Semi vs Car Who's responsible?

[Artega]

This incident happened last week.

Travelling eastbound on 9th Ave SW. A semi is trying to make a left turn into 2nd Street SW. If you're familiar with the intersection there's construction at the NE corner of the intersection and it blocked off the closest lane on both street.
9th ave reduced to 4 lanes from 5 lanes. 2nd Street has only 1 lane.
The semi isn't able to make the turn from the closest lane so it had to go out and make a wider turn. Now is it acceptable/legal for the semi to make the turn from the 4th lane?

The situation was this. As I pulled from from behind the semi from the 4th lane he began his turn. I was luckily missed by the semi but the car behind me was not so lucky. The Mazda3 got sideswiped by the semi. Who's fault will it be?

Recap
-Semi executing a left-turn from 1 way street to 1 way street
-semi on 4th lane from the curb
-car got sideswiped at the 2nd lane from curb

Who's at fault?

Edited: 2nd street and 9th ave

[Eleanor]

So this is how I understand it:

EDIT: Stupid formatting

Semi turns from farthest right lane onto 2nd st. and hits car travelling in lane second from left?

I would put blame on the truck in that case. He should yield to other cars.

[urban.one]

edit your post to get the AVEs and STs correct.

[Artega]

Originally posted by Eleanor
So this is how I understand it:

Semi turns from farthest right lane onto 2nd st. and hits car travelling in lane second from left?

I would put blame on the truck in that case. He should yield to other cars.

Well he did yield, and he was stopping traffic to wait for an open gap to turn. He saw an open gap but then the Mazda came speeding down (60 probably). The problem is that the collision occured during his turning maneuver. Should he even be turning at the intersection or is it one of those situation where a wide turn is needed and other drivers need to give way?

[max_boost]

wouldn't insurance sort it out for you?:confused:

[djayz]

Is this the same semi that got stuck on the light pole there last week?

I would say it's the vehicles fault here if the truck was already executing it's turn. Other way around if there was traffic and the truck decided to just go for it.
Either way a semi should be detoured around when they decide to close off 9th ave, I don't know why the city doesn't think about things like this.

[1997GSR]

need a crappy paint diagram

[Eleanor]

Originally posted by max_boost
wouldn't insurance sort it out for you?:confused:
Yeah, but that takes all the fun out of arguing on the internet about it :D

My guess would be the Semi is at fault and the Mazda gets slapped with last person to avoid the crash w/e the hell the technical term is for it.

[rc2002]

If the semi was already in the middle of the turn and all the cars came from behind to try to get ahead of it I'd say it's the cars fault.

[Kloubek]

Wow... deja vu! (I just had a run-in with a semi myself a week ago.)

[Zero102]

Once the semi begins his turn he has right of way over all other vehicles. It's the car's fault. That said, the semi may get a ticket for not making a proper turn, but if he was signalling and had already begun his maneuver then it is the other driver's responsibility to exercise caution, and the semi should not be liable for the accident.

That said, it really comes down to each driver exercising proper caution, and if the semi had time to observe the other driver and had time to stop but still hit the car, then we would be seeing split liability. I see this all the time, and 90% of the time the cars just go whipping around the truck, with hardly a chance to spot them (remember all the shit this truck driver needs to be looking out for during his turn).