“Charged With Failure To Yield From Private Drive”

Hello,

A few months ago I was charged with failure to yield from a private drive which lead to a car bang up. I was attempting to leave the drive way but my Vision was impaired due to a van that was parked 2 ft from the curb and 3 ft out of the parking spot blocking part of the drive way I was leaving. (have pictures) I attempted to leave the driveway 3 times inching out then stoping and repeating. On the third time I was stopped with my Noise just past the van ( about 2 ft out) when a car hit my front side Infront of the front tire. I was just wondering how my position on the matter was in court. The cop has sloppy notes and say that I hit him. There are other small things like skid marks Meaning he clearly saw me and the driveway was 50 m from a stop sign. The car was heading west and I was making a right turn as well. Due to this my insurances went up over 3k a year. Is this the right plan of attack for this case? Should I bring up road width, stop sign, and the skid marks ?

Thanks

The obscured vision might help your case, if you have a sympathetic Justice of the Peace. The photographs might help, if you are trying to argue that you took all reasonable steps, based upon your field of vision, to ensure that it was clear, and you were inching your way out. I'm not optimistic that this will be successful, but give it a shot and see if it works. It can't hurt at this point.

I would avoid bringing up the skid marks or trying to fault the other driver. The fact that there are skid marks does not shift blame. He saw a collision was imminent and jammed on his brakes, which is what any reasonable driver would do. In fact, it proves the opposite of what you want: You put your car into a situation where the other driver had to take aggressive action (locking the brakes up). You can produce skid marks at a remarkably low speed if you lock your brakes up, so being 50 metres or less from a stop sign doesn't help.