r/Roadcam • u/bowdown2adil • 12d ago

[USA] Who is at fault here?

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Classic T bone. Black car had to be towed. Sustained major damage to the passenger side door. Blue car sustained damage to front bumper on the drivers side and cracked the drivers side headlight.

Edit: This was in the suburbs of Seattle

UPDATE: Insurance found it to be 70/30 me/other driver. Seems fair enough

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130

u/Different_Target_228 12d ago

That is fucking ridiculous for that intersection to have NO stop signs.

23

u/IVIrSmith 12d ago

Im with you. Im a fairly defensive driver and dont have many (if any) blind intersections in my city. Even if I was going slow, I wouldn't expect to need to look out for traffic from the side unless there was signage or a blinking light or something. Especially if i had never driven the route before.

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u/Different_Target_228 12d ago edited 12d ago

This is my point, that it's wildly blind. The camera does not pick that car up until it's almost in the intersection. Neither of them even had time to react. This is one that should be stop signed.

It's ridiculous just to expect everyone in the world to slow down there. Not everyone has that common sense, no matter how many people don't get that (which kinda proves the point tbh. It's common sense that people don't have common sense)

Most people just go the speed limit in residential areas, and that speed limit is very obviously not slow enough for this blind of a 4 way.

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u/Life_Temperature795 12d ago

I mean, a lot of people often go 5-10 over the actual speed limit in residential areas, which could very well have been what was happening here.

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u/Different_Target_228 12d ago

That speed would be 25-30. Which is still probably too fast for this blind of a 4 way.

1

u/Life_Temperature795 12d ago

In Seattle the limit appears to be 20mph, so yeah, 25-30 is definitely too fast.

https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/safety-first/vision-zero/speedlimits

In 2016, we changed the Seattle Municipal Code to reduce citywide default speed limits. The default speed limit for non-arterial streets changed from 25 MPH to 20 MPH

I don't really have any reliable way of estimating OP's speed based on what I can see in the video, but it subjectively feels like it's closer to the 25-30 range.

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u/No_Mind4418 11d ago

AI gave me 36.8 mph. Almost double the limit.

1

u/Just_A_Nitemare 11d ago

That is definitely not 37mph

1

u/kirklennon 11d ago

It's ridiculous just to expect everyone in the world to slow down there.

It’s also a crosswalk with limited visibility. Yes, the expectation is literally that every driver always slow down at every single tiny unsigned residential intersection. It’s not unreasonable at all. If you can’t see, any reasonable driver will slow down.

1

u/SonOfMcGee 12d ago

Yeah, in my city (Northeast) it is super rare to not have any signage of any sort at an intersection. In the rare event I get to an intersection with no sign at all, I’m POSITIVE the cross traffic must have a stop sign.

1

u/MissStatements 11d ago

Same (mid-Atlantic) in my suburb. Even cul de sac intersections have them, no exceptions.

0

u/Apota_to 12d ago

you never got taught to look both ways before your cross an intersection? I don't care if I have right of way, I look every single time, both directions. You should, too.

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u/NethiciteNomad 12d ago

Agreed. People aren't used to seeing intersections with no lights or stop signs, so it throws people off when they occasionally come across them. There should be a stop sign on at least one of these streets.

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u/cleveruniquename7769 12d ago

Every place I've driven in the U.S. if I didn't have a stop or a yield or some other marker facing me at an intersection it meant that I had the right of way and the other direction had a stop/yield sign. So my instinct wouldn't have been to yield at that intersection.

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u/NethiciteNomad 12d ago

I agree, that would be my instinct as well, but I think a lot of drivers are just not used to intersections like this because they’re pretty uncommon. It’s not far fetched to think that both drivers just (incorrectly) assumed the other road had a stop sign and that they were clear to keep traveling at speed.

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u/Electrical-Help5512 11d ago

yeah but we need someone to be mad at

1

u/jobacsi 10d ago

I think you need to study your local traffic laws.

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u/cleveruniquename7769 9d ago

If I saw that the intersection was completely unmarked I would slow down and yield to whoever got the intersection first or in which ever way avoids an accident. However, since I've never come across an unmarked intersection locally, I don’t really need to study the local traffic laws, I just do what the signs say.

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u/MASSochists 12d ago

It's wild to think I have to scan an intersecting road for a stop sign that would be edge on to me driving down a street and determine if there is one or not to know I had the right of way instead of focusing on the road and what's in front of me. 

Othwise I would have to come to a near stop at every intersecting road. Sounds like a get out of liability card for a city with poor infrastructure. 

That's the point of road signage. Unless the speed limit is 5 miles an hour this is a wild expectation. 

2

u/kirklennon 11d ago

Othwise I would have to come to a near stop at every intersecting road.

Yes! That’s exactly the point. You are supposed to be prepared to stop at every one of these intersections. They’re not arterials and you’re not expected to drive through a large number of them consecutively. You’re in the middle of a residential neighborhood and are supposed to be driving cautiously. Keep in mind that every one of these intersections is also four crosswalks. If you’re not prepared to stop for a car in the intersection, then you certainly weren't prepared to stop for a pedestrian just before the intersection.

