Cited for Failure to Yield resulting in an accident

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NAL_

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I am going to be fighting my citation next week. I was involved in an accident in March and cited for Failure to Yield. I was traveling on a 2 way street w/ a stop sign and had to cross a 7 lane intersection (did not have a stop sign). YES, I did come to a complete stop. There was traffic going both ways on the 7 lane street. When things were all clear, I proceeded to cross the intersection. During that time, I was looking both ways and of course looking what is a head of me. Just as my front end was entering the end of the intersection, I heard a honk from an on coming vehicle and head lights (the sun had just completly gone down 1900 hr). I still continued to cross and he impacted me in the rear side panel of my vehicle. He was traveling in between the storage/parking lane and the traffic lane itself. As he impacted me, my rear end (Isuzu Rodeo vs Nissan Pathfinder) spun around and came to a complete stop facing the way I was traveling. The damage to my vehicle was where one would fill the tank and his was almost his whole front end. When we came to a complete stop, I was about 5 steps away from the instersection on the other side that is. I had asked the other driver as I was pointing to the house right on the corner of the intersection where he came from and if it was from there. He said yes. The police came to investigate. One, I had asked how fast he was going, he said about 30 mph (there were no skid marks to measure, got pictures w/in 24/48 hrs). Two on the report, he stated in the diagram that I had been broadsided when in fact it was the rear passenger side. Three, the driver of the other vehicle did not have plates on it, the police officer had the plate on his motorcycle w/ the regestration sticker still in the plastic packet on the regestration paper, most of all, the regestration was due to expire the end of March (didn't have plates on vehicle for a year). The officer never asked my side of the story and put words in my mouth on the report, things that I did not say. I told him at the time of signing the citation, that I stopped and crossed when there was no one coming. is this going to be a waste of my time or should I eat the ticket. Road conditions were fine and street lights were on. One more question, no one can answer me on this. What is considered the proper distance to yield to on coming traffic? I wouldn't have crossed if I knew that it wasn't safe to do so. I no longer take that route to go home. I go up a few streets more to where everyone has to yield. Thanks for reading this and I hope you can help me. No one will asst. due to the fact "I had the stop sign". :confused:
 
To be honest this will be a hard ticket to beat. First with the question of how far to yield for traffic. This is a simple answer ... it has nothing to do with distance and a code section will not list a distance. A vehicle that enters a roadway from another roadway with a yield sign, stop sign or a vehicle entering a roadway from a private drive must yield to traffic until it is safe to enter the roadway. So if you have a stop sign, yield sign or are pulling out of a parking lot or driveway and you hit someone or they hit you then you did not wait until there was a safe distance.

It will be a hard citation to beat. Also anything about the other drivers registration or tag will not make a difference in your case. It could have been an unlicensed driver with no tag, and no insurance you would still have been found at fault for the accident (he would have been given citations for those things also).
 
Thank you

Thank you for your input and advise, i know hat you mean as far as it being a tough decision. I'm thinking of still fighting it ways. What does one have to loose. Even though he does already have an attorney and already coached as to what to say. I'm going to go for it and hope for the best. I do have some pic's from the nite of the accident and stuff and go from there. I was just checking as to what my odds are going to be. Have a good one and I'll let you know how it went. TTFN
 
Good luck nal. You really have nothing to loose by going to court. Let me know how it works out for you.
 
Re: Cited for Failure to Yield

Thank you Theodore, I went and pleaded No Contest. I didn't want to take the chance of possibly having to pay the full fine. I'm just go in there and explain my side of the story since the police officer didn't ask me my side. I'll let ya know, court date is 8/11 10am. I'll let ya know afterwards. If I knew and totally felt that I was in total wrong I would have had taken their offer of paying a fine of $130. I'm one for accepting my mistakes and kicking myself in the ying yang afterwards. Not this time. Talk to you then.
 
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