[ale] OT: Court tomorrow

[Sergio Chaves]

I can  verify that.
Two years ago I was on a intersection, merging to a freeway.
The driver in front of me and myself made a complete stop waiting for
traffic to clear so we could merge.
The car in front of me "took off" and I followed  behind it.
The other driver *suddenly* hit the brakes thinking she would not have 
enough
room/speed/etc. to complete the merge and I hit her.

ALL of that was acknowledge by the other driver and myself in court but
it seemed that the judge did not hear a single sentence . All the Judge 
kept
saying was that I should have (a) waited for the other driver to complete
the merge or (b) given more distance between the cars.

The hammer came down hard; my checking account got $150.00 poorer,
I "earned" points on my MVR and, my insurance went up a little for
having to pay for both car repairs. :-(

Sergio




Geoffrey wrote:

> Jeff Hubbs wrote:
>
>> Having not seen what actually happened, all I can offer is this: 
>> "Following too closely" is indeed a catch-all and is typically tossed at
>> anyone who rear-ends anyone else.  However, the logic behind that is
>> that you should be able to get your car stopped without hitting anyone
>> even if the car in front of you pulls the worst-case scenario, i.e, the
>> car comes to an immediate dead stop right in front of you.  You can
>> deflect the charge only if you can show - or at least persuasively
>> assert - that something about the circumstances would have worked
>> against a reasonable person with a fast foot *and* a sufficient stopping
>> distance.  For instance, if the car didn't have working brake lights,
>> costing you some time to react,
>
>
> Generally, you will lose this as well, since the argument can well be 
> made that the impact disloged, damaged or destroyed the brake lights.
>
> I've known two folks who rear ended vehicles, both claimed the vehicle 
> they hit had no functioning brake lights and they both lost.  In both 
> cases the judges (different judges, different states) told them that 
> when following a vehicle, you should stay a reasonable distance away 
> such that you could stop safely without the need for brake lights.  
> This is where they come up with the 1 car length per 10 mph distance 
> measure.  It's made based on the assumption this will give you enough 
> space to stop based on recognizing the vehicle in front of you is 
> stopping without the use of brake light notification.
>
> 9 times out of 10, the vehicle that hits another from behind is found 
> at fault.
>

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