OHTA.ca

Hi All, Recently my girlfriend and I were leaving for work, beautiful day, we were approaching an intersection with a green light for us to proceed, there were two tractor trailors in the left turning lane, we were in the middle lane L1 i beleive its called. as we approched the intersection it was clear and nothing to stop us from going through. as we got in to the intersection, an ambulance that was coming from the opposite direction had gone into the far right lane to pass all cars and made left hand turn. the ambulance ended up right in front of us and if it wasnt for swift manouvering we would have T-Boned it. The ambulance driver did not see us and due to the tractor trailers we did not see them until it was too late. We did ot T-Bone but as we were braking and trying to pull left to avoid hitting, we clipped the back end of the ambulance causing damage to our car but nothing to the ambulance. The ambulance Had no sirens on. We heard nothing. They just proceeded as if it was clrear not checking at all. There was no charge laid, but the outcome is that it is OUR fault and we must pay the deductable to have our car repaired. This was not our fault and there must be some kind of rule that ambulaces must follow to protect inocent vehicle operators from poor ambulance driving skills. How can we be at fault when there was no way we could see OR HEAR an emergency vehicle. If anyone has any information that can help please respond. I am not going to just roll over on this one. Thanks!!!!!!

How do you know that the ambulance driver made a left from the right lane if you couldn't see or hear him until the accident was inevitable? Do you have any independent witnesses (persons not in your car) to support that there were no sirens, flashing lights, and your view was completely obstructed? What did the ambulance driver say?

Just by what you have told us, that EMS went to right of others, transports apparently didn't move, seems EMS had at least lights on, most likely sirens too as drivers would typically just don't sit there on a green light and check their mirrors, just doesn't make sense.....

.......anyway get yourself a copy of the "traffic report", which is the report police fill out for a collision, which I believe includes witness statements and review this material, it might give you answers you are looking for.

There is a various sections of the HTA that exempt fire, EMS and police.

The next time you pull up to a light where there is a transport making a left hand turn beside the lane your in, see how much of the traffic you can see from oncoming traffic. And the information provided is from our statement as well as the ambulance driver. They have the information of how and where they were turning from. They also stated they only had the lights on (not sirens) this is how we were not aware they were even there until to late. All the information says that we are not in the wrong but.....because it's an emergency vehicle we are at fault. Had this been any other vehicle we would have no issue. Again, if you can't hear or see an ambulance, then they can't hear or see you either, so how can this be our fault?

Were you assigned full or part fault for the accident? Insurance companies in Ontario use the following fault determination rules to reach their decisions: http://www.ibc.ca/en/car_insurance/docu ... -rules.pdf. They basically have to assign fault as per what the regulation states. Has your insurance company explained to you why theyre assigning fault to you?