accident today..

Why are your tandems all the way up and you don't expect the swing to get you?

 

Well that was exactly the scenario I was laying out, someone pulling out in front of you not giving you enough time to stop so I’m not sure how I’m wrong. There are cases where the vehicle doing the hitting is not at fault so just because the pickups mirror clipped the OP’s trailer tail does not make him at fault.

If the rear of then OP’s trailer swung out into the pickups lane as it was passing it would give the pickup no time to react and the pickup would not be at fault.

 

Because unless you can PROVE someone pulled out in front of you it didn't happen. You are expected to have control of your vehicle and that means being able to avoid hitting the vehicle in front of you. You often must PROVE that the vehicle ahead of you acted illegally or else you will be at fault. Have you ever rear ended someone and told the cop you got cut off? Cop says yeah right prove it. I am sure that is what the cop told the four wheeler in this case. Also note that the cop did not issue the OP a ticket. Why? Because the four wheeler hit him and there is no proof to show who changed lanes and it wouldn't hold up in court. Get it?

Note that the above is my unprofessional legal opinion, which is worth what you paid for it. What the LEO and the safety manager put in their reports aren't necessarily bound by the law.

As I alluded to in an earlier post, I had a similar situation on I-81 in Harrisburg with one of our drivers. Driver gets pulled over by cops. Cop says we have a lady that called in and says you left your lane and took her mirror off. Lady shows up 45 minutes later with passenger mirror dangling. No black paint on trailer. No silver marks on car. Cop wrote his report like this "Contact appears to have been made between trailer and car." Later in report he says "There is no evidence of contact." No mention of who hit whom. Cop issued no ticket.

Driver never told me though. Wasn't until insurance renewal time when his rates went up that I even knew anything about it. By then it was too late. Four wheeler filed a claim and in the absence of a denial from us, they paid her.

So again...this is why I say, if the OP can get out in front of this thing and contact his insurance co and argue his case with evidence, the ins co may deny the claim. As a carrier, that is what I would do and have done in the past. HOWEVER, the OP is only a driver and will not be contacting the ins co. All he can do is plead his case to the safety manager....with good evidence he might keep a clean record.

 

rank,
There's several points about your theory and post-accident test re-creation that won't hold water.

#1. First being if the OP's tail end swung into the other vehicle's lane, case closed. The OP is then 100% at fault.

#2. You say the mirror going inward is proof the pickup hit the OP. Not necessary true at all. In fact, the pickup had a red light for his lane and was likely still at a dead stop. As for the mirror turning inward/rearward, that can easily happen on a tailswing situation. The trailer's overhang/tail is swinging outward very similar to a car door swung out beside you. Since the typical hinge point of the mirror is toward the leading edge, if the trailer's swinging tail end makes contact with the SIDE of the mirror, it will fold in rearward (same way as if a car door hit it). The statements of the OP indicate the other truck was likely stopped/stationary.

#3. In the re-creation, it would be impossible to use any swing measurements, as overhang swing totally depends on the exact amount the steering wheel was turned AND the exact speed. You simply cannot duplicate what has already happened, as even the OP wouldn't be able to tell either of these 2 things with 100% accuracy "after the fact".
For instance, you will get your maximum overhang swing only when you have your steering wheel fully turned and from a dead stop. Anything other than these two conditions, and it will vary considerably.

 

well, if I was you I would contact the guy and offer to give him money for the mirror if he doesn't turn it in to his insurance.

IMO, going to court is quickly going to be more of a hassle than it's worth even if you win. And if you lose (frankly if there is paint on your trailer matching up with the height of his mirror you're gonna lose) then it would be much better to just pay him for his mirror out of pocket rather than getting insurance involved. IMO.

 

You yourself were in a situation that you were not found at fault for when hitting someone else and you want to argue the point?

I guess I needed to add a hypothetical dash cam for proof to my example for you. It was just a hypothetical example to point out that the vehicle that hits another is not always at fault as you seemed to state when saying…

That does not automatically put the other vehicle at fault. "Get it?"

Don’t quite your day job to take up traffic law.

 

Maybe. Doesn't matter anyway because there is no proof or witnesses. As I said earlier, if a recreation shows the OP was out of his lane, then he drops the discussion and tries to pay the other guy cash for his mirror and a letter.

There is no proof of that either.

Hmmm. Ok I see what you are saying here. Possible. But also possible he moved and hit the trailer.

