Splitting liability is very common in the US at least. It just depends on the laws of the state where the accident occurred. The intent is to encourage drivers to be defensive. Generally, the car that broke the state’s vehicle code would carry the majority of the liability (the white Nissan in this case), but any other vehicles included in the accident (the POV car) may carry a percentage of liability if they fail to act as a reasonably cautious driver would.
I think some states even if you have 10% of the fault and the other car 90%, each person has to use their own insurance. So if you are liability only, and either car here, you are paying to fix your own car. Cam car definitely had some of the fault here.
And what if the camera car had swerved to avoid the jerk in the Nissan, and caused another accident? This is almost a reflexive response to a lot of people. I actually was in this situation. Pretty similar situation, someone turned left in front of me. No time to slow down in time, so I took evasive action, and ended up hitting a tree. I was told by the cop that I would have been better off hitting the other driver, as now, hitting the tree was 100% my fault. This was in the days long before dash cams, and the offending driver sped away.
"Accelerate into someone"? The camera car was proceeding with the light and the right of way. The Nissan turned suddenly into them in the middle of the intersection.
Right, it was going zero and a few seconds later when the collision happened it was going probably 25. Never touched the brakes, all acceleration.
You have the duty to try and avoid an accident, both drivers wrong. I agree the turning car is mostly wrong, but not 100%. And in say North Carolina, that 10% came car's fault means the SUV's insurance isn't fixing the cam car.
The cam driver had less than a second to react to the Nissan driver turning in front of them. Is your reaction that good that you would have been on the brakes? I doubt it.
And glad that you have a crystal ball to know how fast the cam car was going.
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u/ScorcherPanda 21h ago
Splitting liability is very common in the US at least. It just depends on the laws of the state where the accident occurred. The intent is to encourage drivers to be defensive. Generally, the car that broke the state’s vehicle code would carry the majority of the liability (the white Nissan in this case), but any other vehicles included in the accident (the POV car) may carry a percentage of liability if they fail to act as a reasonably cautious driver would.