wales@ucla-cs.UUCP (11/15/84)
Regarding who is at fault in the following scenario:
The driver in car A was driving down the hump of a bridge at 11:45 pm.
It was raining and the road was very slippery.
Car B, which was in front of car A, braked suddenly for some unknown
reason. Trying to avoid a collision with car B, Car A skidded and
spun 90 degrees before it finally stopped without hitting car B.
Car C was at a great distance behind car A and didn't see what hap-
pened because car C was going up the hump of the bridge when car A
went out of control. As car C was coming down the bridge, car C
didn't see car A because car A was stopped sideways and no lights
were visible to car C. When car C finally saw car A, it couldn't stop
in time and smashed into car A.
Car B didn't stop after the accident. Two more chain-reaction collis-
ions occured behind car C.
Car C was at fault for hitting Car A. In each of the two subsequent
chain-reaction accidents, the person in back was to blame: Car D and
Car E would therefore also have been at fault for their respective con-
tributions to the entire mess.
In a rear-end collision, the car in back is almost invariably considered
to be at fault. The rationale is that the driver in back was following
too closely and/or driving too fast for the road conditions.
A related "common-sense" rule of the road is that you should NEVER drive
so fast that you cannot stop within the space in front of you that you
can see. At night, this means that you must be able to stop within the
distance illuminated by your headlights. When going over a hill or
around a corner, you must assume that there may be an obstruction just
beyond your current field of view. And if it is raining and the road is
slippery, you MUST drive more slowly so as to compensate for the fact
that you cannot stop as quickly as you could if it were dry -- even if
the posted speed limit is higher. (In California, they call this the
"Basic Speed Law".)
The fact that Car A was stopped in such a way that none of his lights
were visible to Car C (not even side markers??) was unfortunate but ir-
relevant, since C should not have been driving so fast that he couldn't
have stopped within the area lit by his own headlights.
Car A might have been liable to some degree for creating the hazard that
caused the accident (since A was evidently going too fast and/or was too
close behind B) -- but I wouldn't think this fact would relieve C, D, or
E from the brunts of their respective responsibilities.
Car A, by the way, should IMMEDIATELY have switched on his hazard lights
(if his car had them) once he was stopped. I'm not sure how much fail-
ure to do so might have mitigated C's blame for the ensuing accident,
but flashing lights could very possibly have alerted C in time to pre-
vent the collision.
Car B is completely innocent. We don't know why he put on his brakes;
we must assume it was for a legitimate reason; and in any case, he isn't
responsible for the fact that the cars behind him were going too fast.
The moral of the story: Drive Defensively. Assume that other people
are not paying attention to their driving (chances are they aren't). If
people curse at you because you won't drive 70 MPH (or even 55 MPH) in a
downpour, that's their problem.
If anyone reading this is an insurance adjustor, policeman, lawyer, etc.
and feels the need to correct any of what I have said, please do so.
--
Rich Wales
UCLA Computer Science Department
3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, CA 90024 // (213) 825-5683
ARPA: wales@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA
UUCP: ...!{cepu,ihnp4,trwspp,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!wales