“Question About Getting Into An Accident When Turning Left”

Hi Everybody,

A friend of mine today got into a car accident as she was turning left into her driveway.

Basically this is what happened, she was driving on a residential street,

there are no markings on the street to seperate lanes but it's still a 2 way street (cars are allowed to head north and south on the street).

She was heading north and approached her house which was to the left of her.

As she was slowing down to make the left turn into her driveway

the car behind her tried to swerve around her on the left of her to pass her not realizing my friend was making a left turn to get into her driveway.

As a result the car behind her hit the front of her car.

The officer came to the scene and nobody got a ticket he just wrote his report and said to talk to insurnace.

Her insurance company said it's 50-50.

My friend is pretty upset with this and didn't understand why.

I told her about the insurance companies having to follow the fault determination rules of Ontario however I'm puzzled at one spot.

But now she has a question that I cannot answer and I was hoping somebody can shed some light on this.

Are there no "grey" areas under the fault determination rules?

In this case yes she was turning left however it was the stupidity of the driver behind her who decided to try to overtake her on the left.

The driver behind her was technically driving over on the "oncoming traffic" side of the street.

Shouldn't that person be at fault?

Any guidance would be appreciated, she's quite upset right now and i'm hoping to find a clear-er answer for her

I DID tell her though that she's lucky the officer didn't give her a ticket for "Turn not in safety".

The fault determination rules can be found here: http://www.ibc.ca/en/car_insurance/docu ... -rules.pdf

Section 10(6) deals specifically with your friends situation. When youre turning into a private driveway and struck by an overtaking vehicle, each driver is considered equally at fault. The only exception is when the other driver is overtaking multiple vehicles, and then theyre deemed 100% at fault.

So unfortunately your friend is stuck sharing the blame in terms of insurance.

Intuitively I would tend to agree with you that the person overtaking should be completely at fault, as the maneuver obviously could not be done in safety; however, the fault determination rules don't agree.

The situation you describe seems to perfectly match what's outlined in Section 10 (6) Rules for Automobiles Travelling in the Same Direction in Adjacent Lane, found on page 8 of the following PDF: http://www.ibc.ca/en/car_insurance/docu ... -rules.pdf

(6) If the incident occurs when automobile "A" is turning left at a private road or a driveway and automobile "B" is overtaking automobile "A" to pass it, the driver of each automobile is 50 per cent

at fault for the incident.

Thank you Stanton and CliffClaven for your replies.

I saw the part that Stanton was talking about where if the motor vehicle was overtaking multiple vehicles then the other vehicle is at fault.

Why does that change anything?

Howcome it's 50-50 when it's just 1 vehicle but 100% the other person's fault if they're overtaking more vehicles?

I'm guessing maybe because it would have meant the other driver would be in the "oncoming lane" for a lot longer period of time?

tom1331 wrote:Hi Everybody,

A friend of mine today got into a car accident as she was turning left into her driveway.

Basically this is what happened, she was driving on a residential street,

there are no markings on the street to seperate lanes but it's still a 2 way street (cars are allowed to head north and south on the street).

She was heading north and approached her house which was to the left of her.

As she was slowing down to make the left turn into her driveway

the car behind her tried to swerve around her on the left of her to pass her not realizing my friend was making a left turn to get into her driveway.

As a result the car behind her hit the front of her car.

The officer came to the scene and nobody got a ticket he just wrote his report and said to talk to insurnace.

Her insurance company said it's 50-50.

My friend is pretty upset with this and didn't understand why.

I told her about the insurance companies having to follow the fault determination rules of Ontario however I'm puzzled at one spot.

But now she has a question that I cannot answer and I was hoping somebody can shed some light on this.

Are there no "grey" areas under the fault determination rules?

In this case yes she was turning left however it was the stupidity of the driver behind her who decided to try to overtake her on the left.

The driver behind her was technically driving over on the "oncoming traffic" side of the street.

Shouldn't that person be at fault?

Any guidance would be appreciated, she's quite upset right now and i'm hoping to find a clear-er answer for her

I DID tell her though that she's lucky the officer didn't give her a ticket for "Turn not in safety".

Did she have her left turn signal flashing??? this is the craziest thing.... equally at fault... wtf

Hi Hawaii

Yes she had her turn signal on before turning.

It's just the way the rules were written that seems unfair.

Nothing she can do about it now since she has already reported it to insurance.