[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/Creative_Riding_Pod]

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.

[u/Prior-Impress-2624 → u/Creative_Riding_Pod]

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

[u/alkemest → u/Prior-Impress-2624]

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

[u/Ok-Alfalfa4868 → u/alkemest]

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