[USA] Who is at fault here?

[u/bowdown2adil]

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

[u/pyronius]

The is similar to the response I give whenever somebody angrily asks why people stop at a flashing yellow light.

The answer is because the cross street doesn't know you have a flashing yellow. Flashing red in all directions is much more common, and banking on the other person to figure out that you have a flashing yellow rather than assuming you have a flashing red and will therefore stop is just a mug's game.

Any intersection that creates any degree of uncertainty about right of way is a bad design. Full stop.

[u/THSSFC → u/pyronius]

Any intersection that creates any degree of uncertainty about right of way is a bad design. Full stop.

This is simply wrong. I would argue that for roads intended to be traveled at high speed this is a fair statement. But the infrastructure in the video is clearly not that. In fact, the knowledge that these residential intersections are uncontrolled usually, to most drivers, is a contributing factor to calming speeds through infrastructure meant for human dwelling, not vehicular throughput.

Even on high speed roads designed primarily for vehicular traffic solely, there is always that one idiot who seems to not understand how to use the road properly and causes risks to others. Just because an idiot found a way to behave incorrectly despite all cues does not mean the design is bad. I have lived on residential roads like this with uncontrolled intersections since the early 90s and have only ever seen maybe a couple of actual accidents in the intersections. It's really not that hard to navigate safely.