Roundabout collision - who is at fault? With diagram

[Notcheekyvimto]

Involved in a collision today at a roundabout.

Both lanes go straight on. The left lane leads to a left turn only shortly afterwards hence lots of people use the right lane to go straight, road markings are clear both lanes permit going straight.

Left hand exit is a car park for a local park marked in green ‘park’.

Red car travels in the right lane to go straight on, indicates left and starts to pull off.

Blue car comes from the park and intends to turn straight or right, into the path of red car.

Red car brakes but cannot stop in time and blue car is damaged on the drivers side, red car on the passengers corner side.

Who is at fault?

We have a similar roundabout here and the area ahead of the two lanes joining the roundabout have "keep clear" on them, to enable traffic to go across and not a constant queue along to the left blocking the route. Does yours have none?

Blue car was in the wrong, however red car was ‘at fault’ because they hit the blue car. It will go 50/50 on the insurance claim.

IF what you say about indicating is true, there's no way I'd accept any responsibility if I were red. As it happens I don't trust any indicators on roundabouts as people just seem to make it up eg keeping the right indicator on while they come off left rather than changing to left indicator.

There are also two speed cameras either side of this roundabout so fairly difficult to go too fast! As I said blue car was indicating to go left to exit in their left hand lane but kept going round, there wasn’t a lot of
time for braking in that split second.

Presumably from the park (i.e. where blue park came out from) the road signs must say left lane is for left turn only? Unusual, but it’s the only way the road layout you’ve described would work, or there would be accidents constantly. So the problem was that the blue car was in the left lane but not turning left. Have I understood correctly?

As long as everyone was in the correct lane and indicating appropriately, I would say blue car as the red was already on the roundabout and making it's intentions known.

I’m not 100% sure what you mean but there wasn’t much traffic about as it was about 8am today.

Still blue

The park is really a little side road without road markings. The blue car has come out of
it indicating left but then kept going to turn straight or right. They said they don’t know the area so presumably have realised left isn’t the right way.

On your approach was the left lane straight ahead clear of traffic?

I sincerely hope you're not a driver!

The OP has clearly stated the driver of the blue car pulled out onto the roundabout and was indicating LEFT.

The OP was in the RH lane and going straight on.

The two cars should have been going down the same exit so their paths should never have crossed.

Instead, despite indicating LEFT, the blue car continued round the roundabout into the path of the red car and was hit by the red car. There was no way the OP could have stopped - a car drove straight into their path! Even at 10 mph the stopping distance will be around 5 metres so speed here is irrelevant!

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/rules-for-cyclists-59-to-82

Highway code states cyclists can use left lane on ra to turn right it’s the exiting cars responsibility to check it’s safe to exit.

OP on MN it will always be your fault, whatever the circumstances.

I had an experience at a roundabout where I was in lane 2 to go to exit 2, there was a car in lane 1, so towards exit 1. Except he didn't, he went past, luckily I had seen him, pulled back slightly thinking he wanted lane 2, but not, sailed past that to finish off doing a U turn on the roundabout. Luckily I had my wits about me, but I kind of expect other drivers to follow the basics of the highway code. When someone has done something so blatantly outside the HC any 3rd party cannot be held culpable.

You can’t trust the signals of other cars. I have been in this exact situation on a different ra and I chose to go round the ra again and then exit because the speed and direction of the blue car did not correlate with their signal.

If you do a web search you will find that a lot of people say collisions on roundabouts are almost always settled 50:50 unless there is some clear supporting evidence.

I don't think the same general idea would apply between cars and cyclists though, because cyclists move more slowly and are a lot more vunerable, so the onus is nearly always on the car to anticipate and ensure a collision does not happen.

I was going to post exactly the same re liability and a google view of the RAB.

See I was always taught you take the left lane of going straight ahead, in which case the red car is in the wrong (screenshot from gov.uk which confirms this)
I can see from the street view that the road does indicate you can go straight ahead in the right lane, but was the blue car driver aware of that as well? If they didn't know the area well, and wasn't aware that this was the case for this roundabout, they might have presumed that with the red car being in the right lane then they were going to continue round the roundabout, turning right.
I imagine it will probably be a 50/50 claim

Seems clear you did nothing wrong

I wouldn’t have had time to react to go back round the roundabout as my car was already orientated to drive off it. First instinct was to brake hard!

Blue car pulled onto the roundabout when it wasn’t safe to do so.
However I’m guessing it will be 50/50 fault, which is unfair.

Yes, but you don't then drive straight into the side of someone.

Do you drive? There are lots of roundabouts where I live where both lanes go straight ahead!

See I was always taught you take the left lane of going straight ahead

In this case the roundabout markings say you can use either lane for going straight ahead.

But you said the blue car was indicating left did you move to exit before or after you made this observation?

The blue car is at fault as the rules are give way to the right and you were travelling in correct lane. HOWEVER I had exactly this scenario with a lorry who pulled out exactly like this when I was on the roundabout (big roundabout). I assumed he was going left as he travelled a short distance in the left lane, however he then pulled straight into my path across the junction I was exiting at as he was going straight over. Technically he was in correct lane for going either left or straight over. But he shouldnt have cut across my path. Clipped my wing and damaged his bumper. Ended up in court as I refused to accept liability. Ended up going 70/30 in their favour. Judge decided I should have anticipated his manoeuvre and should have stopped. Bloody ridiculous. I SHOULD HAVE STOPPED SLAP BANG IN THE MIDDLE OF A BUSY ROUNDABOUT? To give way to a lorry when it wasn't their right of way? It's a joke