Fuck
Chris just received a ticket in the mail: $101 for "causing" the accident between the van and the cab the other night when he opened the door to get out as Mr. In-a-hurry-pants was trying to squeeze his van by the cab in the dark.
Lovely.
We SO do not have money for this kind of bullshit right now.
[EDIT: This is the exact infraction:
SMC 11.58.050 Opening and closing vehicle doors.
No person shall enter, leave, or open the door of a motor vehicle on the side adjacent to moving traffic unless and until it is reasonably safe to do so, and can be done without interfering with the movement of other traffic, nor shall any person leave a door open on the side of a vehicle adjacent to moving traffic for a period of time longer than necessary to load or unload passengers. (RCW 46.61.620) ]
Lovely.
We SO do not have money for this kind of bullshit right now.
[EDIT: This is the exact infraction:
SMC 11.58.050 Opening and closing vehicle doors.
No person shall enter, leave, or open the door of a motor vehicle on the side adjacent to moving traffic unless and until it is reasonably safe to do so, and can be done without interfering with the movement of other traffic, nor shall any person leave a door open on the side of a vehicle adjacent to moving traffic for a period of time longer than necessary to load or unload passengers. (RCW 46.61.620) ]
If it's a regular residential street, you may have some recourse based on the fact that if a car is stopped in one lane, there's no other lane for traffic headed the same direction to pass. If the van went into the oncoming lane to pass you, that might get you off. Not sure the exact regs, but might be worth asking about.
Hi, my name is Alice. Pardon the intrusion but I just experienced a similar situation as your friend, Chris, and was wondering if you can update me on what transpired afterwards. In my case, my fiance and I were parked at Blockbusters yesterday afternoon. He went in first to pick up a movie and I was waiting in the passenger seat. But then I decided to check out some videos myself. I looked around to make sure there were no vehicles and started opening the door. I barely opened the door (less than 6 inches) when, out of nowhere, a car at high speed comes swerving into the parking spot next to us and slams into the edge of the door, crumpling the metal and bending it on its hinge. Thank God I had not stepped out yet. The police showed up as we were exchanging information and made a report of the accident. Initially, based on the physical evidence, he was convinced that it was the other party's fault and that he was going to ticket them. 30 minutes later, however, he tells us that (unfortunately of course) he could not find anything to ticket them with and that SMC 11.58.050 overides any other law and that he would have to cite me with it. This is BULL&^%$! He says that I opened the door 'adjacent to moving traffic'. Their car came into our parking spot. There was plenty of space between my door and the parking spot boundary that if my door had opened wide enough to go over that boundary, then their car would have taken my door clean off. This is going to cost us royally and it's just plain wrong! We're definitely contesting the ticket so, in the process of looking up this municipal piece of *$%# code, we found your blog entry. I would greatly appreciate it if you could let us know if your friend contested his ticket, what the outcome was, and if you know of any other like cases. Thank you very much.
-Alice (yatsui@gmail.com)
Hi Alice,
The end result of our encounter was that Chris contested his ticket and the judge, while very sympathetic, merely reduced the amount of the fine. We had hoped to get it dismissed altogether, but the reduction was the best he could get.
I could definitely plead your case before the court. It seems like you have an even stronger case, being in a private parking lot and not parked on a city street, but that's just my personal opinion. Good luck!
Please stop back and let us know what happened when your case is resolved.
Hi, this is Alice again. Thanks for your quick reply. I'm sorry to hear about the outcome. Did the ticket affect Chris's car insurance rate (assuming he had one)?
-Alice