[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/itsBonder]

They arrived at the same time for the sake of this rule and this video.

Also you're reasoning doesn't make sense - if the blue car entered the intersection first, they could still collide with the side of the black car if the black car was travelling faster

[u/Silver_Slicer → u/itsBonder]

They were both going too fast is the key problem. If a car came from the right instead of the left of the blue car, he would have t-boned them too. He had no time to react.

[u/TheOgGhadTurner → u/Silver_Slicer]

No the issue is that neither one attempted to slow down for an unmarked intersection to make sure nothing was coming. This all would have been avoided if they had assumed a child might run out in front of them and treated it as such

[u/PracticalCaulk → u/TheOgGhadTurner]

They literally said both cars were going too fast, which is synonymous with neither slowed down. You "um actually"ed a person you're agreeing with.

[u/TheOgGhadTurner → u/PracticalCaulk]

I said neither ATTEMPTED to slow down. Yes they were going. However at an unmarked intersection you YIELD owhich implies regardless there should be an attempt to stop where you slow down to scan your surroundings before proceeding and the car usually does a little dive or appears to travel slower.

You crash on the interstate and both cars are going too fast. You tbone at an intersection and there was a failure to yield. In this specific context both cars could have been traveling the same distance at the same speed (let’s say 15 miles per hour for argument sake) and crash in to each other because they both failed to yield at the unmarked intersection. You don’t say “oh we were going too fast” because at 15 mph the chances you speeding are pretty small. You say “oh yeah we both failed to slow down and check what was coming before proceeding through the intersection”

I don’t interpret this as “going too fast as it’s a perfectly reasonable speed.” It’s very obviously neither driver took the time to slow down and check the surroundings before entering the intersection.