Car Crash Liability Question

[annalafrenchy7]

I had a mirror-to-mirror collision on the freeway in Los Angeles a couple weeks ago, and was surprised to hear that the best I could do in this situation was get an offer of %20 liability to the other driver's %80 when to me it seems %100 his liability.

The video is linked above, both my adjuster and his noted that because I swerved out of my lane to avoid collision, but then came back right before we crashed, that I shared some blame. My question is, since I was completely in my lane before he started shifting into mine, doesn't that give me %0 culpability? I didn't fully swerve to the left lane because you can see there's a car in that lane coming fast right behind me. It just seems strange that by swerving as far as I safely could within my lane before coming back would pin liability on me.

Any suggestions or insights greatly appreciated!

-R

 

[laurencismyname]

@annalafrenchy7 Can't see much from you filming a screen. Can you upload the file from the SD card?

 

[annalafrenchy7]

@laurencismyname Unfortunately not, it was a trucker who taped it on his dash cam and texted us the video blurry. It helps if you maximize the screen.

Thanks!

 

[ctabb]

@annalafrenchy7 Claims rep here. While this is a toughie I think I can see the reasoning. If you had swerved to avoid the accident, but cancelled your swerve due to the vehicle to the left of you, you would be 0% at fault if the other driver still continued to hit you.

However, the action of swerving back into the other vehicle really hurt you, as the other driver may have seen you going into the other lane but suddenly you came back. The reason swerving back into the other car hurts you so much is because you still have to make sure it’s safe to pull any maneuvers before you perform them, even if you had just successfully avoided the first possible impact.

 

[annalafrenchy7]

@ctabb I see, that makes sense...

The way you just explained it is at least clearer than what anyone else from either insurance carrier has told me so far. Here's another clincher though-- the other driver, who seemed to be having an honest, good faith conversation with me after the crash, admitted to me he was on the phone with his girlfriend before the collision. I have no at-fault crashes on my record, and if it's not clear in good faith that I am at fault here, I would like to keep it that way if possible. My insurance agent is sort of weirding me out, because Progressive (the other driver's carrier) admitted %80 fault already, whereas my agent says her manager sees it more as 50/50 and is dissuading me from pushing it to arbitration should a less favorable decision be made. I have no idea how this works but find it confusing that my own carrier finds more liability in my driving then Progressive.

Would you say it's worth trying to have my carrier arbitrate on my behalf, or that I should just take the %80 offer?

Thanks so much,

R

 

[ctabb]

@annalafrenchy7 Definitely a rare scenario to have the other carrier already accepting more liability than your own.
What I would recommend is to try to convince your own adjuster to put you at 20% and the other driver at 80%, since that will line up with Progressive’s ruling and there will be no need for arbitration.

I say this because I think it would be highly unlikely to be put at anything less than 20% at fault for the situation if it goes through arbitration, which is honestly a huge pain in the butt and can drag out your claim for weeks or months. I would also recommend being polite about it, as your adjuster or their supervisor may be more willing to help you out.

Additionally, in some states they don’t even raise your rates at all if you’re less than 51% at fault, so 80-20 would still be a pretty good deal.

 

[annalafrenchy7]

@ctabb Really helpful stuff to hear from you...

Especially because after I first spoke with my adjuster, the next time I wanted to speak with her I called her maybe like 10-12 times that day, sort of assuming the calls would go through a larger system like my last carrier had. I just wanted to keep the claim moving since all my other claims take annoyingly long. Turns out I guess the calls were going directly to her and she wrote me an email that night asking to not contact her multiple times, and I got a tone that she was kind of upset. That, and some later interactions kind of made me think them finding unfavorable liability on me and her taking 4-5 days per response is connected to that bad start. Don't get me wrong, I don't think someone working in customer service should be unprofessional as she has been to a degree, but I wouldn't've called so many times at first if I knew it was going direct to a cell or personal office phone or something, and I've definitely been trying to be polite ever since. She seemed much nicer in the last e-mail so hopefully we can keep it going.

My last question for you is -- even if I manage to get text message or other evidence from the other driver that he was on the phone with his girlfriend just before the accident, you still don't think I could do better than %20 here?

It's a frustrating feeling to think, "sure, if you want to look at this legally, maybe I could've avoided fault by not swerving back or taking the risk of shifting over and accelerating or something" but I kind of feel like I did the best, safest thing I could.

Cheers.