Meatball asked:
I was cited in the mail as having an unsafe lane change on the highway a month ago. I was traveling about 90km on the freeway when i switch into the right hand SLOW lane. A sec. later i heard screeching of brakes &saw in my mirror a car hitting the ditch and flipping.Witnesses who stopped, saw the whole thing & gave their details to the cops.I waited for the cops further down as it was & they just took my licence & reg. of the rental car.*(There was no contact between the cars). I think the other car was either not paying attention to me or was going to fast but cop said it was difficult to say. I did turn my signal on and made the proper check before. Either way i have an attorney of the other party trying to contact me. Now in my case what is next? I did contact my Insurance company to explain the scenario but they have not heard anything yet.What if these people are going to sue for personal injury? I really am stressed about this as i have never been in this type of situation.
Theresa
I was cited in the mail as having an unsafe lane change on the highway a month ago. I was traveling about 90km on the freeway when i switch into the right hand SLOW lane. A sec. later i heard screeching of brakes &saw in my mirror a car hitting the ditch and flipping.Witnesses who stopped, saw the whole thing & gave their details to the cops.I waited for the cops further down as it was & they just took my licence & reg. of the rental car.*(There was no contact between the cars). I think the other car was either not paying attention to me or was going to fast but cop said it was difficult to say. I did turn my signal on and made the proper check before. Either way i have an attorney of the other party trying to contact me. Now in my case what is next? I did contact my Insurance company to explain the scenario but they have not heard anything yet.What if these people are going to sue for personal injury? I really am stressed about this as i have never been in this type of situation.
Theresa
Tags : Cops, Personal Injury, Unsafe Lane Change
Categories : Insurance & Registration
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Carl V
September 18th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Colleen
If you were cited for an unsafe lane change the burden of proof that it was safe is on you. Most likley, both parties will be assigned a percentage of fault. This will be hashed out by the insurance companies. Best not to talk with the other parties lawyer. Refer him to your insurance company. Good luck and learn from this to be ever cautious.
Jifr
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:16 am
Brett
Hiya:
You better get back in touch with your insurance company asap.
If the other person’s attorney is calling you….put him in touch with your insurance company.
There are ALLLLLL kinds of really sticky/yucky issues that can result from this but the short and not so simple is that you may be the proximate cause of the resulting accident (even though there was no impact). Whether or not you are 100% at fault depends on other factors which you are not currently aware of.
You mentioned a couple of them above but, being an adjuster….I can tell you that there are all kinds of reasons to find contributory negligence against the driver behind you.
The negligence jurisdiction of the state you live in will make a difference on how much, if anything, will be your responsibility if any liability is assessed against you.
My spider senses say…….this one is going to get a lot more interesting before it goes away. Chalk that up to the years and years I’ve seen these kinds of things. Goodluck!
~jifr!
p.s. Check your liability limits. If they are low? Don’t go buying any houses or land or cars or anything……
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