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Hypothetically, who would be at fault?

mariahlullaby

mariahlullaby

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 19, 2005
852
3
NYC
In my town, we have the unique setup of having miles of golf cart trails around the city. By that I mean you can drive a golf cart anywhere in the city on the special paths (school, restaurants, grocery store, etc). Golf carts are a viable means of transportation (weird, I know) and most houses you buy here actually come with a golf cart (meaning most people own one).

I was driving behind another golf cart (at a reasonable distance, not close, etc) for some time. We went around a curve (slowly) and down a steep hill. A lot of near golf cart accidents happen here, because it's a blind spot where people often come careening around the curve and have to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting someone coming up the hill (also, there's a small tunnel where golf carts can pass under the highway at the bottom).

Anyways, he stopped for a second. No problem, I stopped too, waiting for him to go (figured he was adjusting something or whatever). Then, he started BACKING UP and I reacted in time to yell but he backed straight into me. Obviously, he thought no one was behind him and was just backing up for a second to turn around. Anyways, he freaked out and blamed me for coming around the corner too fast and hitting him (which wasn't what happened at all....he just forgot to look behind him).

There wasn't really any damage except to his golf club holder, but I called my dad at work anyway to ask for advice (and explained what happened, in which the man who was listening to my conversation said "That's not how it happened, missy!").

He decided he wasn't going to do anything about it, but say he did. Would there be any way to prove I didn't just go around the corner and hit the back of his golf cart (which it looked like I did)? Usually, if you rear-end someone, you're screwed (even though he backed into me).
 
haha rich people fighting over golf cart accidents...away from the golf course. hahaha I don't care who's fault this is, I find the whole thing highly amusing.
 
Well, actually, there's a few distinct set of people who use the golf carts:

-Golfers (few)
-Teenagers who are too young to have a car or license
-Mothers with young children
-People who cannot afford cars

So, I would appreciate you not passing judgement. Thanks.
 
There's probably no way to prove it either way... it's a total he said, she said situation given the (I assume) lack of any evidence that you were stopped or moving. Maybe a forensic scientist could look at both carts and figure out what happened, but since it's never gonna go that far, no one can prove anything and it's likely you'll just each end up paying to repair your own carts (or not, depending on if any damage is actually worth the effort to fix).
 
BTW, it's cases like this that have inspired the insurance industry to pressure automobile manufacturers to install "black boxes" in new model cars... the idea being that when an accident occurs, they can pull the black box data from each car and see who was doing exactly what when the accident occurred. If your golf carts had such devices installed (which, of course, they never would), then it'd be a no-brainer to demonstrate that he backed into you.
 
i was born and raised in manhattan, but havent lived there in aboot 10 years... where in nyc can u drive a golf cart?! ive never seen 1 golf cart in nyc... pls advise.
 
Solution: Start a bank account for F***s that screw you out of your money.

My uncle was just telling me how he was doing jury duty not to long ago. The Case was:

A 26 year old who did not have his license decided one day to go run some errands with his parent's car (his parents were out of town). As he was driving going through an intersection someone ran through the red light and hit the 26 year old. God Bless America, the man who Ran the red light decided that he shouldn't be at fault and that the parents of the son should be since they did not hide the keys. Guess what the guy who wasn't wearing the seat belt and ran the red light won 20,000 in damages for him being hurt from the accident and for the kid driving w/out license/parents not hiding keys; He was seeking $50,000. This was in Oregon.

Makes you wonder about this system...
 
Congratulations for being entirely useless people!

I don't think there is much that you can do Mariah, most auto accidents are your words vs his/her words. Most of the time it boils down to who is "older" and "more mature"

It's ageism I tell you. Damn old lady didn't get out of my way fast enough!
 
clayj said:
There's probably no way to prove it either way... it's a total he said, she said situation given the (I assume) lack of any evidence that you were stopped or moving. Maybe a forensic scientist could look at both carts and figure out what happened, but since it's never gonna go that far, no one can prove anything and it's likely you'll just each end up paying to repair your own carts (or not, depending on if any damage is actually worth the effort to fix).
Click to expand...

Actually, a (I really hate to even use this) CSI team would be able to reconstruct the accident. For example, they could tell whether your vehicle struck another one, or another one struck you.
 
