Hi all, would love some guidance on a car accident my wife had. I'll try and explain best I can but note I'm not trying to get out of paying money out, just want an idea of how the law works.
This happened in some roadworks. Two lands converged down into a single lane (right lane ended) and my wife navigated that part of this without issue. However as she approached the cones, a car in the left hand lane tried to stop her coming into the lane for no apparent reason. Regardless, my wife managed to get in front of that car and joined the traffic in the single left lane and entered the roadworks. I don't have a great explanation how she did that but I don't think it's relevant to this.
In this single lane roadwork, it actually tracks past a petrol station which has an entrance at the front of the roadworks and an exit towards the end of the works. Between the entrance and exit, there is actually another lane to the left of the single lane .. but it's got hatches drawn all over it so you're not supposed to drive there. After my wife got in front of this other car, the other car then proceeded to drive down the hatched part of the road attempting to get in front of my wife.
My wife did see her and if I'm being honest, it looks like a game ensued with my wife stopping this other person from getting back in. However, at the end of the hatched section, the road then converges to be a single lane when this other car didn't slow down. To me it looks like a game of chicken then happened with this other car cutting in front of my wife and hitting the front wing and damaging it. The other car drove off and she didn't get any details but we did have a dashcam in the car.
When my wife got home, we called the police and reported the incident. They sent out a link to upload the dashcam footage (which we did) and we then lodged an insurance claim. Fast forward a couple of weeks and a infringement notice arrived on the doorstep stating that my wife failed to yield and please pay $288
Now I don't particularly care about the money, it's not a lot and there are no demerit points for this so it's not that big a deal. However my question is around the car insurance side. If my wife gets a fine like this, is she automatically at fault as far as the insurance is concerned? Does she now lose her no claims discount etc? Or is the blame for an accident treated separately by the insurance company from any traffic offence? The other car was 'off road' and it does seem unfair to get this ticket but I understand the cop's approach would just be to let the court decide (which I doubt we'd bother for $288).
Any wisdom would be appreciated.
Thread closed: OP disabled account —Mod
So basically your wife and the other driver got emotional and tried to play chicken and both copped the consequences…
Could have caused a more serious accident, also injured road workers and far out if it's a 40 zone for construction so not like you're not already meant to be slow and aware.