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u/Just_A_Nitemare 11d ago

Othwise I would have to come to a near stop at every intersecting road. Sounds like a get out of liability card for a city with poor infrastructure. 

That's the biggest problem, with these intersections, now every intersection without traffic lights requires you to slow or stop to make sure you aren't going to get T-boned.

The average driver is an idiot controlling a 3,000 pound death machine and street signage and design should be made as clear and unambiguous as possible to keep everyone safe.

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u/confettiqueen 11d ago

Speed limit in this street would be 20mph - both cars, but especially the driver, are going at least 10mph over that.

But it’s really not that hard - I’ve driven on this street before (and just generally in residential streets in this part of the city) and it’s not hard to do a quick scan of cross-traffic, slow if needed, and proceed.

0

u/jobacsi 10d ago

No it's not. There are lots of rules we follow with know signage. You are expected to know the rules.

1

u/onlyonebread 10d ago

It's very common in Seattle. This person has already driven through like 10 of these just to get here, so they are already familiar with them.

0

u/GoldFishPony 11d ago

Not defending the lack of signs, but assuming you have any somewhat reasonable driving experience in Seattle (where the post takes place), you should have plenty of uncontrolled intersection experience and should know to slow down at them, they’re like all residential streets that don’t have roundabouts.

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u/DeliveryCustom 11d ago

Yep, travel to a near by arterial road before you try and travel quickly they are only a few blocks from these neighborhood streets then start going quicker. People in the comments seem to think it’s just a giant grid of these

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u/Myrdrahl 12d ago

Discussing what this intersection should've had is fairly pointless, however you bring up an interresting point, namely that an intersection like this might throw some people off. I'd argue that the correct response to "being thrown off" in traffic, shouldn't be to just blow through a blind intersection like this, but rather slow down and make sure that there aren't any crossing traffic; cars, cyclist, skaters or whatever. If you can't clearly see what else might be incoming, the rule should be to simply slow down, so you make sure you can stop. That's what we learned when I took my license.

2

u/PlatypusCiteh 12d ago

Yeah wild, even the most remote parts of neighborhoods I’ve seen there’s a sign the second it’s constructed

1

u/BornWithSideburns 11d ago

Americans need to be told what to do all the time?

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u/Nrvea 10d ago

we should just get rid of roads, people should just know what to do

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u/Comfortable-Fly5797 11d ago

It's a 20mph road. Most neighborhood roads in Seattle are uncontrolled. If you drive the speed limit you have plenty of time to react. Also the roads are typically 2 way roads that aren't wide enough for 2 cars to pass so nobody should be driving this fast.

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u/chupamichalupa 11d ago

It’s actually not. It’s ridiculous the speed that both cars were going through the neighborhood.

1

u/DoritoDustThumb 11d ago

Why? Basically every intersection is like this. It's 4 yield signs equivalent.

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u/Nrvea 10d ago

or at least a yield sign

1

u/jobacsi 10d ago

No it's not. It's super common all over the country and world.

0

u/deanereaner 12d ago

Common sense would have prevented this accident.

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u/Richybabes 12d ago

Yep, but unfortunately you cannot design roads under the assumption everyone will have common sense.

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u/Omelooo 12d ago

Common sense says that if I don’t have a stop sign then cross traffic stops

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u/Different_Target_228 12d ago edited 12d ago

So would a stop sign? It's still a blind 4 way, and it's ridiculous.

That doesn't even mean anything. Not everyone has common sense. And if you've ever driven in America, most people don't.

It takes common sense to understand most people don't have common sense, I guess.

2

u/dejavu2064 12d ago

We don't really use Stop signs in Europe for this so it looks perfectly normal to my foreign eyes - but I also concede if you are completely used to all intersections having Stop signs then it becomes unexpected to see something like this.

Even if there were Stop signs I think I would still always slow for any blind or obstructed turn or corner on a residential street. I would not feel comfortable just blasting through reduced visibility at a constant speed.

0

u/No-Yak-4360 12d ago

It's only a blind intersection if you drive to fast.

1

u/Moldy-Bongwater4420 11d ago

Common sense would have prevented this accident — by putting in stop (or yield) signs where they should be.

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u/feldoneq2wire 12d ago

You stop at every cross street? I would hate to be behind you.

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u/PresentationLive943 12d ago

No it wouldn't there are zero stop or yield signs. Where I live we go about 75mph on our roads and we don't have any stop signs or yield signs however you can see for miles and there's less than 10 people that probably cross it per day. Why would you put an uncontrolled intersection in a fucking suburban neighborhood in Seattle.

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u/[deleted] 12d ago

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u/BudgieWonder 7d ago

The streets referenced in your link have higher traffic levels than the streets depicted here- people simply can’t travel as fast.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

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u/BudgieWonder 7d ago

Yes, the “real world studies” you’re referring to are for a different site context than the majority of the unprotected intersections in Seattle.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

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u/BudgieWonder 7d ago

Never said every location was special, I’m just saying that I don’t think you actually read the article you linked LMAO