Driveways: A Continuing Source of Conflict

Many parking lots that have driveways that lead right onto the street or highway.

For a variety of reasons, there are a lot of collisions involving vehicles entering and exiting. Sometimes these collisions are between motor vehicles. But a lot also involve pedestrians.

Because such a huge percentage of drivers in Washington are either uninsured or under-insured it becomes essential to really scour the landscape to find other parties who contributed (proximately caused) the collision.

Business owe customers what's called a duty to provide safe ingress and egress. It's an extension of the general rule that businesses and the owners of commercial property have a duty to

maintain the portions of the premises that customers are invited or reasonably expected to use in a reasonably safe condition.

But the duty to have safe driveways isn't limited to customers of the business. Businesses must use reasonable care to make sure their property doesn't create a hazard for people using a public road.

A driveway with restricted visibility or that lacks restrictive signage (e.g., "right turn only") can violate this duty imposed on abutting landowners (whether they're businesses or just people who own private property).

Where there's a bad wreck involving a vehicle leaving a driveway (or, less frequently, entering a driveway) it's important to analyze whether the owner of the driveway did (or failed to do something) that proximately caused the mishap.