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I had a driving incident today. I'm clear sailing on a multiple lane road with 2 lanes in each direction and a turning lane. I'm in the left lane. A truck (the length of a semi) carrying cars (whatever you call those) starts to pull out in front of me in the left lane from the left side of the road. Since the right lane was clear, I moved over to avoid slowing down. It was my impression that the truck was going to take the left lane, but the truck instead crossed the right lane in my path to pull into a place on the right side. I swerved a little on the right shoulder and came to a sudden stop. I held my hand on the horn. The place where the truck was coming out was not straight across to where he went on the other side of the road, it was at an angle, which is why I thought he was going to take the left lane. If there was an accident, the truck would have been at fault for not making sure the right lane was clear, right? As far as if I could have avoided the incident, sure I could have slowed down ahead of time in the left lane. But, in my opinion, there's nothing wrong with making a lane change to avoid slowing down for someone pulling out in your lane, right? And the truck should have made sure the right lane was clear before crossing it, right?





Generally, if I'm a distance away and a semi pulls out in front of me, sure I'll have to slow down a little, but that doesn't usually bother me as long I don't have to stop because they are blocking the lanes. But if a semi pulls out when I'm close enough that I have to stop, then that's not right. Legally, they shouldn't block lanes of traffic, right?





How would insurance deal with something like this if there was an accident? Would they give me crap that I should have slowed down ahead of time in the left lane? Or would they take it that the truck failed to yield to me in the right lane? Because I had no clue that the truck was intending to pull into a place across the street.



Correct. The fault would have been the truck's, for failure to use caution while changing lanes. That's a standard of fault in every state.





Right. They should not be blocking traffic. But sometimes they do it, especially in states with a slower speed limit for large rigs, as a protest.





As to how the insurance would handle it - likely, if there was liability coverage, they'd be making a big fat payment to your estate, after your car got squished by the truck.




I would guess that the insurance companies probably would have done some sort of split on that one. On one hand, the truck driver didn't yield to you, who had the right of way. On the other hand, you had all day to slow down and avoid any problem, but you instead made an obviously incorrect assumption about his intentions.





Just learn from it - next time don't assume you know what the truck is planning to do (big trucks like that will usually drive in the right lane), just back off and let him in and then pass him when you know (not think) it's safe to do so.





Luckily you did ultimately avoid the accident - good job for that.