He said he made the turn 100 times. I'm sure he can recreate it accurately enough to give himself a pretty good idea. We are not talking about a murder case here. All he is trying to do is get his safety manager to cut him some slack on this one. If he can show he was in his lane, the safety guy might reasonably expect that the other driver crept ahead and left while he was texting. Or that the other driver was over the line.

I don't understand why it's so hard for everyone to believe the four wheeler is at fault. I had one merge right into the side of my trailer once for crying out loud. Are you all telling me there is no way the four wheeler was out of his lane or moving? You just cannot say that.

Do I think it's possible the tail swing got him? Sure it's possible. Also think it's possible the four wheeler did it to himself.

As for you. I would love to stay out of traffic court. But unfortunately sometimes over zealous LEOs rush to judgement. I am sure I will be in court again soon fighting a "professional" opinion about me or one of my drivers. Some day you might wish you had a boss like me..

 

Whoa--not sayin for a SECOND you arent a safe driver--was jus tryin to add some insight---NOW--after rereading your OP--its clear I misread it the first time--not sure--where I got the idea it was a double turn--just read it wrong I reckon
Now(along with my original comments) I have to ask
You said officer said YOU were at fault--BUT--you do not say IF you were cited--did you receive a moving violation? If you weren't cited--not sure what there is to fight in court--since it just becomes an insurance situation--and then it is only between you and your safety dept--which probably will be difficult to fight--since the damage was so minor--and w/todays deductables--your company will just pay the repair and be done with it--
BUT how you proceed from here--depends on if your were or were not cited--
and for what it is worth(as the kids say) I call BS on the p/u driver--weather the cop took his side or not--cuz_IMHO--if your tail swing got him--while he was sitting still--no way that mirror goes in--and to just push it in--you would have had to rub him SO much more gently than you possibly could have with tail swing---I have seen too many drivers over the years--just barely rub the truck next to them pullin out of a space with tail swing--and do a ####load more damage than you could believe could be done at that speed--the whole thing is STILL kinda hincky to me
Good Luck

 

And people wonder why some of us have side backwards mounted cameras on our trucks. I have heard all too many times about stuff like this, with the cameras everything is recorded. I was driving down the interstate one day there was a women in a car behind me, there was a highway patrol on the right shoulder with a car pulled over with his lights on. I pulled over into the left lane and slowed down this idiot in the car tried to pass me on the shoulder, and blew her horn while she was doing it. About 5 miles down the road I was pulled over: the ##### tried to tell the police that I had almost run her off the road that I moved into her lane while she was beside my trailer. The video from my side camera showed a different story. She pulled left from behind me when I slowed down and tried to pass on the left shoulder. The video does not lie. Had a guy try to race ahead of me to a light because he did not want to wait for the slow moving trucks that would have been ahead of him in his lane or my truck in mine he forgot he was hauling a trailer and clipped the front of my truck as he pulled into my lane. No damage to my truck just a black mark from his trailer tire. He tried to say I was changing lanes without signalling, until I pointed out the camera just inside the mirror on my truck and suggested we call the police. Funny how he decided it would not be in his best interest to make the call. Forgot to indicate my pretrip one day got checked out at the scale, he tried to issue me a ticket for not doing my pretrip, showed him my video that showed me doing my pretrip. He had me make an entry in my log that I had failed to mark in my pretrip , no ticket issued. Cameras a drivers best friend.

 

A couple of things that I see here:

#1: Everybody is claiming tail swing, but making a left hand turn at an intersection with normal width lanes would not produce the amount of tail swing necessary to intrude into another lane. If that were the case, we'd all be smacking everybody else whenever we turned...especially on a right turn where we really do have to cut it.

#2: You say there is paint transfer on your trailer. The problem with this (and I'm surprised nobody else caught this) is that those mirrors on the F250 are unpainted black abs plastic. There can be plastic transfer, but you could feel it as it would be raised from the surface and would come off rather easily with some soapy water and a good amount of elbow grease.

Cops are known to jump to the gun about pinning fault on somebody without looking at all of the facts. A great example of this is when my wife got t-boned when making a left hand turn at a 4 way stop a couple of years ago. She had the right-of-way and had almost completed her left hand turn, but some old lady ran the stop sign and hit her. When the cop arrived, the old lady told him that my wife turned in front of her. Without even talking to my wife, he immediately placed fault on her and issued her a 'failure to yield' ticket. After several months, a couple of attorneys, and a judge who had a family member that went through the same process, the old lady had to pay for everything, the cop got a stern talking to about making an "###" out of "u" and me" ing, and my wife got her name cleared.