The science behind assessment of accident liability
Published:Sunday | November 6, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Insurance Helpline, With Cedric Stephens
Question: On January 14 this year, while on my way to Kingston from Irish Town, I approached a corner. It is just below the turn-off to Maryland and a little above the road to Cooper's Ridge. A truck was coming in the opposite direction. It took the corner very widely. I pulled over on to a nearby driveway. The truck moved up slowly, but failed to make it back completely to its side of the road. I blew my horn as soon as I realised that he was coming dangerously close.
Question: On January 14 this year, while on my way to Kingston from Irish Town, I approached a corner. It is just below the turn-off to Maryland and a little above the road to Cooper's Ridge. A truck was coming in the opposite direction. It took the corner very widely. I pulled over on to a nearby driveway. The truck moved up slowly, but failed to make it back completely to its side of the road. I blew my horn as soon as I realised that he was coming dangerously close.
The driver, who was seated on the opposite side (the truck is left-hand drive) apparently, did not notice. He proceeded slowly until he came to a stop against my car. The truck's right front wheel was planted into my right front door. I reported the accident to my insurers. I expected this matter to be settled quickly. Instead, it dragged on for months.
In June, I learnt that the third party's insurers wanted me to take part of the blame for this accident; the truck driver had blown his horn as he came around the corner. Two months later, they denied liability. The truck was stationary and my vehicle hit its right front wheel. My claim is too small to proceed with legal action. I don't see why the other driver should be allowed to get away with such a blatant lie. Can you help?
HELPLINE: Two top officials of the third party's insurers have told me that their company has decided to settle your claim. The company has agreed to pay without any admission that the collision was caused by the truck driver's negligence.
This was because the other driver continues to state that his vehicle was stationary and that your vehicle hit its right front tyre. I am sure that you are grateful that the third party's insurer has agreed to settle after a wait of nine and a half months. However, you and I are in agreement that the mishap was caused by the truck driver's negligence.
I shared the two photographs published with this article that you sent me with my friend Mike Webster. He runs Advanced Insurance Adjusters and is a trained investigator of motor-vehicle accidents. I asked him to measure: (a) the width of the roadway where the collision occurred; (b) the width of the truck and (c) the distance between the truck's left front tyre and road embankment.
This is what he said: "www.macktrucks.com shows a diagram of the width of the rear wheel tracks at 95.4 inches for all the models shown ... . I can't see anything on the width of the frame (over the front wheels) but in a case that I have on file I recall a measurement of about 96 inches (8 feet) ... the licence plate of the Mack measured a width of 12 inches, which is the standard measurement of all licence plates. Using one of my reconstruction programs of photogrammetry (the science of extracting measurements from photos), I attempted to determine the approximate distance of the left front wheel of the truck from the left embankment. The left rear wheel of the car appears to be very close to its edge of the road. With the measurement obtained from the licence plate, the program predicted a distance of 20 inches (1.8 feet) between the left embankment and the left front wheel of the truck. The width of the road at this section appears to be about 15.8 feet (4.8m)."
things that stood out
Four things stood out when I examined the photo with the two vehicles before I spoke with Mike.
One was the width of the roadway as compared to the width of the truck. The other was the space between the truck's left front tyre and the embankment on the left side of the road. This appears to be consistent with your description of what happened.
The third was that the truck appeared to have encroached beyond the midpoint of the roadway. The fourth was the position of your car after the collision.
The collision did not take place along the island's main road network. The particular roadway was not, in my opinion, designed to accommodate a truck of those particular dimensions.
From my knowledge, in some places the road is narrower than the 15.8 feet that Mike measured. The owner/driver should have been aware of that fact. They should have realised that given the size of the vehicle and the features of the roadway that if the truck was driven there without a pilot vehicle that it would have created special hazards for other motorists.
I would argue that the absence of a pilot vehicle that preceded the truck constituted negligence on the part of the owner/driver.
Cedric E. Stephens provides independent information and free advice about the management of risks and insurance.aegis@cwjamaica.comSMS/text message to 812-7233