Crikey ... that is ridiculous. Which Insurance Company is that?
I have to agree with the insurance company, the camera car's driver is a idiot for not stopping in time. I would have withheld the footage in that case unless I had an unfavorable outcome.
The guy in the camera car might very well have been doing something he shouldent do when operating a vehicle, so reaction time will become way off, also if he / she is a inexperienced driver i can easy see people handling the situation wrong ( just stomp brake and pray )Cammer literally didn't respond until 2 seconds after the slide began, almost as if "I need a new car and a few days off work, my dashcam will prove me innocent anyway!"
Remember the GPS will be 1 second behind.I slowed the video down and the car changes lanes and impacts the barrier at the 7 second mark. The driver with the dash cam is doing 52 kmh at that time. At the 8 second mark the dash cam reads 41 kmh so a drop of 11 kmh in less than a second. Just before the impact at the 9 second mark the driver speed had decreased to 28 kmh. That's a total drop of 24 kmh in under 2 seconds. Not much but factor in wet roads and reaction time. It's also difficuly to know the distance traveled in that time but the distance does not look to be much.
Factor in the wet roads and normal reaction time and I'd say the driver did what he/she could to avoid the accident. I dunno, maybe that's just me but I do not see how this accident should have been avoided. Maybe the impact speed would have been less than 28 kmh but I believe impact still would have occurred..
It's impossible to know why the insurance denied the claim though. What did the driver tell the police at the scene? What did the driver tell the insurance company? Based on the video alone, I don't see why the claim was denied so there must be more to the story.
The stopping distance on a wet road @ 52 kmh is roughly 44 meters (145 feet)..
Yes and the GPS being one second behind lends more credence to the dash cam driver..Remember the GPS will be 1 second behind.
Reading the description it doesn't actually say the claim was denied, only:
"Description: "NRMA Insurance claims: dash cam driver did not maintain safe distance behind car without control and the insurance excess has to be paid.""
In other words the insurance did pay out, but because it wasn't entirely the other persons fault (probably got declared 50:50) there was a claim on their insurance and they do have to pay the normal excess.
I still suspect there was oil on the road, the cam car seems to stop slowing in the last second so not 100% SUVs fault seems reasonable to me.
It appears fairly obvious to me that the SUV was going too fast for the conditions and the cam car was going the same speed, so also too fast for the conditions.I have a hard time finding fault with the dash cam driver.
My .02
Not to me.. Too fast for conditions is open ended. What was the posted speed limit? Were the roads just wet or icy? All other cars in the video appear to be going the same speed so a I don't buy that without having more information. Tire conditions also factor in and the SUV over corrected which led to the incident even starting.It appears fairly obvious to me that the SUV was going too fast for the conditions and the cam car was going the same speed, so also too fast for the conditions.
If that is true then you can't put all the blame on the SUV, just most of it, and that means the cam car driver has an excess to pay.
But for an insurance company to deny on the grounds of following distance for a car in another lane is laughable. [/MEDIA]
Ill post a video here and yall tell me what you think happened and how the insurance company handled it. Then Ill tell you the circumstances and what really happened. FF to about :40