Modern Vespa

Stickyfrog is correct on the "swoop and squat" scam. It happens daily sometimes with fatal results, but it is very common. I know because I manage a group of insurance fraud investigators for a major international commercial insurance company. Never hear of a "S & S" though in which the fraudster does the squat on a bike. I think that rider was just very stupid.

As far as US law goes, in most states the rear vehicle is held at fault. But the video might aid a court to decide otherwise.
By the way, the more sophisticated staged accident rings would have a second vehicle in the lane next to you to box you in so that you can't do a quick lane change to avoid the collision.

why did the driver of the car have a video camera filming

Are you watching the same video I am?

And no that is not the law. The law is that you are responsible for making sure you can stop in time for traffic in front of you not to the sides. As in not tailgating and such. To use your thinking it would mean that you should always be driving slow enough to avoid any possible threat that could come from any direction which would mean you would be barely moving. If someone suddenly pulls in front of you it cannot be your fault as long as you are obeying traffic laws...ie not speeding. There is a problem when no video is available of proving that the person you hit was at fault if you don't have witnesses. Then you are right, the law is against you if you hit someone from the rear.

In my more reckless days driving my car I flipped off a driver in San Diego for cutting me off on the Freeway. In my total disbelief at 70mph he locked up his brakes and caused me to slam into the back of his car and then he took off. My front end smashed into my engine, the hood crashed into and shattered my windshield. I got the general description of his car, noted some identifying stickers, flagged down three witness (all blaming the road rage driver) and called the police (who caught him further down the road - and didn't even site him for leaving the scene, because I apparently threatened him by giving him the finger??!!). My insurance company told me because I rear-ended him it was all my fault. It took three letters from the witnesses and a lawyer to get a 50/50 of fault from my insurance company - in other words, it was like I crashed my own car into a wall and had to pay my deductible. BTW: they listed my car as totaled for pennies on the dollar (of the replacement value) and I was screwed! Oh yes, also my $500 deductible was taken from my tiny settlement before I got the check!

Gotta love California............

Come on Sticky, I'm saying relative speeds should be kept low in order to decrease the likelihood of rear end accidents- nobody is going to argue that. The reason you are responsible for keeping your eye on other lanes is because cars and bikes in other lanes often end up in your lane with short notice, and when they do, then it's "legally" your problem. I'm defending the law, it nearly always applies correctly, and in this case yes the scooterguy was idiotic, but it's the cagers fault for not pre-empting the situation and thus slowing to a more reasonable "relative speed" beforehand. Not even close. There's at least three different things you could get sited for:
reckless driving, following too close, inattentive driving, just off the top of my head...

I agree that going substantially faster than the lane next to you is dumb, if not illegal. Occasionally, I'll jump on the freeway here in Dallas on an S150. You can bet that if the lane next to me slows a lot, I also slow. My take on this is the scooter rider just checked his mirror and he believed he had plenty of space, but didn't realize the rate that the car was closing on him.

Thank you TrafficJammer. Since we are all scooterists here, the most important lesson to take from this video is not a legal one. We can't assume that other drivers (and riders) are paying attention or proceeding carefully. The shoulder check is to make sure that the unexpected is not there.

This happens to me all the time: I am thinking of making a lane change into an "empty" lane. When I look, all of a sudden someone is zooming by - often on the right. Particularly irksome is when I am about to turn into a left turn lane on a divided street and I see someone speeding along in the two-way left turn area to get to where I am going. If I had simply (and perfectly legally) just pulled over into the left turn lane I would be toast. Not at-legal-fault toast, but toast nonetheless.

Kind of interesting how nonchalant everybody in the video is about the whole thing. Also interesting to think that perhaps if he hadn't laid on the horn, it might have been avoided. I mean, he definitely was the victim of a lame-brain move, but when he startled the rider the guy panicked and hit the brakes. I formed the opinion a long time ago that using the horn in a panic/accident avoidance situation just makes the matter worse, unless someone is about to back into me in a parking lot. I'm much more interested in avoiding the wreck, and as seen here, laying on the horn makes people do stupid things. I frankly don't care right at that moment if they know I'm there or not. I just wanna miss them.

There wasn't a whole lot of defensive driving going on there, on either part. The scooter rider definitely screwed the pooch on that one on multiple counts, which have already been covered. Around here (with the video evidence) he would probably be cited for an improper lane change, but unfortunately, legally the driver would still be at fault. His reaction to the impending lane change seems slow. Yeah, the rider cut hard right into his lane, but he came from almost the far left side of the lane he was in. As he's coming across the lane, the guy is still accelerating hard. Of course in that split second, he could've been checking his mirror for all we know. It doesn't take but a split second.

