Accident in the middle yellow lane. Whose at fault?

[newcarcrash]

Hello all, this accident happened in California.

The street has four lanes and a solid/dashed lane in the middle.

My wife was making a left turn form a parking lot in the middle of a city block.

There was no traffic on the other side of the road.

The first lane in front of her was empty.

A truck in the second lane stopped to allow her to make the turn in front of him since the light was red ahead of him.

As soon as my wife peeked past truck she was hit by another car driving in the middle yellow lane that had jumped ahead into that lane before the time where the middle yellow lane becomes a regular left turn lane (I can try to explain better if needed).

Our insurance company says my wife is 100% at fault. As she made an unsafe left turn in front of oncoming traffic.

Are people allowed to drive in the yellow lane before it becomes white ahead of a left turn lane?

Our insurance guy said something about 200'. Is that before the lane turns white, or before the actual left turn.

Note, there was only one place for the other car to make a left turn into.

I just feel that it is not right to expect traffic where there should be no traffic.

Any information is appreciated
Thanks

PS.
My nick really means it

[teflon_jones]

Were the police called? What does the police report say? Was anyone ticketed?

Based on your post, your wife made an unsafe left turn because of an obstructed view. The 200' rule is ofter cited, but is in fact not law and just a myth. The other driver can only use the middle lane as marked. However, if that driver wasn't cited, and your wife's insurance company is siding with the other driver, you have an uphilll battle on your hands and you'll need to hire a private lawyer to sue your insurance company.

[newcarcrash]

Thanks teflon_jones,

The police came but aparently didn't fill any reports. I still have to check that.

The 200' law does exist (21460.5 C) as it is stated on page 399 of this pdf here (page 25 of the pdf)
[url]http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/vcpdf/11.pdf[/url]

Thanks for the advice of contacting a lawyer. After I posted here I remember that an old friend is an auto accident lawyer and I'll contact him.

Again thanks for the reply. Any other suggestions are still appreciated.

[PA_Old_Man]

The truck in that one lane can only "speak" or control his one lane. I think it is your wife's responsibility to make sure that all the other lanes are safe.

[Sal33n]

I live in Michigan, so the law might differ, but I had the exact same thing happen to me exactly how you described it. We only exchanged info that day then we both went down to the police station on our own. Although no one was written up, the police said that the person in the center/left turn lane was there first and therefore has the right of way. I asked how could that be because they got over too early to be making a left turn at the light and it was explained to me that it is a well known driving technique to get over into the left turn lane earlier than normal if the traffic going straight through is backed up. They said it's a grey area that the police/courts will often side with the person that is already in the lane. We are not supposed to count on a person waiving us through and if we cannot see then we must wait.