The crash that killed Dusty

It is always the person merging or changing lanes responsibility to merge safely, regardless of the OP’s speed. I can’t figure out why so many people can’t grasp this concept. A person driving in his lane does not have to slow down to let you in, you either speed up or slow down to merge, but you must do it safely. The pick-up should have slowed down when the semi started merging in front of him.
Regardless of legal fault, it just appeared to me from the video that the accident may have been avoidable. Sad that a new LC was crunched, but luckily it was not worse, such as someone being "dead right".
 
That’s a nice Hertiage Blue LC! That’s exactly what I would buy. Do you have the black or brown interior? Also, what wheels are those?

I was getting excited for the new Pro 4Runner but they are 6-8 weeks out and I need a car, tired of driving POS Jeep rentals. You would laugh at the problems I’ve had with new Wagoneers.

Insurance says the “check is in the mail” and my loan hasn’t been paid off yet (I owe about 40%). This whole thing is such a pain in the ass. I can’t get the dealership I bought from to call me back about refunding my extended warranty.
I just saw that Toyota of Tacoma has a heritage blue with gray scale and black interior still up for grabs. One of the best tools to use is the inventory button on the Toyota website when your building a LC.
 
It is always the person merging or changing lanes responsibility to merge safely, regardless of the OP’s speed. I can’t figure out why so many people can’t grasp this concept. A person driving in his lane does not have to slow down to let you in, you either speed up or slow down to merge, but you must do it safely. The pick-up should have slowed down when the semi started merging in front of him.
It's a Tacoma fault. When he/she sees the truck merge into his lane, he should slow down his speed and drive behind the truck. The problem is he kept his speed and moved the left lane. Not sure he had looked behind before he moved or he just looked in the mirror then moving to left lane. Bad luck OP was at the right time, right moment when he moved. I don't blame the truck because it was ahead of Tacoma. Tacoma should slow down to drive behind the truck, and wait for OP to pass over then move into left lane.
 
Hi, I am new there but always "interested" in accidents sotries, only cause each of us can always take away some experience on his own. Thank you for sharing.

Additional comments, I don't think it was mentioned before:

-do I see correct that the pick-up is changing line with NO turning signals on ? This adds to his fault, emergency situation for him or not.

-I have the feeling, but can be wrong cause of the short video sequence, that both you at the LC wheel, and also the pick-up, were driving on "cruise control" until when things start to go wild. Its high-stop-light flashes quickly, exactly like someone hits the brake to switch off the cruise-control (CC).Am I correct to assume so ? Dont get me wrong, it is not intended to point peoples' responsibility (as the insurance anyway made thta clearly), but to share and learn, including for myself. Cruise-control is great, I use it all the time, even into the city (speed cameras everywhere in Switzerland) but on the highway, they tend to make us react later than when we keep the foot on the pedal. I am not saying "too late" but "later". As we see things from far, we naturally & instinctively would realease the accelerator foot, reducing speed. Using the CC makes things go at speed up to a moment... I mean, nothing that puts anybody at fault, but it is for me something I learnt for myself. When the highway is free of trafic, I am using the CC. But as soon as I feel a bit tight driving into trafic, I am switching to "speed limit". Then keep my foot down to maintain speed, as with a CC, but as soon as you have an instinct of something hapening, you tend to lift your foot, slowing down the vehicle. I feel safer doing so. It is not about "responsibility" but about "reducing" risks.

It breaks my heart to see a brand new LC being hit that way... but it is good to know that nobody was hurt.
 
Glad you escaped unscathed. While it may have technically been avoidable, that would require a heightened sense of awareness like that required for staying alive on a motorcycle. Not the way most of us go down the highway for sure.
 
It's a Tacoma fault. When he/she sees the truck merge into his lane, he should slow down his speed and drive behind the truck. The problem is he kept his speed and moved the left lane. Not sure he had looked behind before he moved or he just looked in the mirror then moving to left lane. Bad luck OP was at the right time, right moment when he moved. I don't blame the truck because it was ahead of Tacoma. Tacoma should slow down to drive behind the truck, and wait for OP to pass over then move into left lane.
Dusty was in the Tacoma’s blind spot. The Tacoma changed lanes to avoid the semi and didn’t look to see if anyone was in the left lane. Understandable given the urgency of the need to avoid the semi, but hitting Dusty was still the Tacoma’s fault.

Really the better solution would have been for the Tacoma to brake hard and let the semi into his lane. That would not have required him to move into space possibly owned by another driver.

