Whilst the majority of road accidents are fairly easy to resolve when it comes to establishing who is at fault, accidents involving roundabouts and lane changing can sometimes prove to be difficult. Unless you have an honest Defendant driver who is willing to hold their hands up and accept they’re wrong, or unless you have an eye witness evidence or CCTV on your side, it could end up being one word against the other.
For the topic of this blog I will discuss people cutting other drivers up on roundabouts at exits. It came to me because just this morning a lunatic with a caravan decided to stick to the outside lane when going right round a roundabout. He/she therefore drove straight across my exit. Thankfully, being what I’d class as a fairly experienced driver with a keen eye for hazard spotting given my line of work, I clocked that he/she was going to do it way before the vehicle cut across my path. I had more than enough time to come to a halt and bang my horn in frustration at him.
But had I not been able to stop, who is to blame? Designated lanes on a roundabout are there for a reason. A driver cannot drive around the outside all round the roundabout because they are essentially cutting across lanes on exits. It happens a lot when drivers think they are in the right lane and suddenly realise at last minute that they are actually in the wrong lane. The safe thing to do, particularly in heavy traffic, is to come off the roundabout at the exit you should do given the layout of the lanes – even if this means going the wrong way.
Liability in these accidents can be a little easier to prove because you can often clearly see if someone has cut across, particularly if there is more than one lane coming off of an exit and if the at fault driver is hit from a side position. Normally the outer lane serves as a route you must use to exit the roundabout, whereas the inner lane can be used to either exit with the outer lane or continue round the roundabout. So when you get a driver cutting across the exit at the same time a correctly proceeding vehicle is coming off at the exit from the inner lane, you have yourself a potential accident.
Of course, it can happen the other way round. A driver on the inner lane of a roundabout may suddenly realise they are in the wrong lane and cut across to come off at an exit. This again is a common catalyst for roundabout accidents. What a driver should always do is simply continue safely round the roundabout.
The best thing you can do to prove that you are the innocent party is take photos at the scene showing the vehicles if it is safe to do so. Remember, it could be dangerous as you are probably partially blocking the road. So if in doubt, call the police. If a passerby offers their details as a witness, take them. Exchange details with the at fault driver and take photos of damage to the vehicles as well.
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