Determination of Fault: Rearended with Minor Damage, Other Driver Tried to Blame Me in Police Report

jeudi 2 octobre 2014

My question involves a traffic accident in the State of: PA



I was rear-ended on Monday. I had just made a left hand turn out of a shopping center with a green arrow traffic control signal. The green arrow was in my favor. This area is a heavily commercial area of strip malls that usually has heavy traffic, and I had the intention of turning left into a parking lot located two or three store fronts up the street from the lot I'd just turned out of. I was heading southbound and drove the ~400 feet at approx 25-30 mph (speed limit is 45, but I knew I was going to turn shortly) and slowed down in the left travel lane to make sure that the center turning lane was clear of northbound drivers attempting to merge before I attempted to merge in myself. I had slowed to the point of being almost stopped and had just activated my left turn signal and glanced up at my mirror when the 21 year old girl behind me slammed into me. She was going slow enough that she had probably made some attempt to stop, but smoke came out of her vents and her bumper was ripped off. My car's trunk is deeply dented in the center and my back bumper and license plate are bent, indicating a direct hit.



The first thing she screamed at me when she got out of the car is "why didn't you use your turn signal, now my car is ruined!" Because of this, I should have thought to explicitly mention that I indicated the turn right before impact in my narrative to police, but unfortunately I was in shock/nervous and forgot to do so. We each gave our statements. Today I got a copy of the police report. Not only is the girl claiming that I failed to ever indicate my turn, she is also claiming that she turned out of the same parking lot as I did and I wasn't in front of her at the time, but when she completed the turn into the left hand lane I was suddenly in front of her and I "stopped abruptly" so she couldn't avoid hitting me.



I was rear ended in 2012 while fully stopped at a red light by a driver going 60 MPH, my car was totalled (the driver who hit me admitted fault at the scene), but it took me nearly a year to get over $1000 in damages back because the driver of the car in front of me whom my car was pushed into by the force of the impact decided to tell his insurance company that I actually rearended him before the other car hit me. It went into arbitration and I won, but it was a financial hardship to be out that amount of money at a shot and I really don't want this case to drag out like that one did. The police report from Monday's accident is just each of our narratives and a statement of damages observed (my rear damage/her front damage). There's no fault determination in the report. Despite her attempts to shift the blame, is this still an easy rear collision case?



There were no witnesses. It should be noted that the accident happened right in front of her job, she called in, and while we were waiting for police, several of her coworkers came out to talk to her. I'm really worried that one of them will try to claim they "saw" it.





Determination of Fault: Rearended with Minor Damage, Other Driver Tried to Blame Me in Police Report

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