Slowing down to avoid a hazard is always the advantage of the driver who slows down, others in that space are required to yield. Anyone hitting him from behind would have been at fault.

IMO and IME.
 
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Thanks for posting your mishap Proyota. You forced me to quit procrastinating and place the order.

I just ordered a Garmin X310 for a forward facing Dash Cam, the Mini 3 for a rearward facing cam, and the OBD power adapter. Looks like I will be busy early next week.
 
Thanks for posting your mishap Proyota. You forced me to quit procrastinating and place the order.

I just ordered a Garmin X310 for a forward facing Dash Cam, the Mini 3 for a rearward facing cam, and the OBD power adapter. Looks like I will be busy early next week.
The only issue I have with the obd adapter, is if you ever want to run a scan gauge like I do. Thankfully if your ever in that situation, there is the dongar power adapters. I'm waiting for them to come back into stock.
 
Glad you got out of that. Could have been way worse. Now I have to figure out how the dashcam works. It was installed when I bought it but I haven't bothered to figure it out.
 
Here is my dashcam footage of the crash that killed my Trail Dust Premium + LC named Dusty. Since the checks have been cut I figure it’s safe to share.
Speaking as a career insurance guy, this is far from cut and dried. I doubt if the different companies involved will want to go to court over it unless there were injuries.
 
It is always the person merging or changing lanes responsibility to merge safely, regardless of the OP’s speed. I can’t figure out why so many people can’t grasp this concept. A person driving in his lane does not have to slow down to let you in, you either speed up or slow down to merge, but you must do it safely. The pick-up should have slowed down when the semi started merging in front of him.
It is 100% the fault of the pickup. But...wouldn't you want to avoid the accident if you could? Not only for the complete hassle of the car but also for your safety? And again, it's not the OP's fault, but the OP could've of tried to avoid the accident. From the video, it seems like he didn't try. I would've tried hard to avoid the accident for personal safety and for the monstrous hassle of dealing with police, insurance, etc.
 
It is 100% the fault of the pickup. But...wouldn't you want to avoid the accident if you could? Not only for the complete hassle of the car but also for your safety? And again, it's not the OP's fault, but the OP could've of tried to avoid the accident. From the video, it seems like he didn't try. I would've tried hard to avoid the accident for personal safety and for the monstrous hassle of dealing with police, insurance, etc.
OP already stated it happened so fast he couldn’t avoid it. Sheesh. Seriously, people. Stop blaming the victim. He was driving in his lane and has the right to do that. The pick-up driver isn’t the victim, I’d love to know how far back the merge sign was. It’s perfectly possible the pick-up driver missed the merge sign since he was inside of the semi, but why is no one blaming that guy? He clearly sped up to get in front of the OP and then attempted to bully his way into the lane and lost.

Defensive driving is one thing, but you shouldn’t have to spend all your time driving swiveling your head and slamming on your brakes to make sure aggressive drivers get their way. Failing to yield the right of way is getting out of hand. I don’t even want to get into people pulling out onto the highway in front of a car traveling at highway speeds.
 
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It is 100% the fault of the pickup. But...wouldn't you want to avoid the accident if you could? Not only for the complete hassle of the car but also for your safety? And again, it's not the OP's fault, but the OP could've of tried to avoid the accident. From the video, it seems like he didn't try. I would've tried hard to avoid the accident for personal safety and for the monstrous hassle of dealing with police, insurance, etc.
To be clear, we, the drivers of the cars, are not judge nor jury. We can decide all day whose fault the accident is but it doesn't matter.

If the LC has $10k in damage, no insurance company is going to spend $15k suing someone else to recoup that $10k. You don't want them to. They're spending your premium dollars doing this so it makes sense for them to just pay you your $10k.

Read your policy.
 
Defensive driving is one thing, but you shouldn’t have to spend all your time driving swiveling your head and slamming on your brakes to make sure aggressive drivers get their way. Failing to yield the right of way is getting out of hand. I don’t even want to get into people pulling out onto the highway in front of a car traveling at highway speeds.
I don't care if some clown gets his way, I care about protecting myself and my car. We all have that responsibility to ourselves. You have to assume everyone is an idiot and look out for yourself, ask anyone who rides a bike.

Could they have done better in a perfect world? Yes.
Could any of us have done better in the real world in that very moment? Probably not. Lets hope we never have to find out.

The big question I have and which should be relevant to all of us is: Proyota, were you using cruise control? Did any of the safety features PSC/whatever kick in? Was it active?

They angle they came from makes me think PSC might have missed them entirely.
 
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