I'm going to show the video to my 17 year old daughter and go through it with her. What I try to pound into her head is the fact that even if it's the other guy's fault, EVERYONE would be better off if you were driving smart enough to avoid the whole thing. Obviously accidents happen, but it is amazing how much is telegraphed before it happens.

Watched it several times...

It's a real world, BS lawyer guff and academic theory aside, it's the jackass on the scooter's fault for changing lanes into the fast lane going slower than the car already in the lane when he had an open slow lane to his left to pass the slow car in front of him (assuming it's all reversed in his country which I'm fairly sure is?? - regardless he still had an open lane to his left). Look how long it was before the truck in the lane to his left takes to pass the accident.

Additionally - the road had policeman in the middle indicating a purposeful traffic slow zone where once past drivers move back to highway speeds and unfortunately a lot of idiots take too long to get back to full speed. If the car driver who hit the scooter went from 5mph to max speed as fast as possible it was legal and quite normal to do so.

The scoot driver was the "Speedy Sam" in this case for wanting to go faster than the car directly in front of him, putting himself and the true victim (who before the scoot guy had oodles of open road ahead of him) in jeopardy for doing so - and IMHO you are wrong.

Little scoot riders think they're zippy - the highway is the great equalizer of that kind of "thinking" to be sure. I wouldn't pass like that on my Sym HD200 - that's why I bought my BV500. I can pass at up-speed into any lane I want and still have throttle to spare.

Street sense (which is what keeps me safe) say's the scooter guy deserved it and then some for cutting in front of a faster car. He did look over his shoulder too - what a jerk. What he did or didn't realize, horn or not who cares what an idiot can conceive of? BTW: look how many here brag about their after-market horns, now it's the car driver's horn at fault - I'm not buying it at all. NOBODY here knows how close the car was behind the driver who videoed this and from the sound of the police radio (I'm guessing) and the use of a video camera only one guy there was a professionally trained driver folks!

But this is some guy somewhere else and nobody here who might be offended by my words is the subject of my opinion - so
I do say all this in a friendly group fashion (well, as best as I can anyway)

Everyone's an expert. Hehe

In the UK News today:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11044315

Forget about watching the scooter rider. Watch the video again from the driver's perspective and note how quickly he is closing in on the car ahead of him.

None of us knows the speed limit for the road and none of us knows what speed the car was actually traveling. But ... (and I believe it's a rather important "but") ... given the speed of all other traffic, including the car ahead of the driver, I believe the car driver was likely exceeding the speed limit. If he wasn't, he was certainly exceeding what common sense would dictate as a "safe" speed, given the traffic conditions.

There is no question in my mind that the scooter rider made a bonehead mistake by not doing a shoulder check before changing lanes, but I really think they were both equally to blame for the collision.

+1

Relative speed is a factor IMO.

Best,

Mark

Going by CA law I believe it stats fault rests with the last party able to avoid the accident. In this case it looks like that car had a massive amount of time to slow or stop before hitting the guy.

It was clear the scooterist was moving into the passing lane well before he entered the lane and the car seemed to still be accelerating until the impact. The scooterist was being dump, and is going to get himself killed if he keeps driving like that, but assuming working breaks the car could have easily stopped.

I find it hard to believe that you could fly off a scooter, in short sleeves and flip-flops, and not get any road rash UNLESS you're only going 5 or maybe 10 mph. No way he was going any faster than that. And so if the car was closing on him at say 2x his speed, that means the car was going 10 or 20 mph. I still say it's all a fake, a setup, for insurance scamming or whatever, but still a fake.

That's been my point all along, +1 falcon! I can run 20mph (verified by radar) and i know i've hit the pavement at top speed with little more than bloody palms, which don't start bleeding for a few minutes.
I feel like if he knew he was going to get hit he would have held on better at initial impact?

There's a lot of stuff that I don't know, but this much I do know:

If I were going to pull some sort of looney suicidal insurance scam on my scooter, I'm damned sure that I'd be geared up from head to toe.

I sure as hell wouldn't be wearing shorts and flip flops--or an open faced helmet.

Any well experienced scooterist should know that the fast lane is faster,
This guy was treating the roadway as a thoroughfare, Big mistake.

WTF did the scooterist get in the right lane and lock up his brakes? The scooterist changed lanes without a good look too. I almost feel sorry for the car driver. Why was he filming this anyway?

Look at 1:11. I would bet the car driver was talking on the phone during the accident. It's strange how he is talking on the phone and finishes the conversation so fast. There's something strange, if you call after the accident, the conversation would be longer to tell the police the details of the accident for me it looks like he was on the phone before the accident.