CanadaRAM said:
Well in general, the person who is going the WRONG DIRECTION in the lane is presumed to be at fault...
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Yes, but there's no discernible evidence to prove the story either way... either she ran into him, or he ran into her. Given the nature of the accident and the lack of other witnesses, it can't be proven either way.

SMM said:
Actually, a (I really hate to even use this) CSI team would be able to reconstruct the accident. For example, they could tell whether your vehicle struck another one, or another one struck you.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's what I said. But no one's going to bring in a forensic scientist for something like this.
 
If you look at the scratch marks or how the dents are formed you should be able to get a good idea of who's at fault.

If as he says she slammed into him then there would be an impact of her crashing into his cart. If he backed into her then the direction of force should be shown.
 
clayj said:
Yeah, that's what I said. But no one's going to bring in a forensic scientist for something like this.
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Plus it's too late now. The police/investigators would need to have been called in when the accident occurred. The carts could have been modified since the accident. Nothing can be proved at this point.
 
I don't know how it is in your state, but in North Carolina this situation is covered by law.

In NC if a rear-end accident occurs and there is no evidence to prove the situation either way (like a driver pulling out in front of you and you can't avoid them) then the person that rear-ends the other vehical is at fault.

In actuality you were too close to react to another driver making an unexpected move. If someone stops their cart, backs up, then hits you; then you were either way too close or not paying attention to avoid the accident.

Sorry, but if I were on the jury I would have to go for the other guy. Sure he made a dangerous move, but the duty to avoid an accident in front of you was yours :(
 
poppe said:
A 26 year old who did not have his license decided one day to go run some errands with his parent's car (his parents were out of town). As he was driving going through an intersection someone ran through the red light and hit the 26 year old. God Bless America, the man who Ran the red light decided that he shouldn't be at fault and that the parents of the son should be since they did not hide the keys. Guess what the guy who wasn't wearing the seat belt and ran the red light won 20,000 in damages for him being hurt from the accident and for the kid driving w/out license/parents not hiding keys; He was seeking $50,000. This was in Oregon.
Click to expand...

There's a lot of retards in your State, aren't there. There must be if you got enough people in a jury to vote in favour of the red light runner.

TequilaBoobs said:
i was born and raised in manhattan, but havent lived there in aboot 10 years... where in nyc can u drive a golf cart?! ive never seen 1 golf cart in nyc... pls advise.
Click to expand...

Don't worry, I was wondering the same thing. Craziest thing I've heard in a long time. Get a bike lane and ride your bike.

kresh said:
In actuality you were too close to react to another driver making an unexpected move. If someone stops their cart, backs up, then hits you; then you were either way too close or not paying attention to avoid the accident.

Sorry, but if I were on the jury I would have to go for the other guy. Sure he made a dangerous move, but the duty to avoid an accident in front of you was yours :(
Click to expand...

And then you'll have another example of a person who didn't do anything wrong and gets blamed, while the ACTUAL person who didn't watch what they were doing gets off free. Oh, and the fact that the man suddenly started driving in the wrong direction doesn't mean anything?
 
kresh said:
Sorry, but if I were on the jury I would have to go for the other guy. Sure he made a dangerous move, but the duty to avoid an accident in front of you was yours :(
Click to expand...

And I certainly wouldn't. What if somebody else had been behind her so that she couldn't back up to avoid him coming at her?
 
I think that if something like that happened to me, and an older person was trying to blame his mistake on me thinking he could get away with it because I was young, I'd just calmly offer to take a lie detector test, and ask him if he's willing to do the same.

I know polygraph tests aren't admissible as evidence most places, but if I'd been at fault and knew it, and was calmly challenged to such a test, I'd sure think twice about continuing to blame the other party.
 
kresh said:
In actuality you were too close to react to another driver making an unexpected move. If someone stops their cart, backs up, then hits you; then you were either way too close or not paying attention to avoid the accident.

Sorry, but if I were on the jury I would have to go for the other guy. Sure he made a dangerous move, but the duty to avoid an accident in front of you was yours :(
Click to expand...

Complete, total and utter horse-trash.

As has already been said, what if someone was behind her car? Then what?

You are expected to be able to deal with the vehicle in front of you suddenly stopping, but NOT THE VEHICLE IN FRONT OF YOU SUDDENLY BACKING INTO YOU.
 
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