Who was wrong in this parking incident?

[lljkk]

(I was only a witness, btw! No diagram, but I think it's a simple story)

Supermarket carpark, cars parked in parallel rows.

Woman in parked car opens her driver side door. At that same moment teen guy drives rather fast into the parking spot next to the driver door & hits the just-opening door very hard.

Luckily no one hurt (phew).

Who is to blame for the collision?

Both equally. Teen should have checked space was clear, woman opening door should have checked before opening it

the driver

Moving vehicle.

The driver.

How will the insurance companies treat it -- who will they blame?

The moving vehicle.

Driver hit stationary vehicle so his fault. I imagine that’s was insurance company would assume too

Lucky she wasn't half out the door at the time.

I think it's always the moving vehicle that's to blame isn't it? You can't blame a parked car.

Depends on point of impact. If the passenger has opened door into oncoming car or if the oncoming car drove into the open door.

Happened to me a couple of years ago. I had a dash cam so the insurers could see the passenger has opened the door into me rather than the other way around.

If you say the parked car is never to blame then surely that means when someone slams their passenger door into car then it's not their fault...

Well that's different isn't it if both cars are parked?

Both to blame but more the driver of the moving vehicle.
You are only supposed to open your door once you've checked it's clear (as a general rule) - stops you dooring people on bikes for one, although that's not an issue here. I'm hazarding even if the parked car's driver did check if it was clear the moving car's driver was going too fast for the conditions and wouldn't have been seen?

I have impression the door was open before the nose of the car entered the parking spot... but I couldn't see that for sure from my angle.

They were both harping at each other when I left. I kind of lean towards equally to blame, but not sure. I have a teen about to get his license, must remember to tell him this story. Nobody wants so much hassle.