The other vehicle may have been moving at 20 to 25 MPH, a Dodge Journey is a lot heavier than a Fiesta. If the other vehicle was traveling at 36 MPH would it make any difference? Very doubtful that the other driver was traveling at a high rate of speed that could contribute to the cause of the collision.
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The only thing I will add is that you are talking about the accident report written by the Police? What about the accident reports by the two other parties? In most states, individuals need to file accident reports themselves. You can get a copy of what was filed by the other driver and compare that with the one filed by the Police.
It’s quite obvious that it was a “failure to yield” though making a turn into on-coming traffic. It could have been careless driving.
It’s not just speed, but the weight of the vehicle that hit her. A big SUV doesn’t need to travel as fast as a compact car to do the damage you showed in other posts. A dump truck could likely do that damage and more at 15 mph.
Let me offer an alternative suggestion assuming that it’s Traffic Court, your niece is young, already paying outrageous insurance rates and has a clean record, a job or doing well at school.
Go to court.
Both you and her dressed like you’re going to church (or how people used to dress for church).
Admit that she was wrong, that thankful that nobody was seriously injured.
Say NOTHING about the police report.
And ask for Probation Before Judgement. She’ll still have to pay the fine but it will avoid the Points.
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Ford fiesta ~2,700 lbs Dodge Journey ~3.800 lbs. I am not an accident reconstruction specialist but with 1,000 lbs difference you do not need a lot of speed to do the damage in the pictures. Police have seen a lot of accidents and their ticket and report will be tough to challenge. A few errors about the number of people in the car won’t move the judge (been there- done that - did not end well for me - from my mis-spent youth) If you feel the other driver is somehow partially liable, you will need to hire an expert with lots of credentials to testify for you ($$$$). But since your niece turned left and did not yield you do not have a lot to gain.
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Nobody has said it yet, so I will ask…have you considered getting a lawyer? If you want to teach her a lesson just let the court do the worst. If you want to protect her, and yourself, a lawyer might help.
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Just to maybe repeat myself, but what are you going to court for? What is your goal? Reduce any fine? Get the ticket thrown out? Redirect the blame for the accident on the other driver, or what? And whatever the goal is, is this to defray higher insurance costs or other insurance issues?
How will you argue with a straight face that there was not a failure to yield? Even if the other driver was going 50, the accident happened because she was in the way. So best outcome would be a 50/50 split of cause, but not likely. So what do you want the judge to do for you?
I’ll just add that my rule is to never anger a judge or the IRS (until the judge is no longer a judge).
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+1
In legal terms the young woman’s Failure to Yield was the Proximate Cause of the collision.
In other words, whether the other driver was driving at, or below, or above the speed limit, the presence of the young woman’s car in his path was the actual cause of the accident.
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I agree 100%…That’s why towns and states have accident teams to take detailed measurements of the accident site help determine who’s at fault and how fast the vehicles were traveling. Doing that over the internet without the detailed information…IMPOSSIBLE.
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Let me reiterate here, the reason for this court visit is NOT to judge fault for the accident, it is to determine if she is guilty of failure to yield. That is all, period. If you try to bring up potential sharing of fault, you will only piss off the judge, not a good plan.
The only way that I can see where shy would not be found guilty would be if this is a light controlled intersection and she had a left turn arrow. If that was the case, the other driver would have been cited for running a red light, if there were witnesses.
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I would hope a judge rules by law not emotion.
Ah ha ha ha ha. Ten character minimum.
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Me too, but they are still people. If you mildly peeve them, you’re probably OK, but get them in a real rage, and they might find a way to get your goat and still fulfill their obligations to the law.
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All the people here who are saying “just pay the fine and move on” are giving terrible advice which they almost certainly would not follow if they were in the OP’s shoes. It is never wise to “just pay the fine and move on” unless you live in a state where you can plead “no contest” or similar, and where you can take some diversion program which keeps the finding of guilt/fault and any “points” off your license.
Barring that, you have everything to gain, and nothing to lose by contesting the alleged violation, except time, and perhaps the cost of parking at the courthouse. In most jurisdictions, the ticket will be dismissed if the policeman who wrote the ticket fails to show. While rare, it does happen. It is also possible to get a ticket dismissed if there are inconsistencies, for example the officer wrote the wrong time of day, wrong direction of travel, wrong color of your car, etc.
Even if the policeman shows, and you can’t get the violation dismissed, a sympathetic judge can reduce or even waive the fine or other penalty. I have twice in my life had a judge reduce the fine, even when I was obviously guilty, and one time had the judge waive the fine entirely, but unfortunately not the “points” against my license, so I ended up paying many times the amount of the ticket in higher insurance premiums. That ticket was for driving a company truck with expired plates, and since I was already laid off from the company by the time of my court date, the company had no incentive to renew the registration on that truck, and the judge was sympathetic to my argument that I should not have to pay more than $300 because if the company had renewed the registration, it would have cost less than $50 due to the age of the truck, and then the fine would have been waived as a matter of law.
