Was this preventable?

A friend of mine told me he had a blowout on a trailer tire in a turn. His trailer fishtailed into a concrete barrier and damaged the suspension or axle. He got a preventable. Whose accident was more preventable? The one resulting from equipment failure or the one resulting from direct steering input? Your actions may have saved the life of the guy in the SUV, but preventable only applies to the incident which occurred, not the one that didn't. Trucking companies today love to give out preventables, so your chances of not getting one in this case are slim.

 

What do you suppose prompted the phantom SUV to suddenly swerve in front of you and slow down?
You saw a mysterious object ahead.
An SUV begins to pass you.
You maintain speed anyway, yet you saw all the indicators of a potential problem.

Amen brother, that say's it all in a nutshell. The moment he saw a potential hazard, he should have immediately begin to slow down to leave himself an out. Definitely preventable and unfortunately all his fault.

 

If you talk to any well experienced insuance agent, leaving your lane for any reason immediately puts you at a percentage of fault. Swerving to miss a animal and lossing control, running off the road, or hitting anything either stationary or moving, once you swerve out of your lane, it's on you. Hold your lane and hit the animal, it will go down as an act of god. Insurance companies love to hear that you swerved out of your lane to miss something. Just means you didn't have full control of your vehicle.

 

joe thompsom, take a deep breath and realize that it was an "accident" and they happen every day. preventable or not it is in the past, no one means to say you meant to do anything just that it did happen and you were involved in the decisions that took place at that moment. take care and good luck.

 

It sounds like a case of target fixation. It's how many people react, and causes many avoidable accidents. Simply put, the suv attracted so much of your attention you failed to clear the area where you placed your truck. It's actually the rarer situation; most commonly people crash into what they are trying to avoid because they are focused on the obstacle instead of their intended path, hence the teaching of "look where you want to go."

And Joe, please do take the time to acknowledge your fault in this. It's a bitter pill, but the only way you'll learn from this is to acknowledge where you, yourself screwed up. Were there contributing factors? Of course there were; but man up and examine where you screwed up. I don't say this to slam you or point fingers, but merely so you can understand what happened and why. Getting your back up because someone says it was your fault won't do anything but raise your BP. As it stands now, you are sounding like one of the "everyone's fault but mine" crowd, and that is not a good thing from any angle.You got pitched a high, hard fastball, late at night, and it got by you. Be ready for the next one!

BTW, the "cop says not my fault" line isn't going to help with a review board either, it will only harden any response they recommend, as they will assume you are unable to acknowledge your partial blame in this. Being able to talk of how your actions contributed will help, not hinder your cause; they'll see you've taken the time to examine what happened in order to learn from it, and that will make you a better driver in the future!

So do the hard thing, and kick your own ###, so to speak. It ain't fun, but it gots to get done! Best of luck to you!

 

I had an " incident " where I veered right in A curve to avoid A car taking A short-cut on my side of the road. Got stuck in the mud in A swale that was filled with rain water from the past 2 days of downpours. A deputy sheriff that stopped to help said " lucky you " ! He said ordinarily you would drive in and out of that ditch and just kick up dust. The rain storms fill it up, and your timing was perfect. No ticket. He said he couldn't find the " stuck in the mud " forms. There was no damage , got A winch-out and continued to Campbell's Soup's boiler house with the load of coal I took up there. Washed the mud off the truck , went about my business. I couldn't prove my story about the small red car , no witnesses stuck around . I got an entry on my DAC , even though I paid for the wrecker. Wished I had known . I wouldn't have been so anxious to get the debt paid off ! No good deed goes unpunished ! LOL ! While the deputy was directing traffic for the winch-out, 2 state troopers drove by and asked him if he needed help. He declined it , thank the good Lord. Who knows what it may have turned into if they got to me before the Deputy did !

 

Preventable.

 

How did you know there were no people in the car parked on the shoulder? just because it looked abandoned?

 

Traveling westbound I80 through Iowa couple of years ago a large SUV Ford Excursion crossed the centerline and slammed into my driver's side fuel tank and drives. He spun off like a kicked puppy into the snowy median. I was charged with a Non Preventable.