Accident While Changing Lanes

[pkodibag]

My question involves an injury that occurred in the state of: Texas

My wife was driving our family van and was changing lanes from the center lane to the right lane and ended up hitting the left front of another car. She said that she had checked her blind spot and also had her indicators on and the next thing she remembers is the other car losing control and climbing the sidewalk and driving with two wheels on the street and eventually climbing on to the sidewalk. She pulled the van back into the middle lane and eventually slowed down and stopped. The van has barely any damage on the right side bumper and a cracked right indicator lights. The other car hit the sidewalk and busted both the right tires and has a lot more damage on the left side. The other car driver was a 20 year old kid. Luckily no one got hurt.

So my question is whose fault is it? Shouldnt the kid have seen a big van changing lanes in front of him and slowed down. They apparently didnt honk or slow down as my wife cannot recall feeling the impact at all.

They want to settle this outside of insurance but that makes me wonder if they were really at fault.

[cyjeff]

My question involves an injury that occurred in the state of: Texas

My wife was driving our family van and was changing lanes from the center lane to the right lane and ended up hitting the left front of another car. She said that she had checked her blind spot and also had her indicators on and the next thing she remembers is the other car losing control and climbing the sidewalk and driving with two wheels on the street and eventually climbing on to the sidewalk. She pulled the van back into the middle lane and eventually slowed down and stopped. The van has barely any damage on the right side bumper and a cracked right indicator lights. The other car hit the sidewalk and busted both the right tires and has a lot more damage on the left side. The other car driver was a 20 year old kid. Luckily no one got hurt.

So my question is whose fault is it? Shouldnt the kid have seen a big van changing lanes in front of him and slowed down. They apparently didnt honk or slow down as my wife cannot recall feeling the impact at all.

They want to settle this outside of insurance but that makes me wonder if they were really at fault.

Are you wondering if it was the kid's fault because he didn't get out of the way fast enough?

Typically, the car moving from the faster lane to the slower lane has the responsibility to make sure the lane was clear.

I will say that your wife did NOT check her mirrors and blind spot because, well, she hit someone.

[jarno]

I don't think it's just ur wife who's done this. I've had this happen to me dozen of times and luckily I was able to merge away or come to a damn near complete stop to avoid an accident. If someone is blamed for riding in their lane and getting hit than that's a ridiculous law. It's not like he rearended her after all.

[chris2289]

This is tricky, obvuously you are n your wife's side as this is your wife, but try and look at this from an outside point fo view, if you had been driving in 'your' lane and someone moved over into that lane who would you blame? would it be yourself who was driving in a single lane or the person moving who may not have seen you.

I would argue that the damage to the other car was sustained as he was moving out of the way of a van so as not to get injured. Settling may actually be a good option.