I have only contested things 2 times. First I got a speeding ticket and there was a car passing me at the time, down to failure to obey an official sign, less points and fine. Daughter got busted for pot while in HIGH school, Pre trial met with the City attorney, he would drop the charges for 2 weeks of community service. Daughter was like no, I kicked her leg and gave her the angry dad look, knowing if that was on her record student loans and future jobs could be in jeopardy. She did the community service
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Kids don’t always know what is best for them. I had to twist my son’s arm because he didn’t want to agree to give up private information so that I could pay for his health insurance premiums. Didn’t matter anyway I guess, deductible was $2000 and bill was $1900. Could have been $20,000.
I’ve never contested a fine, ever, just paid it. Now as a youth, my dad represented me and I got the crap beat out of me for some reason. We never argued, just tried to show remorse and a new attitude. So I never go there if I don’t have to but agree, don’t let something like that go on the kid’s record, one way or another, even if it is supposed to be sealed. No such thing in this day and age. They’ll pick some mention of it up on Facebook or something and there you go.
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Got a ticket (and car to repair) once, ~15 years back.
It was a garage-sale on the street and I made an “illegal u-turn” where, since the street was blocked in the direction where I was to go, so I made it across the street.
By the time I was to back up and finish my move, it was another car impatient to park and get to the sale, blocking my rear… so I stopped and waited there for like 30 seconds… then BAMMM!!.. the lady in monstrous SUV decided to back up into my left side.
The police came in, took our views on what happened and one officer was assigning the blame on the party making a backup into the stationary car… but his superior came and declared “it’s all his fault, he made an illegal u-turn”, so I ended up with a ticket and a fine, while lady was free to go.
I showed up in the court to contest it.
The judge was sympathetic and waived the fine, but kept 1 point 
Honestly, I don’t get the OP’s end game here. Trying to beat the ticket? Trying to lay all or some of the blame on the Dodge driver?
The speed of the Dodge is totally irrelevant. It makes no difference if they were going 10 MPH or 130 MPH. The niece turned in front of them and it sounds like the OP is trying to claim the Dodge was speeding and that in some way contributed to this accident. The Dodge was not ticketed for speed so ergo, it never happened.
As for no skid marks from the Journey trying to slow down that is also a non-issue. I’ve been involved in some accidents (both car and bike) and quite often there is not enough time to go for the brake pedal even if the driver’s reaction time would make John Force proud.
Even if reaction time was say .4, even a couple of car lengths would evaporate before the foot hit the brake.
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I’m going to say that the speed could be relevant depending on the circumstances, which we still don’t know.
If the road has a bend in it, or visual obstructions like trees, etc, and OP’s did not have a mandatory stop-and-hold requirement (like, say, a red turn arrow), and the other car was speeding and was going fast enough, it’s possible that the other car was still not visible because of the visual obstructions when OP’s kid started to cross the road.
When such things happen and it can be proven, sometimes that “failure to yield” turns into placing at least some fault with the other guy because if he’d been obeying the law, the first guy would have had time to get across.
Unfortunately, OP is playing things fairly close to the vest and not giving us the full account including what the scene looked like, so all of us are just wildly speculating.
As the son of a lawyer, I am familially-obligated to agree with @bcohen2010 that in general from a protect-yourself stance, you don’t want to just admit guilt. Especially since there are times when you honestly think something is your fault, and it turns out that circumstances you didn’t know about or didn’t consider means that, legally at least, it’s not. That doesn’t mean you try and get out of something that you actually did, but it also means that you shouldn’t automatically accept more punishment than you necessarily deserve.
First. Thank you for not assuming we are out to get anything and yes, I am keeping some things very close. My purpose on this post was to get some information to make a better decision on behalf of my neice. Some of the information received went directly to the initial question - could the damage have been caused by speeding. I now know that the damage to my car could have been caused by someone going the speed limit. I understand that just because the other vehicle hit my niece does not put the fault on her since my niece was making the turn. I understand that going to court is only to admit fault for failure to yield which will likely end with a fine and court costs- all of which my niece will pay from her money.
I did contact an attorney. He advised me not to waste money on him in trying to beat a ticket when I would possibly need an attorney for a civil suit (which has been filed).
I can tell you that the Dodge was coming up an incline. It was raining that day and misty. The passenger with my niece did not see the Dodge when they started the turn either. My niece was more than half way through the turn when the accident happened. The school police officer at the scene has stated that the Dodge was traveling over the speed limit( I understand this is “opinion” and not fact). Everyone at the scene declined medical transport.
I know that the driver of the Dodge has been in traffic court 3 times in the past year. Failure to yield, driving on the wrong side of the interstate and reckless driving going 85 in a 65 mile zone.
I appreciate the opinions received here and appreciate the kind responses. I now have a clear path to take.