Lost respect for highway patrol today

[TravisT]

Originally posted by: OS
I had an accident about two weeks ago, where a big rig coming from the opposite direction on a two way street made a left turn in front of me, while I was going straight ahead. I didn't have enough time to stop so I ran into the big rig.


I got my collision report today and the CHP places the blame on me. They said I caused the accident by driving at "unsafe speeds." The report said I was going 45-50. The posted speed limit is 45. This is such bullsh*t. CA law clearly says that anyone making a left turn through incoming traffic must ensure that the turning vehicle must not endanger incoming cars at ANY TIME during the turn. But collision report never mentions this once.


There is a reason the officer did this to me. I was going to watch the street races. Yes, I probably shouldn't have. But me cruising around without actually racing anyone is not illegal. Even if cruising around were illegal, this is not how justice works.


I was not involved in any racing at the accident. Nor was the physical evidence consistent with excessive speed. The report says there were 43 feet of skid marks (my model car takes about 140 feet to stop from 60) and the collision did not cause my airbags to deploy, which basically says normal driving speeds.


All the physical evidence shows no wrong doing on my part and even the report itself says that I was going about the posted speed limit. But because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, the officer thought me to be a bastard and pointed the finger at me in this accident. This is so messed up.

Yeah, the same thing happened in a car wreck i witnessed last week. You can read about it in the thread titled 'Traffic Accident '. The newspaper the next day said the officer said it was due to unsafe speeds that it happened. However, this guy was behind me, i know he wasn't going much over the speedlimit, most likely less than 5mph over the speedlimit since traffic was heavy that morning.

I talked to my father, who is an attorney, to make sure that the person they accused wasn't going to have to serve jail time (since someone did in fact die in the accident).... Anyhow, he assured me that newspapers among other things have to blame the cause of the wreck on something. Whether its you going 1mph over the speedlimit or whatever. If you have insurance most likely you won't have much of a problem. I'm assuming you will have to go to court to determine which insurance company actually has to pay though.

 

[Daishiki]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: acemcmac
If you were really going 45-50 when you hit that truck, you'd be dead right now. end of story.

No sh!t. Only 43 feet of skidmarks and no airbag deployment does not indicate "excessive" speed.

Originally posted by: spikemike
if you are doing anything involved with illegal street racing in San Diego you can get your car impounded even for watching i believe.

All well and good, but entirely irrelevant to determining who was at fault in ANY accident.

actually, the length of the skidmarks won't really tell too much about your speed. it does say how far away you were from the truck when you began to slam your brakes, which was 43 feet. had there been no truck or obstacle in your way and you slammed your brakes, it would have been 160 going at 60mph. but you hit a dead stop because of the truck. using the skid length in your defense may help only if the judge doesn't catch it.
i'm not trying to defend the chp. i don't like them either. i was heading class on the offramp when the person in front of me hit the person in front of her and made a dead stop. i was already breaking before it happened but since it was downsloping i didn't have the distance to come to a full stop. after i filed my statement and was trying to leave, he asked why and i said i had class. then i watched him add that statement to the report to make it seem like i was in a hurry. bastid