If you are backing out and hit a car and your on private property are you liable?

Answer 1

It matters not if you are on private property, your property or the moon. If you were negligent and caused damage to someones property thru that negligence you are liable. The police may not come and file a report, but again that does not absolve you of your negliegence, liabililty or responsiblity to the 'victim' for your negliegence. YES, you are liable, and responsible for the other vehicles damage in all but very very few instances, (and I really can't think of any that would take all liability away from you). The rules of the road (in all states, citys, counties I've ever seen), state that the vehicle doing the backing is held to a higher level/degree of care. This doesn't matter if you are on private property or your own property. You don't provide us with enough information regarding the facts of loss, so I'll just 'guess' at a couple of scenerios; You are backing from a private drive, or parking lot spot, another vehicle is going down the road, or lane, you back out and hit them. Or you back out (obviously into the 'lane' or 'street') and they hit you. You are still At Fault. Even if the other vehicle is speeding, you (as the backing vehicle) cannot enter into any roadway, lane etc, until it is safe to do so. If the other vehicle will 'admit' to speeding a portion of the negliegence could or might be assessed to them, but doubt they would admit that ! ha-ha If both parties are backing at the same time, (personally handled tons of these claims) then the adjuster will need to look at impacts etc, to determine who bares the greater fault. No fault states, related to injury or P.I.P., All state have a negligence or liability rule, ie, pure comparative, comparative, no fault 51/49, contributory etc. In my opinion in none of these juristictions would you be found NOT liable. The only possiblity I could see, and this would only be a contributing or comparative percent is if the other driver would admit to speeding, and I still do not think they would bare the higher percentage.

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I'm assuming that you are not on your own private property...

Yes, you can be held liable for hitting a car while backing out. Liability will be dependent on the following:

* If you live in a state with "No-Fault" auto insurance laws, then neither party will be held liable for the accident. Each person will have the damage covered under their own policy.

* If you do not live in a No-Fault state, then liablility will be determined based on who caused the accident. For instance, let's say you were backing out from the driveway following all necessary traffic laws. As you back out another car slams into you because the driver was not paying attention, did not adhere to the Yield sign, OR WAS MOVING AT AN EXCESSIVE/UNSAFE SPEED, etc. In this case liability will fall onto the 2nd driver, as that driver caused the accident by breaking traffic laws. If the situation is reversed and you are the driver disobeying the traffic laws, then you would be held liable. If both drivers were doing exactly what they were supposed to do and this was a mere coincidence, liability will have to be determined by the claims adusters representing each party. I think the problem here is that most Traffic laws do not apply on private property, but Civil law does. If you hit someone's car on privite property, and there are no injuries, you aren't likely to get cited (under Traffic Code), but that doesn't mean you aren't responsible (under Civil Code). It's not uncommon for the courts to use Traffic Law in order to ascertain fault in collisions on private property, so the rules of the road are typically the same. It's this thinking, btw, that makes car racing legal on private tracks. Remember that Civil Code is the body of law that makes you pay for damamge you cause in car accidents or any other cause.