Car accident question

[Marc]

Ok....

if someone hits me from behind (while i'm stationary) and as a result i hit the person in front of me from getting pushed forward from the impact..... am i liable for anything?

[Cookiemonster]

Ok....

if someone hits me from behind (while i'm stationary) and as a result i hit the person in front of me from getting pushed forward from the impact..... am i liable for anything?

No. Person who hit you from behind is responsible for all damage caused.

[JD_Stazza_Brendan]

until they call their insurance company and write your car off. They wrote my 87 JD off for 4.5k... hate to see what a JA would be worth to them.

[decoy]

Ok....

if someone hits me from behind (while i'm stationary) and as a result i hit the person in front of me from getting pushed forward from the impact..... am i liable for anything?

No. Person who hit you from behind is responsible for all damage caused.

Must be different in different states. If you get hit from behind you're responsible for the car in front of you. Hence why you're supposed to stop however many metres behind the car in front of you at the lights, because technically you're in the wrong for breaking that specific law, which would have stopped you from hitting the car in front of you... technically estimately speaking

[GRZHOPR]

Ok....

if someone hits me from behind (while i'm stationary) and as a result i hit the person in front of me from getting pushed forward from the impact..... am i liable for anything?

No. Person who hit you from behind is responsible for all damage caused.

Must be different in different states. If you get hit from behind you're responsible for the car in front of you. Hence why you're supposed to stop however many metres behind the car in front of you at the lights, because technically you're in the wrong for breaking that specific law, which would have stopped you from hitting the car in front of you... technically estimately speaking

Haha! Something like that. :) The general rule is one car length, but it's also dependent by state. If you're more than a car length behind the guy in front of you, and you get hit from behind by someone doing 70 mph, the police usually use some discretion. If you were sitting 2 feet off the guys bumper, and knock him because you got hit by the guy behind you who was doing 35, you're gonna get a ticket.

Around these parts, a 50 car pile up happens a few times a year from nasty snow storms. In those cases... they usually don't write tickets, they just file no-fault reports.

Nobody really tries too hard to abide by this though. Most people leave 1/2-2/3 car length by habit, breathing room if you will. It's a relatively minor issue if it actually happens to you. It's a "civil infraction" ticket and everyone is required to carry no-fault insurance anyway. So your only contender is paying your insurance company a little extra cash every month and getting a couple points added to your drivers license.

[Alspos]

Technically you are liable for the car you hit, but as you were stationary, the blame and bill can be passed to the person who hit you. Let the insurance company sort it out, not like it's never happened before

[toysrus]

Was in this situation only a year and half ago, was the guy at the Front, with someone behind me and someone behind him off in his own little world. The Insurance company for the guy who caused the accident, called me suggesting their client said, the guy behind me hit me first and then their client hit the guy behind, but I rebuted saying No, I heard a crash and then heard another crash at which point my car was pushed forward. They called me back within 30mins accepting that version as I'm sure the guy in the middle stuck to truth aswell. So in the end, the guy who caused the accident was responsible for both cars in Front.

I don't believe the distance rule applies, yes you have to keep some distance, but you don't have to have your foot on the brake when stationary, so regardless how far behind you are, the chances are you will hit someone in front of you if they are going fast enough..... remember reaction times are like 0.5sec so you will always move a couple metres easy......

[Marc]

Thanks for the info guys,

yeah i just called the guy's insurance - AAMI. And they said they will be liable to repair damage on my car and the guy i rolled into in front of me as well.