Not At Fault Roundabout Accident?, Its Not That Complicated

Not At Fault Roundabout Accident

You would think that a not at fault roundabout accident would be simple right? And, from a certain point of view they are, the law stipulates that you should give way to any vehicle already in the round about, which colloquially we describe as “giving way to your right” now, while strictly speaking, the law does not say you actually give way to your right in that scenario, in the practicality of it, you always do, because the vehicle approaching from the right hand side, is generally always in the round about, prior to the collision as the distance is longer.

Yet, what you will find is that there can be disputes from other drivers in these instances, while the most common type of dispute they will claim is that they, in fact, were the ones who were in the round about first, some simple logic is able to establish this is not the case, the length of distance the vehicle approaching from the right had to travel, is longer than the other, thus, not already in the round about so these type of disputes generally are not substantiated by the indemnifying insurer of the at fault driver. 

Allegations of Speed Are Not Sole Determining Factors of Liability

Speeding, is I would say probably among the largest of disputes for not at fault roundabout accident, i.e. when it comes time to discuss the accident, the at fault driver will describe the accident as it was, with you already being in the round about but will then say “they were absolutely flying, must have been going xyz above the speed limit”

Now, perhaps, this is, or is not true – having done thousands of claims in my career, on the burden of probabilities, I am quite certain that when a third party has told me one of my clients were speeding and that’s what caused the accident, it probably was true, at least some of the time, but there never was any evidence to substantiate it.

But lets just say there was evidence to substantiate it ? often, individuals on either side of the matter, at fault or not at fault in these round about accidents will often assert they will be tracking down dashcam, CCTV or safety camera footage in order to prove the other person was speeding, however often individuals are not aware that insurance companies not only don’t, but cant, use these sorts of pieces of evidence as absolute proof of speed.

Why Police Radar or Traffic Camera Readings Are Required for Speeding

For a legal determination to be made, on the merits of speed, it generally (not always) requires an actual police reading, speeding camera, mobile camera, officer with radar,  to confirm the speed, and the reason for this is that in reality, the human brain, is not particularly good at measuring accurate speeds with our eyes, we can get a general gauge, yes, and of course some people are particularly talented at the skill I am sure, but I am quite confident in writing this now that the probability of you visually being able to tell the difference between 50kph and 55kph is reasonably low, I know it would be for me anyway.

Now of course there are more nuanced legal explanations as to why video footage of speeding is not considered official confirmation by the insurer, however, as a general public example, its because you cant be scientifically accurate with your visual perception of speed.

As is often the case, there are cases and scenarios you will hear from where this is not the case, and indeed, if it was that there were other aspects in video footage such as reckless driving that can change things significantly.

How to Articulate Your Not At Fault Roundabout Accident Correctly to Insurance Companies

Now with that all in mind, another thing I have noticed over the years is that sometimes people can really struggle in articulating a roundabout accident correctly, now from an internal point of view, the way you investigate, write, and articulate round about accidents at as an insurance claims handler or credit hire handler can be detailed, but for the general public I would say just try and get a general idea of the scenario before you start speaking with an insurer or credit hire company on the phone before you call them so that you can articulate yourself correctly and they can then record it correctly.

• What road were you driving towards?
• What lane were you in? left, right, middle ?
• Where was the other person in relation to you?

In the least, always try and articulate which direction you were heading, and which road you were  on, as from this in the least the establishment of who was most likely already in the round about can begin to be calculated based on the measurements of the road from entry point, to the point of collision.

How to Prove You Were Already In The Roundabout At The Point of Collision

It is actually quite simple to do, and I myself use this strategy when discussing liability with major insurance companies all around Australia, try it out for yourself.

1. Go to google maps
2. Find the location of your not at fault car crash
3. Activate the google measure tool.
4. Measure from where you entered, to where they hit you, distance, record that number.
5. Measure from where they entered, to where they hit you, distance, record that number.
6. Go to Wolframalpha and type  a variation of “1.5m at 50kph time” i.e. Distance you travelled at Speed you were going
   1. As we do not use speed as a determining factor in liability, we must default all speeds to there assumed signed limits,
7. On the results page from step 6, note the section time, in my examples case 0.108 seconds, and do the same for the at fault driver.
8. What you will notice, is that the time you had to travel, will always, exceed, the time that the at fault driver had to travel, based on where the collision occurred as is substantiated by verbal versions, written versions and damage points.

And thus, if you were not at fault in a round about accident, that, is how you can factually convey this point to the at fault drivers insurance company.

The Facts May Be The Facts, But There Can Still Sometimes Be Disputes

Now you may find that they still do maintain the dispute, but in my experience this is generally because either their member is giving quite a significant amount of push back as the insurer is trying to articulate to them the liability outcome, or, the individual handling the case on the other side of the matter does not actually understand what you have presented to them, if that is the case and your hearing “crickets” back from them, I would actually ask if there is anything else you can do to help clarify the matter, as they, themselves may not understand but the facts are there, pure un-opinionated factual mathematics.

Now will we be able to use speed as a determining factor someday? I imagine so, issue is at the moment, dashcams usually get their telematics from GPS, so it can be … seconds out, or not entirely spot on, which is important (for a speed camera) and as we discussed, rather hard to “sigma six” a scientific result from eye witness testimony, but, I think the technology will progress over the next decade, which will be good, could we not use the parking sensors, to record live data? Who knows, not my field, for now however, use the tools that you have to your ability to articulate your not at fault roundabout accident so that you can make sure that you have your vehicle repaired with zero excess applied and organize your not at fault rental vehicle on the day of your repairs.