawn).

If we were acting for the green car the only reason we'd settle on a split basis was if we didn't have the full co operation of the insured, or they were spectacularly unclear in their version of events and likely to make a poor witness.