Expert: Richard Hixenbaugh - 3/8/2009

Question
aight here's the situation. There's 2 cars in front of me. there's 1 turning lane beside me to the right. ahead in a big intersection with a medan strip in the middle, each side of the street has 3 lanes. i approach the right line in front of me, and saw a university of baltimore police directing traffic, waving the cars ahead of me across. the two cars in front went across the intersection. once i got to him i stop of course cause its a red light, but the officer directed me to keep moving, so like any other person would have did , i keep moving once i approached intersection i look to my left and since the cars sitting on MLK BLVD, THE LANE beside them look to apper empty, the nest lane i see a car flying pas me(lucky i didnt get hit by that one... once i seen him fly pass i started to rush across cause i didnt fell good about the situation but once i rushed i looked again and seen a car coming from the middle lane than boooooom!!. the car hit my ear panel by the wheel and pushed me on the curb.i talked to the driver who hit me and there light was green. there was no officer directing traffic on his side like the other side was. mind u it is a really big intersection which means one person cant control both sides it is impossible to. the officer got both parties info and then decides to sneak a way. i have his name and company number. more police comes to the scene to replace him, he claim he was directing traffic because there was another accident near by.

so the question is who would be in fault of accident? i was following instructions from the officer even tho my light was red. if i didnt follow his orders, i would be disobeying a law enforcement which is a charge.

i have 6 witnesses claiming they seen the officer waving me ahead , 4 construction working ,1 lady beside me, and one lady in traffic near accident

Answer
Hi Keon,

If you have 6 witnesses who are on your side, then you should make a claim on your own insurance coverage and give themn the names and phone numbers of your witnessess. They will fix your car and then they will go after the city or county for reimbursement. If you do not have collision coverage, then you will likely have to get an attorney to file suit aginst the city or county.

I hope this helps
Richard Hixenbaugh