Driver Duty: What every person has when behind the wheel of a car.

Every person behind the wheel of a car has duties. The main Driver Duty is avoid a collision. This is a requirement the law places on every one. The Driver Duty does not stop there. There are two things we are concern about:

1. Driver

2. Duty

Driver is any person behind the wheel of a car. Yes, that means Johnny even if he is only 2 years old! A driver does not have to have a driver license. The law does not want people claiming that they did not have duties as drivers because they lack the age or the necessary permit to drive.

The Duty or Driver Duty can be rather complicated. The law places many duties in every one driving a car. The four most common and that are always present in vehicle accidents are:

1. Look Out

2. Avoidance

3. Follow the Rules of the Road

4. Reasonable Man Theory

Look Out:

Look Out simply means that you have to pay attention. You must be aware of your surrounding when you are driving a vehicle. This is part of the reason why in the recorded statement your adjuster will be trying to determine where did you see the other vehicle.

If did not see the other vehicle until impact, then the adjuster will tell you that you breached Look Out. Not seeing someone is evidence that you were not paying attention or looking out. This of course is not applicable to every accident, but this is the rule rather than exception.

Telling your adjuster that you did not see anything, or that the other vehicle came out of nowhere has only three logical explanations:

1. You are blind. If you say that you did not see the other vehicle, then you can see very well. You certainly felt the impact.

2. You were not paying attention or did not look. Vehicles do not come from nowhere, and if the other car was not there then the collision would not have taken place. Adjusters like this one.

3. It was physically impossible for you to see the other car. This is why pictures are critical to your accident. If there are visual obstructions, then you cannot see. You must provide evidence about this. Number 3 is the only one that would relieve you from having this duty.

Avoidance:

This driver duty means that you have to do everything in your power to avoid the collision or the actual contact with another car and/or pedestrian. Sure, the other person ran the red light, but you still have to TRY to avoid them. Jurisdictions vary on how much avoidance they require from you. Adjusters also have their own opinion on this. Some will want to see a significant attempt to avoid while others ask for the bare minimum attempt.

Telling your adjuster that you did noting to avoid can cost you. You have to do something. Sometimes there is nothing you can do (i.e. when you are waiting for the light before you are rear-ended) or when things happen so fast that no one could have reacted. Note that the latter is very uncommon.

Many people report on their statements that there was no time to react. The adjuster will be curious about this and will probably be asking more about when you saw the other vehicle and what kind of reaction did you have.

So how do you avoid an accident? Well you did not avoid the accident, but you must TRY to avoid. If you try to avoid and you are not successful then you fulfilled your duty. Stepping on the break, swerving to your side, honking, etc. are perfect examples of your attempt to avoid. If you do nothing you could be some percentage negligent for the accident.

Follow the Rules of the Road:

Here is where you turn to your state Motor Vehicle Code. Remember that the manuals that the DMV gives you are not admissible in court. So you must look at your state actual enacted legislation.

Most states have the an entire chapter devoted to motor vehicles. When reading the code, make sure you understand each word and sentence. You can find several flaws on how the code is written where you can get out of a citation fairly easily. The law is very technical, and a simple mistake can set you free of any duty. To learn more about your specific state laws go to our follow the link below.

To really understand the rules of the road of your state, you need to read your State Motor Vehicle Code. Click here for links to every state code.

Reasonable Man Theory:

This is the catch all of the law. What driver duty do you really have? You have to act as a reasonable man of ordinary prudence would act in the same circumstances you were. So if a reasonable would have parked in a better location, then you had a duty to do so. If a reasonable man would have stopped in the yellow light, guess what, then you had a duty to do so. This area is highly litigated because the view of a reasonable man varies tremendously. Some people call it the Perfect Man theory because judges and juries seem to think that this man is almost perfect when it comes to societal issues.

So your adjuster can tell you that if a reasonable man would have done something different and you did not, then you had a duty. This is controversial but it seeks to protect those cases were people just go bizarre. The over reaction of jumping over a bridge is a good example. If I am about to hit you at 2 miles per hour and you jump to avoid the collision, then would I be negligent? Well you had a duty to act reasonably, and jumping over does not follow that rule. I would probably be ok in that situation.

Even if you have a Driver Duty, you have to breach that duty before you are at fault. Learn more about BREACH

What about the VIDEO on the Who is at Fault Page

When looking at the video in the Who is at Fault page. We must look to see what driver duty did each party had. Remember that each driver must have a duty that she breached, and that this breach is the cause of the actual damages. If these elements are present then negligence exists.

Originally we have a stopped van on the middle of the road. We have no information of why the van is on the middle of the road. Are they there because the crashed before? Or is their vehicle disable? We have no answers. If we knew what state did this accident happened at we could read the statutes and see if there is any driver duty for vehicles disable on the middle of the road.

The vehicle is stopped so there would not be lookout or avoidance on that driver. The key question for this accident will be how long was the van waiting there for? If the van was in this position for say 20 to 30 minutes, then an adjuster can argue that a reasonable person would move the vehicle out of the way. If the vehicle has only been there for a minute or two, then it would be more difficult to make that claim.

Either way, it is arguable that the van had driver duty to turn on his hazard lights. Depending on how the statute reads this could put the van driver with some driver duty. But even if there is no statute to that effect, then the reasonable man theory could make the issue of turning the hazard lights a duty.

The second vehicle we are looking at is the blue vehicle (the vehicle that hit the van from behind). What driver duty did he have? We go down the same analysis:

Look Out: Remember this driver duty exists when any person is behind the wheel of a car. The driver of the blue car (it looks back on the beginning but when there is more light it is blue) was driving, therefore he had the duty to Look Out or paying attention.

Avoidance: This also applies if there was a driver on the vehicle. Therefore the driver must have done something to avoid the collision.

Follow the rules of the road: We have no knowledge of the state. But generally there are speed limitations that place an affirmative driver duty. We do not know what the statute says, but we know that work zones have reduced speed limits. We see some work cones and some lights.

It is possible that the speed limit was reduce on this road. Statutes also place the driver duty to conserve enough distance with the vehicle in front so you can stop in case of emergency. This can be argued both ways. If the van was sitting there from 20 to 30 minutes then there was no following.

But if the van was there shortly (two to five minutes) then one can argue that the blue car was following the van and therefore had a duty to conserve distance.

The third party on the vehicle is going to be the red car that was following the Lays chips truck. The vehicle passes the crash, but then the van bounces against the divider and hits this vehicle.

Someone is driving and therefore the duties of lookout, avoidance, follow the rules of the road, and reasonable man theory would apply to this driver.

Now that we know what driver duty each party had, we must look to see what duty each driver breached. Click here to learn more.

If the police shows up and gives you a ticket, then you need to dispute it. Read thespeeding ticket eBook or the traffic ticket eBook to get your citation dismiss.

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