Fault When a U-Turn Is Struck by Oncoming Traffic

Attorney Answer

Making a U-turn puts the duty to yield on you, so expect a real share of the fault to be argued against you — but in California a share of fault reduces a claim, it does not end it. Read the timing note at the end of this page first; on an older crash, that question outranks everything else here.

Cal. Veh. Code § 21801(a) requires a driver intending to turn left or to complete a U-turn to yield the right-of-way to vehicles approaching from the opposite direction that are close enough to constitute a hazard at any time during the turning movement. Subdivision (b) is the other half, and it matters for you: once a driver has yielded as subdivision (a) requires and has given the required signal, drivers approaching from the opposite direction must yield to the turning vehicle. So the question is not simply that you were turning. It is whether, when you began, the other car was close enough to be a hazard — and whether that driver, once your turn was underway across their view, was paying attention and traveling at a speed that let them react.

Fault then gets divided under Cal. Civ. Code § 1714(a): "Everyone is responsible, not only for the result of his or her willful acts, but also for an injury occasioned to another by his or her want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his or her property or person, except so far as the latter has, willfully or by want of ordinary care, brought the injury upon himself or herself." California is a pure comparative fault state. As the Supreme Court applied that section in Daly v. General Motors Corp., 20 Cal. 3d 725 (1978), a person's recovery is reduced to the extent of their own lack of reasonable care — reduced, not eliminated. A driver assigned a majority of the fault can still recover the remainder.

Losing consciousness is significant both medically and legally. It points to a head injury, and the records made at the time — what the paramedics wrote, what the emergency department found — usually become the most important evidence of what happened to you.

What you can do

1. Ask a local attorney about the filing deadline before anything else. On an older collision this is the question that decides whether the rest matters.

2. Gather the medical records that already exist, starting with the ambulance and emergency records from the day of the crash, and any follow-up care for headaches, memory or concentration problems.

3. Collect the collision report number, photographs of both vehicles and the roadway, and contact details for anyone who saw the turn.

4. Report the claim to your own insurer if you have not, and ask whether your policy has medical-payments coverage and uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage — both can apply even where fault is shared.

5. Let your insurer, or a lawyer, handle the fault discussion with the other driver's insurer, and do not agree to a recorded statement about how the turn happened before you have advice.

Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1 gives two years for an injury claim, and Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 338(c)(1) gives three years for damage to the vehicle. Those periods are measured from your facts, and on a collision that is no longer recent the two-year period may already have run — which would end the injury claim regardless of how fault would have been divided. Do not assume either way: take the dates to a local attorney now, because if any argument for a later start or for tolling exists, it has to be identified before a filing deadline, not after.