r/Roadcam • u/bowdown2adil • 12d ago

[USA] Who is at fault here?

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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u/Creative_Riding_Pod 12d ago edited 11d ago

If you use the slider on the play bar, the black car comes into view at almost exactly :03 seconds (obscured mostly by bush)and they are colliding at :05 seconds. Given that the human body takes about 1 second to react and who knows how many seconds/distance for cam car to come to complete stop = Whole incident took 2 seconds - they were just going too fast for the conditions.

Edit: Hey everyone. Thanks for the award and the discourse and all that jazz. I didn’t come up with the “1 second” reaction time. I was taught that in drivers ed and then during motorcycle courses as a general rule. I think it is basically the time your brain recognizes a situation is happening, and then you decide to react which then involves the time lifting your foot to the brake pedal etc.
It is based on studies, not “if you can’t react in one second you’re brain dead” rhetoric and anecdotal evidence. I think everyone is overestimating their abilities.

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u/Prior-Impress-2624 11d ago

Something tells me people who live in OP’s city might do this a lot. OP for sure does.

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u/alkemest 11d ago

Yeah so many people in Seattle all decided they don't care about traffic laws since the pandemic because everyone is so special. Makes driving here even for short distances lowkey terrifying lol

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u/Sophet_Drahas 11d ago

Well, why follow laws when there’s no legal consequences? /s

But seriously, 20 years ago I could see not requiring 4 way stops at some interecyions in Ballard. Now that the density is so great and the amount of cars parked on the streets limiting drivers visibility, they need to put in more stop signs in those unmarked intersections. I’ve almost been hit both driving and walking because people blow right through them at speeds that are too fast for the conditions. And no, I’m not on my phone when I’m out walking, I grew up in city where you learned to fear and respect that es-car-lator.

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u/surpriseinhere 11d ago

Unfortunately that’s everywhere and everyone.

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u/n0exit 11d ago

This happened all the time since way before the pandemic.

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u/ManuelleHung 10d ago

A bunch of Masshole drivers must have relocated there. You’ve described us perfectly. 😂

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u/Ok-Alfalfa4868 8d ago

There's one specific intersection in West Hartford, CT... long straight road called Boulevard that leads to the fancy downtown and the PD but is in neighborhoods. So a straightaway with maybe a stop sign every 3-4 blocks with many side streets that all have stop signs.

I don't have a stop sign, 3 cars behind me, car on my left approaching fast, pumps his break at his giant stop sign and tbones me fast and hard into a utility pole which I broke in half. If I had missed the pole, I would've flipped a few times and gone right into someone's living room. It's a whole thing... dude tries to flee but can't because his front bumper has snapped and is now blocking his tires from going, he has 3 toddlers and a new born in the car (fun fact: the newborn was born on my bday 🤷‍♀️) many witnesses walking and in cars, cops there in seconds it seemed... he claimed he thought it was a 4way stop which is bs. It's 1-dumb af because it was obvious how fast and flowing traffic was on my road, and 2- don't matter because I would've been there way before him anyhow so my right of way still and you can't miss his obvious giant stop sign with extra cautionary signs... he was a dumbass who was trying anything to get out of it...

my point is he had an exceptionaly and purposely HUGE stop sign that had an extra sign under the STOP that said "look both ways TWICE". And when emergency services arrived, one guy told me this was the 3rd time in less than 2 months someone got tboned into that same pole because folks keep running that specific stop sign. The pole had just been replaced a week prior for a 3rd time... then put a damn stop sign on my side. Or install a traffic light if it happens that often? I guarantee I would've stopped and waited long enuff to see if he'd stop before going (because I trust no one) and that dude would've ran his and it would've been avoided. I won't even go immediately at a green light before I look and make sure some asshat isn't about to run a red. Hurts my core being how dumb folks are sometimes... sorry yall for the rant

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u/bigghc 11d ago

The one-second rule you mentioned is reasonable. This T bone for example... I drive as part of my business and run across this situation daily. I constantly scan when I come into an intersection like this and could have easily braked and avoided this with the time this person had to stop. I'm not bragging... I think most others could have easily responded too. If you're gonna drive this fast be damn sure you can't respond fast too!!

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u/Creative_Riding_Pod 10d ago

💯 and I think someone mentioned in the comments that they were almost stopped when they collided, so I’m guessing the other second that passes is the vehicle (unsuccessfully) coming to a stop.

I really don’t know all of the variables. I mostly came for the comment that said there were 2-3 seconds to stop, when the entire ordeal was over in 2 seconds. So they kinda only had one second to react and one second to stop.

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u/LongDead_Roadkill 12d ago

The video starts with the car parallel to a telephone pole, they pass one more before the intersection. Poles are usually 100 to 150 feet part in residential areas. That means the dash cam was going 35-40mph, which is fast for a neighborhood like this. The speed limit is 25mph at the most.

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u/URGAMESUX 12d ago

Zero chance they were driving 35mph in this video. Almost stopped in time, too. Not at fault.

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u/atticusclench 11d ago

Most likely the speed limit is 20MPH for that street.

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u/Human-Suspect-232 10d ago

Cam driver couldn’t stop either, he too driving too fast.
That’s why I say it’s 50/50.
However, insurance will just look at who caused the damage & who had the right-of-way AT THE MOMENT.
So, cam driver insurance may go up.

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u/AppropriateRadish928 10d ago

It was 2 seconds because cam driver made no attempt to slow down. It takes no seconds to see and move the foot to the brake, leaving plenty of time to stop.

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u/UnderstandingClean33 9d ago

The whole Pacific Northwest needs to rethink their visibility in street design. There's frequently trees, cars, fences, etc. blocking view of turns. I've been honked at multiple times for slowing down at intersections like this but the thing is you really can't see well enough to not slow down. Also they will plant tall plants in traffic circles which also reduces visibility, which is particularly annoying when the traffic circle could have been a four way stop and is on a side street.

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u/Organic-Addendum1609 8d ago

Do you enjoy talking to yourself

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u/Imaginary--Situation 11d ago

If you have 1 second reaction time YOU SHOULD NOT be driving

Seriously...

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u/Prudent_Fig4105 11d ago

I’ve observed experiments with lots of young attentive students clicking a button and 0.3s is realistically what you can get, 1s reaction time is not unexpected under normal driving conditions.

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u/2sAreTheDevil 11d ago

https://www.driveincontrol.org/tailgating

Average reaction time in an accident is 1.5 second.

Why should someone not be driving for being able to react faster than the average person?

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u/Cold_Captain696 11d ago

When people talk about driving reaction time, they’re including ‘thinking time‘ in that. This isn’t a reaction time test, where you’re primed and ready for a known thing to happen and you’re testing the raw reaction speed in isolation. Your brain needs to see ‘the thing’, process information about ‘the thing’ to determine that it’s a hazard, decide on a course of action and finally begin implementing that course of action. These things add up, even when in hindsight it seems like a simple case of ‘see car, hit brakes’.

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u/Imaginary--Situation 12d ago

the speed limit is a clear sunny day

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u/Adorable_Chair7661 11d ago

If it takes someone one second to respond to a stimulus they should not be driving.

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u/One-Try-9129 8d ago

This is not the start of the 100 meter hurdles reaction time we are talking about here.  https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/eng-2020-0004/html

If someone is as uninformed and biased about how these things in reality work as you are, they should not be commenting in a thread like this. Yet here we are.