No Fault Accident?

[Jazzy]

I'm asking questions because of an accident that happened yesterday morning. Pickup truck vs Motorcycle. It was very foggy yesterday morning and the accident happened at 6 am. The motorcycle, driven by a 34 year old male corrections officer was travelling on a straight road. He was doing the speed limit which is 50 MPH. The pickup, driven by a 18 year old male pulled out of a side road directly into the path of the oncoming motorcycle. The 34 year old was killed instantly.



Now, the 18 year old told police he didn't see the motorcycle. The 18 year old has not been (and will not be) found guilty of causing the accident. They termed it a no fault accident. WTF! Okay, maybe you didn't see the motorcycle, but is he deaf that he couldn't HEAR the motorcycle coming?

My Questions:



Is there really such a thing as a no fault accident? Surely if there was an accident, someone or something had to have caused it, no?



What are your thoughts on this?

 

[Locke]

No fault accident refers to neither driver being the cause. It's a generic term used to attribute fault to environmental factors such as equipment failure or sudden spills. Things of that nature.



That being said, I'd say the motorcycle rider was at fault in this scenario given the limited information I have. He may have been going the legal limit, but that limit is for driving in ideal conditions. Drivers are expected to adjust speed for limited visibility and inclement weather, which the motorcycle rider obviously did not.



Instead of kicking a man while he was down (literally!), the police attributed the accident to be no fault to prevent the driver of the truck from being penalized, from the sounds of it.

 

[Evil Eye]

Okay, maybe you didn't see the motorcycle, but is he deaf that he couldn't HEAR the motorcycle coming?

Depending on the motorcycle and the truck, surely the truck could drown out all other noise? More importantly, how do you know where the sound is coming from?

Actually, let me do the math...

d=v^2/(2*mu*g) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braking_distance

Supposing the truck was also going 50mph, v = 24.6m/s. The friction coefficient for wet concrete (mu) = 0.30. The gravitational constant (g) = 9.8.

That gives a braking distance (d) = 102.9m or 112.5 yards. The truck would have had to notice the motorcycle 152.1m (166.3yards) before driving onto the other road. (It's more because of reaction time. ~2s)

It would take the truck (d/delta v)+~2s to reach that full stop. 102.9/((24.6-0)/2)+2= 10.4 seconds. 10.4 seconds ago the motorcycle was (10.4*24.6=) 255.8m (297.7yards) away from the side road. Using Pythagoras to get the distance between both drivers yields 275.7m (301.5yards).

The sound of the motorcycle would have been about 275.7 times lower at the point where the truck driver had to notice it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_pressure#Distance_law Again, depending on the truck and the motorcycle that could be drowned out completely.

This doesn't prove anything, you'd have to do a full reconstruction to see if you could hear the motorcycle and where it was coming from... You'll never know if it could've been averted... There's no resurrecting the dead. It's just a sad waste of life.

Is there really such a thing as a no fault accident? Surely if there was an accident, someone or something had to have caused it, no?

I'd say the very word accident implies no fault. Of course that'd be a pretty bad law...

Yes, someone's always responsible, but that doesn't mean it's their fault. If you have some sort of a seizure and accidentally push someone off a cliff, it's not your fault. You did it and it'll probably haunt you forever, but it wasn't your fault.

 

[Sinon]

This doesn't prove anything, you'd have to do a full reconstruction to see if you could hear the motorcycle and where it was coming from... You'll never know if it could've been averted...

You would also have to factor in things like the truck driver's level of hearing. Some people hear better than others.

 

[Evil Eye]

You would also have to factor in things like the truck driver's level of hearing. Some people hear better than others.

Yes and sound carries farther in fog and atmospheric pressure would probably also make a difference... Far too many variables really.