What makes me laugh in France are the signs warning you of the upcoming priority to the right. Which must cost more than a bit of paint.
They manage in the UK. Not signs, but road markings.
Most likely neither.
This happened to my wife once, no fine, no ban.
Tom
That's like saying if a car runs a red light and ends up in front of you, you should be able to stop before you hit that car, otherwise you are not in control.
A car coming from the right should watch where they are going, make sure there's no pedestrians, make sure there is no traffic from the right, etc., and not be concerned by cars from the left that might come flying in front of them. Even if the car from the left is not speeding, a car covers a lot of distance at 50 km/hr and it's not always possible to anticipate every possible failure to yield.
Having said that, I always make sure there are no cars coming from the left which don't look like they're about to stop, even if I have the right of way.
They started putting white marking on the ground around where I live, so you end up crossing white lines in unmarked intersections. I assume this should have a big impact on reducing accidents in such cases.
however, if there are no cars to the right, then you obviously don't have to give way to no car there. in such a situation and a car then comes at speed from the right after you already passing the intersection such that the car from the right hits the back of your car. just wondering if that could have been the scenario.
I thought the same.
I wonder whether the driver of the car coming from the right was actually fiddling with their mobile phone or in some other was was not paying enough attention?
There is one of those cross-hatched areas of the road where you cannot wait
so hypothetically, if the car on the main road was at at a standstill because of traffic and the car from the right drove into him, it would be the car coming from the right who was at fault.
Good question. What happens if a pedestrian is crossing and the car in the direction of the yellow arrows slows down and get hit on the right side?
The Rechtsvortritt is clear, but I think there's more to the situation. OP doesn't say, but I'm assuming that yellow wanted to cross Badenerstrasse or turn left, both involve crossing the tram tracks and that's the(my) issue.
While red has to give way, yellow must not block red's lane when crossing Badener if it needs to stop, so if necessary yellow must stop before "touching" Badenerstrasse. So, yellow needs to know farily early that there are no trams approaching (both tracks, one alone is too narrow, even for a Smart) because that's the area it uses if there's traffic from the right, pedestrians, or bicycles oncoming from Grüngasse (the one-way straight ahead) and blocking a left turn.
To me, that necessitates a rather low speed for yellow, probably 25km/h or so at the most. 25km/h is 7m/s, that's 3.5m emergency braking distance on a dry road. The foot will be on the brake already and attention at maximum, so the reaction will be very quick. Let's say 0.5sec to react or another 3.5m for 7m total distance to stop. Checking for the trams takes time, too, maybe 0.5sec, that would mean another 3.5m distance for 10.5m total. Just for reference to calculate the distances with ease, pedestrian strips are 4m wide.
This is the bare minimum distance as people don't generally plan for emergeny stops. Does one have a good enough view 10m or 15m from the Badenerstrasse? The situation may have changed since I left Zürich 20+ years ago, but from memory on a bicycle I'd hesitate to say Yes.
The combination of a lack of skid marks and the hit to the rear door, rather than somewhere near the front, indicate to me that yellow may well not have driven properly either, didn't pay enough attention and/or was too fast.
-------------------------------------
OP, does your friend have bonus protection?
Question for later: What collision speed does the damage indicate, according to the police? And what does the driver say?
Mine as well. It seems pretty unusual to me that a fairly "main" road with tram lines would have priority from the right. But ok, it clearly does.
So a possibly stupid question: does the tram (coming from the left) have to stop if someone on the right enters the intersection? It would seem yes, or the tram driver would be at the same fault as the OP's friend. There can't be different rules for trams and cars on the same, non-priority road...right?
of course, why not? Public transport have different rules and priority over othr traffic.
Whatever's lawfully on the rails has priority, trains, trams, etc. That's why you have train barriers at crossings blocking the cars, and people stopping the traffic with flags if necessary where there are no barriers.
Rail and tram tracks are reserved for the rail vehicles, you're only allowed to use the area out of practicality, and only to cross.
Jackie, it's not because they're public transport. Buses for instance have no increased priority at road crossings or traffic lights, that's why they have remote controls to make the lights switch. Cargo trains still get the barriers lowered for despite not being public transport. It's because rail vehicles are far less agile than everything on the asphalt.
The tram has always priority, except for one odd situation which exists, AFAIK in Zurich just once : If the tram joins a a main road (Hauptstrasse) it must give way to the traffic on the main road. Art. 45 Abs. 2 VRV .
Rubbish Jackie, the rules are the same for everybody !
No they are not.
For example, the rules for cars and bicycles are different in many cases.
Yes Tom, correct and for pedestrians they are different again, but for motor vehicles, which is what we are talking about, the rules are the same.
................and as SITUS points out, rules for trams are different again.
It is customary to let buses into the traffic stream, but by no means obligatory, they have to follow the same federal laws as other motorists, be it a car, a bus, a motorcyle or a truck
Agreed, my friend says they did not see anyone coming from the right (Langstrasse). The moment they almost passed the intersection the other driver crashed to the right rear door. Huge questionmark how the driver on Langstrasse did not see my friend on Badenerstrasse.
I wrote earlier that it's more than possible that they were distracted by their phone or something like that.
Wouldn't it be great to have access to their phone records for the time of the accident? I know this happens for more serious accidents such as those with fatalities.
Very valid points you have made. Unfortunately, my friend was in such a shock from the crash that they were put into an ambulance to be taken care of while the other driver (YELLOW) was talking to the Police. After some time the Police stepped in the ambulance to ask questions to my friend (RED).
My friend has bonus protection thankfully and a full casco with +++ extras for insurance. My friend was in shock so they don't remember much from what the Police said at that point. No words were exchanged between RED and YELLOW.
Police and Insurance are not providing the accident report/protocol for some reason, which is odd. Of course we realize, that legally speaking, YELLOW had priority, BUT the absence of skidmarks combined with the hit on the rear right door raise some reasonable questions.
With todays ABS, skidmarks are mostly a thing of the past.
Also, regarding request of information. Did they use the official form? (I linked to it further up).
Yes the have to follow federal rules. So will have you. And in those rules it is said ( Art. 17 Abs. 5 VRV )
It is not customary but actually the law to let public transport busses into the traffic stream.
I meant the police protocol of the yellow driver, though now that I think of it I'd expand that to both drivers. I overlooked that there's no verdict yet, just a statement by the insurance, I guess that's why everything's still confidential.
Bonus protection usually applies only once per year. Even without a 2nd accident this year you(*) still become a less attractive client because of the costs caused. If the license gets suspended (doubt it, but IANAL), it will come with a probation period (five years?) during which an additional suspension must be more severe than this one. So even where the full casco covers the damage, there may be additional aspects to consider.
This is where red should have stopped , because just like yellow must not block red's lane, red must not block traffic from entering Langstrasse (including bicycles from Grüngasse). An emergency brake at 47km/h (13m/sec) takes 13 meters, so red's normal slowing down for such a stop should be easily noticeable 20m to the left. Once it became clear that red had no such plans yellow was themselves obligated to avoid a collision and brake to stop.
Given yellow's maximum safe speed, it seems that an attentive driver should be able to stop easily.
(*) you = your friend. you is much more simple for me to formulate so I'm using that
True, but the lack of them makes yellow's statements unfounded and as such of rather limited trustworthiness.
Red may have left skidmarks though. The amount of damage should allow conclusions on yellow's speed, too.