Brady's Car Wreck

Unfortunately Brady was in a car accident in the U of U parking lot last fall. He tried to call me a million times, but I had forgotten to take my phone to work that day. I felt so bad when I arrived home and saw what had happened to him. It's always a scary thing to get in a wreck. But, as long as nobody is injured, it's OK. That is why we have car insurance. This is Brady's explanation of the wreck for our insurance company.

His car is fixed now and everything is good.  I know it was traumatic for him to go through. There was a lot of anger because the girl wasn't paying attention and hit him. But, I guess it's something we all experience unless you are one of the lucky ones who never experience a wreck - however, I think that is a small number of people. 

So Brady drew up a diagram of the wreck to explain what happened.

You can look at the template diagram for a scene of the parking lot. The blue represents parked cars. The orange are the vehicles in question. The parking lot is on the left, it takes place near an outlet to the road on the right. The red marks are stop signs, and I drew arrows to declare the direction they were facing.

My car was parked at the stop sign at the bottom, I was going straight, not turning to get out of the road. The other car was coming out of the parking lot, and approaching the outlet on the same path. She does not have a stop sign (mostly because you can't put a stop sign out in the middle of the parking lot road). See Scene 1.

I looked both ways, didn't see anyone coming (I had a very limited view, the parking lot was completely full, that is why I was going straight because I was vulturing around for a space) then I proceeded to go. Only when I pulled out did I see the car coming. I was committed, and she did have plenty of breaking time. She was going way too fast, wasn't going to yield while approaching an intersection in a parking lot, and T'd my car. See Scene 2.

She honestly had a whole three seconds before hitting my car, I wasn't going that fast because I was started in a parked position. She may have told the officer that I did not stop at the stop sign, because we only saw each other when I pulled out in the intersection, possibly looking like one continuous motion. You can see how far back that line is that I needed to stop at if you look at the picture labeled "lot6". The picture labeled "lot2" is a good representation of my vision, as you can see I had that big blue/grey SUV with the square back to look past. The picture labeled "lot3" is probably a good representation of my view when I started to proceed into the intersection. The picture labeled "lot4" is going to be the other driver's view, about when I decided it was safe to proceed. "lot5" is a closer view, to see how close you have to get in that intersection to see the line of that stop sign I was parked at.

After our cars hit, my car went off in the left direction, hers went into the right direction. See Scene 3. Because my car was hit on the left side and turned to the right, physics would tell us that she hit the back half of my car, most of my weight was already in the intersection by the time she hit me. (Also, my back door is the most damaged, as that one I avoid opening). Now, me starting from a parked position (so I'm not going too fast), and getting the back half of my car hit in a parking lot where you're only supposed to be going 10 miles an hour suggests that she was speeding. I assume she was going around 20 miles an hour while exiting the parking lot. If she had been going 10 miles an hour, there is no excuse of why she couldn't break before hitting the back half of my car. (tangent) I did not hit her, she hit me in a parking lot. She was still in a parking lot, and she should have been using just as much caution as I was using, and had full power to prevent the accident by using standard caution. Just because there is was no stop sign as she approached the intersection, that does not excuse her for acting like God, and speeding to take the right of way. My car is big, red, and visible. If she could not stop from hitting the back half of my car, then she would not have stopped if a pedestrian had popped out from behind that big SUV car parked on the corner and it would have been her fault, because she would have hit a pedestrian in a parking lot. There is no reason to excuse her reckless driving because I am in a car at a stop sign (with limited view and cannot see into the isle fare enough to predict speeding cars from where the line is).

There is also no evidence to suggest that I did not stop at the stop sign. I even went and asked commuter services on campus if they have surveillance of the parking lots to prove my innocence in the matter. They unfortunately do not, so it is my word against theirs, but I hope I have provided applicable evidence to suggest that the other party was speeding in a parking lot, as she hit the back half of my car. The other alternative would be that I was speeding AND blew past the stop sign. I'm sorry, but I have been going to this school since August of 2013, have used that parking lot almost every school day since then, and know fully well that that stop sign is there, and ALWAYS yield, frankly because that intersection in general kind of scares me a little, even more so now.