Had a customer come in late today to pick up their vehicle from some work and they threw out an interesting situation they have found themselves in. They know I am a great reader of traffic road rules and an avid weekend armchair lawyer, but this had my mind blown, I didn't know where to start and told them I had just the professional forum to post it to to get the answer they needed…
The story (as I understand it):
A few weeks ago, my customer (let's call them "Frank") pulled into a car park (small park, 40 odd spaces, 20 down each side with roadway in the middle). A car was about half way out of the space and both they and Frank stopped. Frank thought the right thing to do was to wave the lady (let's call her "Karen") out from her space and give her room to get out and then park in that spot.
At this point, Karen started to reverse out of her parking space, another car from the opposite side also started backing out. Karen was all the way out if her parking space when her and the other car, about 4/5th of the way out, connected.
Frank got out, checked everyone was ok. A discussion between the two collision vehicles on who was at fault ensued, blaming each other. Frank stepped in and said he saw it and that Karen was backing out first. The other driver then claimed they had no insurance (surprised they didn't beat me here). The other driver finally gave up their details and swapped them with Karen. Frank offered their phone number to Karen as a witness and they all went on their way…
Fast forward to yesterday and Frank tells me he received a call and an SMS demanding his insurance details from Karen. She is citing that Frank is at fault based on him giving her "traffic direction signals" that caused the accident and that Frank is not qualified to give directions to traffic. (I did see the SMS Frank had on his phone demanding insurance details.)
Frank believes that Karen is clutching at straws based on the other driver saying they had no insurance and she just wants someone else to pay, but he is concerned that if he just ignores it, it will get out of hand and end in some form of legal action.
I told Frank to laugh it off and call her bluff and offer her nothing, give her nothing.
What do we all think. Is Frank F'ed in the A, or is Karen being a "Karen"?
NB: MS Paint diagram will get posted later when I get time to draw it…
Edit: MS Paint Diagram (As required by site rules and current Road Rules legislation…) Find it here somewhere (drawn to the best of my knowledge of the car park in question. All cars depicted are correct at time of printing…)
Edit 2, The Update!: Well, you will all be pleased to know that "Frank" got back in contact with me today (Well, I called him to check up). Turns out, he called his insurance company just to be sure. According to Frank, his insurance company initially thought it was a prank call. After some more explaining, they laughed and said that "Karen" had no chance of making that stick and that if she was going to continue to pursue it, they would gladly assist Frank.
Frank went back to Karen and told her that in no way was he giving her any further details and that his offer to be a witness was henceforth rescinded (And I 100% doubt that Frank said it like that, it would have had a few more choice words in there, cow cocky farmer and all.)
I did pass on a link to this thread to Frank and he said to say thanks to all for all the help and kind words. He said he will just chalk it up to a life experience and move on. Not much water sticks to Frank's back.
I don’t.
I imagine Frank’s contribution was stopping and waving to say he was letting her go ahead oh him only. From that point on, she still had a duty to check all other angles - this is not of Frank.