Who is at fault?
 

Turtle crossing CR466 (no shoulder). Driver stops, gets out of car to help turtle. Another driver rear-ends stopped car. Is it okay to stop and help wildlife, when you can't secure your own car? Besides the turtle, who's at fault? Does anyone know a law that would pertain to this? :shrug:

I believe what I have always been told;


When you rear end somebody, it's always your fault for failing to keep an assured clear distance.


However....As much as most of us would have tried to avoid hitting the turtle, I am not in agreement with stopping your car in the middle of the street.


Tough one.


If it were a child or a person...yes, stop. But pull over so you can help and not cause another accident.

There is never an OK reason to hit the car in front of you .

Is this a hypothetical question, a real situation, or a near miss situation?

For a definitive answer, contact the Sheriff's office.

Who's at fault? If you mean legally it will take more than this forum to resolve the question. Florida is a comparative negligent state. what you describe is a driver who made a sudden stop reacting not to avoid hitting an animal but to assist the animal. We have another driver apparently not driving a safe clear distance.

My initial reaction to this is that I suspect LOE charged both legally (50%) negligent? My personal opinion is the driver who stopped to assist the turtle used extremely poor judgement (I'm being polite) and should be found primarily responsible for setting this accident in motion. the pivotal question is how the LOE viewed the turtle loving drivers actions. Its one thing to pull your car left or right to avoid hitting the animal quite another to stop to assist it. Experts will tell you for example it better to hit a deer than to try and avoid it because you are going to probably end up with greater consequences. Indeed the obits are replete with drivers who attempted to avoid hitting an animal and ended up hitting a tree, etc and died . I opinion, others can decide

Personal Best Regards:

Hypothetical question. I am an animal lover myself, and have seen turtles crossing, but never felt it was safe enough to help them. Spring is coming and I have seen people stop more than once. I was just looking for someone to have an answer.

One more thing to add on to my previous post - IF you do stop to pick up a turtle, be CAREFUL!!

The softshell turtle has a very long neck and can turn easily to give a very nasty bite. Same with a snapping turtle. One guy I know from Iowa had a finger bit off by a snapping turtle he was trying to help across the road. :shrug:

Hi Sandtrap: My --years experiencing investigating you will find few if any police, lawyers, insurance investigator etc ever give you a definitive answer in response to a hypothetical question. some would never give you any resposne at all except to say ask me when it happens....and rightly so
as every accident has viarables

This is a very tough one. Last week I was on Pinellas heading to Winn Dixie. Near one of the golf courses 3 Sandhill Cranes started to cross the street.

I stopped and put my flashers on. The cars in both directions also stopped. This is easy on a 30 MPH street, but I wonder what I would have done on 466A.

Depending on traffic I might have tried to go around them.

Though it seems like a noble gesture, risking injury or even death to yourself and/or another driver to save a turtle just doesn't make any sense to me.

My personal opinion (that holds no weight) would be that a large percentage of the responsibility would be on the car that rear ended the stopped car but part of the responsibility would certainly fall on the car that stopped in the middle of the road to help an animal.

As a retired LEO, both parties are at fault - the vehicle that stopped for improper parking/impeding the flow of traffic; the 2nd vehicle for inattention/following too close.

Would it have made a difference if the car stopped due to mechanical failure? You rear end someone --- you are at fault.

A judgement call at that point, as really all tickets are that are written. A real harda** LEO can write a ticket to a broken down car for "operation of an unsafe vehicle".

It was my judgement that if I got called out of bed in the middle of the night to work a wreck, someone was getting a ticket. :laugh::laugh:

Insufficient information
 

If a driver stops and gets out of car on the traveled portion of the roadway he/she has committed a traffic offense. Maybe two; if the engine was left running then that is a separate offense; obstructing the highway is the first.

As you describe it, the second car is not "following too close" because the first driver has had time to get out of the car before it is struck. I'm not sure why you think the stopped/parked car would be struck, but assuming it happened then the second driver might be charged with some offense related to inattention to driving. Otherwise, why would he/she strike a stopped car?