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.

If cars 1-3 are stationary and car 4 rear-ends 3 which is pushed into 2 which is pushed into 1 then the at-fault party varies by state law. This actually happened to me once outside the DMV area and in that state, car 4 was responsible for all the vehicle damage. Even in areas where each car is responsible for being pushed into the one ahead of them, if they can show that car 4 was driving excessively fast then they might be able to prove that they were in fact stopped far enough away that a bump shouldn't have pushed them into the enxt car. This is what your insurance company is for.

In the case of the OP's situation where it seems to have happened in the reverse (2->1 then 3->2 then 4->3 rather than 4->3->2->1), it's clear that car 2 is responsible for hitting car 1. Car 3 is responsible for hitting car 2. Car 4 is responsible for hitting car 3. This isn't a "chain reaction" like the previous example I gave. Each of these cars had their own crash. Anyone following correctly should have been able to stop and not crash into the pile-up. That doesn't necessarily mean that, for example, car 2 will be able to get their car fixed from car 3's insurance because the damage done by car 3 to car 2 could be minor and the entire front end could be crumpled from the first accident.

The problem will be that one of the cars in the chain will claim that the car behind them bumped them into the car in front. These kind of accidents are harder to adjust.

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.

But you can still have a safe distance, but get rear-ended hard/by a speeding driver who can't slow down fast enough and propells your car forward despite leaving a safe distance/buffer between you and the next car in front of you.

I bet Car #3 stopped with a "safe distance" but car#4 couldn't slow down/stop in time and pushed car#3 into Car#2 into #1.

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.

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.

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.

The only time when I would think this is not the case is when the last driver in the pile-up is going at such a high rate of speed that the car in front of him has nowhere to go but forward into the driver in front of them.

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.

That I don't know. They were all kinda "stuck" together. I think the first guy stopped to merge/get on the road and the second car didn't realize the first guy completely stopped... I am guessing of course.

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.

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 true if something was wrong with the first car like malfunctioning brake lights.

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.

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.

Sure. Because that's how 4 or 10 or 40 car pileups work...

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.

Anonymous wrote:Why did the second car hit the first car? Not paying attention? Brake failed?

I am guessing the second driver was not paying attention. I say that because they are all pretty new cars, accident happened at merge lane...etc.

Why did the second car hit the first car? Not paying attention? Brake failed?

There was an accident this morning on my way to work. One of those chain reaction kind involving 4 cars. Appears the second car ran into the first one, third car to the second, and the last one to the third car.

In this case, who is at fault? I know it's not the first car.