mongrel

Loren Pechtel, I have to disagree. Drivers should be looking far enough ahead to see there is an obstruction on the road ahead, and be able to stop before hitting it. To do otherwise is very dangerous. Like I've already said, a car with a blown tyre is not able to stop as quickly as a car with four good tyres, so whether or not Daggah "slammed on the brakes" is irrelevent. While it's obviously not her fault Daggah's tyre blew, there was something wrong with the driver of the following car. Inattentiveness(following too closely, or not looking where she was going), or inability(unable to carry out emergency braking).

Obviously, though, I don't know anything about the law in NC, which might give a totally different spin on this whole thing.

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by mongrel
Loren Pechtel, I have to disagree. Drivers should be looking far enough ahead to see there is an obstruction on the road ahead, and be able to stop before hitting it.

Of course--he doesn't have to pay her damages. She certainly was partially at fault. However, stopping basically in a high speed traffic lane is basically asking for trouble.

Calzaer

In every state I've driven in so far, the law has been that if you hit someone else from behind, it's your fault. Period. Even if they were going 90 and violated the laws of physics to stop instantly; if you hit them, you were doing some version of "failure to leave adaquate following distance".

The laws were made SPECIFICALLY for cases like this. The tire going out was nobody's fault; the fact the lady couldn't stop in time WAS her fault.

PopeInTheWoods

Pah, Daggah's first call should be to his insurance company, telling them he was rear-ended. Screw the policeman, unless NC is an exception, the driver who does the rear-ending is at fault. I was dinged for hitting a minivan whose occupants had decided to stop in a travel lane and switch drivers (because the first driver waited until he was on a busy road to figure out he was too drunk to drive).

Andy

mongrel

Admittedly, it is asking for trouble(not that it seems like Daggah could help stopping in that particular spot), but it doesn't excuse the following driver's inability to avoid running into an obstruction. She should, IMHO, have to pay all damages.

Basically, if you are stopped, and someone runs into you, it's their fault for not looking where they're going. At least that's the way it is where I live, and seems reasonable to me.

cheetah

Also, Daggah, do you know the cause of the blown tire for sure? Perhaps there was something in the road that you didn't notice that made your perfectly good tire blow. That couldn't be your fault, but certainly still brings into question the distance of the following car. Usually, I think, tire stores can tell a reason a tire has blown. Maybe you should do that.

Daggah

I will look into that.

There's some new stuff to talk about now though. My own insurance company called and is now going to fight along with me for damages from the other person's insurance company. So it's not me vs. the big bad insurance guy any more. I filed a claim with Nationwide (the other driver's insurance claim) but I was pretty pessimistic about my chances.

This also makes taking this farther possible. If I can take this to court, I can present my blown tire directly as evidence that it was NOT in poor shape, and that it would be completely unreasonable to expect me to have been able to predict and prevent the damage the tire took. It also gives me a forum where I can express in no uncertain terms that there was no safe way to get off the road on the right side, and that I took the safest option I had at the time.

One other thing: I'm not sure exactly whether the driver who hit me was directly behind me when the accident happened. I do know that one of the guys who avoided me and then stopped to give his account saw my tire blow. It would have been hard to notice that unless he was directly behind me. If he was, then that means at least one car was able to avoid me and that there is really no excuse for the driver who hit me.

Now that I have my insurance company on my side I think my chances of being awarded damages is much improved. I'm going to more aggressively pursue this.

(I need to get back on the road again!!)