An accident happened to my son. He proceeded through a yellow light in an SUV pulling a trailer going 35 mph. An approaching vehicle attempted to make a left turn and struck his SUV on the side. The initial claims adjuster was persuaded by an eye witness' testimony that (a) the light turned yellow 30 feet from the intersection, and (b) the light was red by the time my son's vehicle entered the intersection.
My math says a car traveling 35 mph is travelling 51.3 feet per second. We just timed the traffic light. The yellow lasts more than a full 4 seconds.
In my opinion the initial claims adjuster should lose his job. My son has a perfect driving record. Started at 15-1/2. He turns 22 in September. He has also worked as a part-time pizza delivery driver. He is very proud of his consistent daily driving and is always alert to it. You can imagine how wounded he is emotionally by this.
Driver rams him while he is confident he had had the right of way. Eye witness says he ran a red light when he is certain he didn't. And mathematically he would have to have been going a lot less than 51.3 feet per second to not have entered the intersection from 30 feet away in 4 seconds.
On the one hand, we can't help feeling that this claims adjuster should be fired. It's not even high school math and he just accepted an eye witness' impossible testimony instead of standing up for a customer. How many other customers has he done the same thing to? A guy like that could do millions of dollars of damage to customers who were not at fault but the adjuster found them at fault. Should we try to open up his past adjustment history? What about the way the rates go up after an (unjust) finding of at fault? Is this a CFPB claim against the insurance company for doing business this way?
How can I find out more about this? Specific Google search string suggestions!?