car accident

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone who hit another car from behind is at fault for hitting the car in front of them. Only blameless person is the first car. All the rest carry fault for following too closely.

This is the correct answer. Everyone who rear-ended anyone is at fault for failing to keep a safe distance.

Not necessarily. I was hit from behind and that propelled me into the car in front of me. We were stopped at a red light when it happened. The car coming behind me was a distracted driver who didn't slow down. The car in front of me was propelled into the intersection where they hit a car that was driving through.

There were 4 cars involved, only one was at fault.

[Anonymous]

I wonder how insurance companies sort these out given everyone will tell different stories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder how insurance companies sort these out given everyone will tell different stories.

They get a police report. Police are pretty good figuring out which car hit which based on the damages, skid marks on the road, witnesses in the area, security cameras nearby, even if airbags deployed, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone who hit another car from behind is at fault for hitting the car in front of them. Only blameless person is the first car. All the rest carry fault for following too closely.

This is the correct answer. Everyone who rear-ended anyone is at fault for failing to keep a safe distance.

Um no. You can very easily get pushed from behind despite leaving a safe a distance. Drunk drivers, speed, drivers not paying attention, etc can easily catapault a stopped car forward or pushed into an intersection.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder how insurance companies sort these out given everyone will tell different stories.

They get a police report. Police are pretty good figuring out which car hit which based on the damages, skid marks on the road, witnesses in the area, security cameras nearby, even if airbags deployed, etc.

And the insurance adjuster who comes out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder how insurance companies sort these out given everyone will tell different stories.

+1
Even witnesses are unreliable. There is too much going on and somebody is always speeding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder how insurance companies sort these out given everyone will tell different stories.

+1
Even witnesses are unreliable. There is too much going on and somebody is always speeding.

If the police report is vague (which happens), and the drivers give inconsistent reports, then each insurer will pay for their own insured and will try to subrogate against the insurer they believe is at fault. If they can't agree on subrogation, then the insurance companies will submit their files to arbitration who will make a decision. This is the long drawn out version, but it happens.

[Anonymous]

I was involved in an accident like this. It was the fault of the person at the end who caused the rear ending of everyone - I (and people ahead of me) were stopped. He wasn't paying attention to slow down/stop in time, which pushed me into the car in front, and they hit someone else. It's momentum. The guy beyond me was responsible for it all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone who hit another car from behind is at fault for hitting the car in front of them. Only blameless person is the first car. All the rest carry fault for following too closely.

This is the correct answer. Everyone who rear-ended anyone is at fault for failing to keep a safe distance.

Not if they were stopped when they were hit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All depends on the sequence of what happened.
Yes, if you don't stop in time and hit the car in front of you, its your fault, no matter how abruptly they stop.
But if you stop in time, but the car behind you does not and hits you so hard they push you into the car in front of you, then that's different.
So if car 1 stopped abruptly, car 2 stopped without hitting car 1, car 3 rearended car 2 hard enough to hit car 1, then its all car 3's fault.

This is correct. I was the car in the middle once who got sandwiched. I was in the merge lane onto a highway with heavy traffic. The car in front of me came to a complete stop, so I stopped, then the car behind me came barreling into me and pushed my car into the first car. It was the third driver's fault. He hit me hard enough to give my passenger and the driver ahead of me whiplash. Luckily it wasn't forceful enough to push the first driver all the way into the highway traffic. That guy would have been killed for sure.

It was really poor road design though, as the merge lane was exceptionally short, but still.

[Anonymous]

I was the first car in a 4-car accident. I was stopped behind a car that was turning left. Two other cars were waiting behind me The fourth car was driven by a young woman on her cellphone who did not notice the stopped cars. She plowed into the car in front of her and set off the chain reaction. Her insurance paid for the damage to my car, not the guy that was behind me.

[Anonymous]

#1 is the only innocent in less they did something. Otherwise, the three others were at fault and driving too close.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:#1 is the only innocent in less they did something. Otherwise, the three others were at fault and driving too close.

Not if they were stopped.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was involved in an accident like this. It was the fault of the person at the end who caused the rear ending of everyone - I (and people ahead of me) were stopped. He wasn't paying attention to slow down/stop in time, which pushed me into the car in front, and they hit someone else. It's momentum. The guy beyond me was responsible for it all.

NP here who was involved in an accident like this once. I was car three in the four car pile up caused by car four hitting me very hard from behind. We were on an interstate (in the west), and the first three cars (including me) weren't quite stationary, but were rolling very slowly forward in bumper to bumper to traffic. The driver of the fourth car didn't notice the traffic jam (he had just rounded a slight curve in the road, and was on his cell phone) and hit me while traveling at significant speed. He hit me hard enough for my car to hit the car in front of me and spin out of my lane and also hit a car in another lane. My airbags deployed, my front and back windshields shattered, and my car was totaled. I wasn't hurt, but it was terrifying to be hit so unexpectedly, and be spinning and hitting other cars while I couldn't see what was happening (all I could see was the airbag). The driver who hit me got a ticket for reckless driving. His insurance covered the damage to my car. I assume that his insurance also covered the damage to the two cars I hit, because I know that my insurance didn't.

I was driving my husband's car at the time, and whenever he jokes about me totaling his car, I always point out that neither the police nor the insurance company deemed me to be at fault in this situation!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only innocent party here is driver #1

All those other drivers should have been keeping enough of safe distance from the car in front of them so as to avoid this.

unless #1 cut in late in front of car #2 and swallowed up car #2 stopping distance and car #2 had no no other options but to hit car number 1

this happened to me. i was car #2, car #1 made a late lane change into the turn lane. and then stopped, I was unable to to stop in time. and I had a witness to back up my sid eof the story.

driver #1 was charged with unsafe lane change.

You should still have had more space. Yes Driver #1 has some fault, but if you were driving defensively, and staying aware of what was happening, you would have started braking the second driver #1 started the unsafe lane change. And maybe you would have had to stop short, but unless driver #1 side swiped you, you made some driving errors in this situation too.

This is not necessarily true at all. If a reckless driver is driving fast either in the next lane or is merging fast and cuts in front of you at close range, straightens out and for any reason slams on their brakes or let's say as they were merging from the right, another car was merging from the left ahead of them responsibly, that car driving recklessly could easily cut in and by doing so irresponsibly cut off all your safe stopping distance in a heartbeat.

When you're driving and paying attention, you still don't expect and aren't responsible when someone suddenly makes an irresponsible and hazardous move that changes your safety options all of a sudden. But in most cases, yes, if there is safe stopping distance before someone does something dumb, hopefully there is space to still respond safely.

Also, a driver suddenly doing something reckless and idiotic can startle a responsible driver which can also cause a problem if suddenly the responsible driver has to split second evaluate their space options in an effort to avoid hitting the reckless driver. A sudden state of surprise is never a good place from which to have to react, but of course we have to react to that all the time when we drive. Still, it's not the safe driver's fault.