Failure to yield in Ohio

[ljt99]

What is the name of your state? Ohio
Exiting a gas station, my son (18 yrs old) was pulling out onto a four lane road, turning left. The gas station sits on a corner with a stop light. Looking to his left he saw that the light had just turned red which would stop oncoming traffic. Looked to his right and saw no traffic coming. As he pulled out, a driver came from the left running the light at about 40 mph and they collide. She definitely came through the light and not from around the corner.
My son was cited for failure to yield. I'm curious whether the other driver running the light has any relevance on the failure to yield. Since my son was exiting a business and entering the roadway, is he responsible to yield to any traffic whether they've just run a light or not? It was his first driving violation of any kind.
Also, she was not able to produce proof of insurance which is required in Ohio. She had a card but it had expired over a year ago. Does not having insurance affect the outcome of the accident at all? We've had our insurance with the same agent for years and have full coverage on the family car but only liability on his.
Luckily no one was hurt but both cars were pretty badly damaged. Both could be driven away but both will need work before they will be road-worthy again.
My son is pretty upset about being cited and feels that she caused the accident by running the light. He wants to go to court to fight it. I'm wondering if he has any case or if it doesn't really matter if she ran the light or not. Not to mention that it's his word against hers that she ran the light since he was not able to get anyone to stop to be a witness.
Thanks for any advice.

 

[ecmst12]

Was she cited for running the light? Regardless, I think the majority of the fault is going to rest on your son, since he was coming out of a parking lot and she was established on the main road. They might be able to assign some small percentage of fault to her, but not likely.

He can try to fight the ticket but even if he wins, that doesn't relieve him of fault for the accident. And really, the ticket is correct. Someone coming out of a parking lot has to yield to cars on the road.

 

[ljt99]

Was she cited for running the light? Regardless, I think the majority of the fault is going to rest on your son, since he was coming out of a parking lot and she was established on the main road. They might be able to assign some small percentage of fault to her, but not likely.

He can try to fight the ticket but even if he wins, that doesn't relieve him of fault for the accident. And really, the ticket is correct. Someone coming out of a parking lot has to yield to cars on the road.

No, she was not cited for running the light. I agree that he has the responsibility to ensure that it's clear to pull out. I told him it's irrelevant whether or not she ran the light. But I wasn't sure if I'm legally right. That it would still be failure to yield even if she just came through a red light.

I told him, too, that it's often hard to do when you're shook up after an accident, but if there's going to be a question of who did what, try to get an eyewitness who is at the scene.

 

[las365]

If I am picturing this correctly, I think the problem for your son is that if he was to the right of the intersection, and she was traveling left to right, when he looked left he could not have seen HER light. He would have seen the light for the traffic traveling right to left turn red.

You can't assume that the lights for both 'L to R' and 'R to L' traffic turn red at the same time. In many intersections it's common for the traffic light for one direction to turn red while the light for the other direction remains green and the left turn light turns green.

So unfortunately for your son, he was supposed to watch for what the cars were doing (or not doing, in this case, not slowing down) in addition to looking at the traffic control lights. I'm glad neither of them was seriously injured. That's the good part of the whole thing.

 

[ljt99]

If I am picturing this correctly, I think the problem for your son is that if he was to the right of the intersection, and she was traveling left to right, when he looked left he could not have seen HER light. He would have seen the light for the traffic traveling right to left turn red.

You can't assume that the lights for both 'L to R' and 'R to L' traffic turn red at the same time. In many intersections it's common for the traffic light for one direction to turn red while the light for the other direction remains green and the left turn light turns green.

So unfortunately for your son, he was supposed to watch for what the cars were doing (or not doing, in this case, not slowing down) in addition to looking at the traffic control lights. I'm glad neither of them was seriously injured. That's the good part of the whole thing.

The intersection is actually two blocks from our house so we go through it all the time. It's not one of those where there is a delayed change on the other side but you're still absolutely right (and good point) in that he could not see her side of the traffic signal. There could have been a slight difference from one side to the other.

Most probably what happened is that she sped through the yellow/red which we've probably all done at one time or another. If I did that, I wouldn't expect to be plowed into by someone pulling out of a business right in front of me.

He was wrong and I hope that he will learn a valuable lesson from it. I told him to always look one way, then the other, then back towards the traffic you're crossing.

You're right that the most important thing is that neither of them is in the hospital right now (or worse). And the lady was very nice and hopefully will not try to sue us.