[Polar Bear]

Originally Posted by rubicon

Polar Bear

what you share "depends" On any road in any city or state the vehicle overtaking another vehicle on the left has the primary responsibility. A second situation is when a driver is backing up.
I believe you will find that most cops will tell you with both situations the drive over taking and /or backing has the greater share of responsibility.

In The Villages our streets are designed with additional lanes called diamond lanes and used primarily by golf carts. Everyone of these diamond lanes has markings to indicate merging with auto traffic at stop lights and at village gates.

Now we come to the "depends"as expressed above. the depends , depends on the position of the vehicles involved. In my situation I was the lead vehicle and properly signaled looked merged and completed my merge when overtaken. Contrast that to the poster who stated he was side by side with a golf cart when the driver of the cart began to merge from the diamond lane.

when it comes to fault most accidents involve contributory negligence, less so with backing and overtaking which are about absolute

I have certainly been guilty of some mistakes while driving and when I have motioned to the opposing driver my mea culpa.

I have zero doubt, rubicon, that you encountered a driver behaving poorly in the scenario you described. But...

Sorry...we're not talking about vehicles overtaking other vehicles on a highway or backing. (I'm not even sure what you're referring to when you speak about "backing".) We're talking about a vehicle merging when that vehicle's lane is being terminated. Two totally different situations.

In a lane-termination merge situation, the primary responsibility will always be with the vehicle who needs to merge. Of course all vehicles in the vicinity are responsible to acknowledge and reasonably accommodate the merging vehicle. But that merging vehicle has the primary responsibility to merge safely, no matter where you are or what type of vehicle you are driving. There is no "depends".

[buzzy]

Just to be on the safe side, my cart has two driver side mirrors. The wide angle parabolic mirror lets me know that someone is coming up on my left. The flat mirror lets me know how close he really is. That one helps me judge whether or not the gap is sufficient for coming out of the diamond lane at that moment.

[Paulz]

I truly believe that cars don't realize that the yellow 20mph sign applies to them when merging with golf carts! Let the race to the gate begin.

[rubicon]

Originally Posted by Paulz

I truly believe that cars don't realize that the yellow 20mph sign applies to them when merging with golf carts! Let the race to the gate begin.

Exactly that has been my point. some auto drivers have a need to speed ahead of a merging golf cart, despite the fact that the golf cart has properly executed its merge. It happens too frequently. Its like those line jumpers in grocery stores, you just got to try

And a part of the problem is that some auto drivers are as confused regarding the rules of the road as to round-a-abouts as they are about diamond lanes