Hypothetical situation...

From my experiance working in motor insurance (which is by no means extensive)...

First way you can get away with no blame from you hitting someone in the rear is a slam on.

Eg. Guy in front slams on the brakes as hard as he can for no reason. This is very, very difficult to prove and will almost always go to court (as essentially the guy infront is trying to cause an accident) Needs lots of witnesses and for the guy in front to have no real reason as to why he slammed on his brakes. (Personally I'd say I saw an animal run out in the road and so tried to stop)

Second is defective brake lights. Saw a case that didn't even go to court as other insurance company gave in. Guy hit the brakes and brake lights didn't come on. The guy had a history of fraud and was found guilty of purposefully disconnecting his brake lights with intend to cause an accident.

Another one is, Car 1 is sitting at a side road turning left, you are on a main road. Person at side road pulls out and just as he gets fully onto the road, you hit the back of him. He has pulled out infront of you and has not made sure it is clear
A similar situation to what Fizz has described.

In all fairness, most of the above can be avoided by good observations and leaving a big enough distance so you can stop if you have to.

I wouldn't like to have to attempt to prove ANY of the above, as the evidence is hard to get, and reasonably easy to disprove provided you've not been blatant.

Wasnt there some one on here that went into the back of some one and it was 100% the other persons fault? I seem to remember that the guy said his gear box jammed when he was switching to sports mode or something like that and an off duty copper saw it? Or am i imagining things again?

+1 to bandit - not sure the details are spot on but someone on here did win a claim where they hit the back of someone.

Another scenario. I have often seen cars driving around with the brake lights permanantly on. This is almost as bad as having no brake lights at all as it is still not possible to tell if the vehicle is slowing down or not.

Back to the original scenario though. The car and caravan combo was turning into a driveway not making a right turn at a junction. The next junction was quite some distance up the road. I had no way of knowing he was going to turn right and thus slow down. As far as I am concerned he is maintaining a constant speed. Had he just slowed down because he was no longer accelerating I could expect the distance between him and me to shorten over a period of (short) time, and be responsible (to a degree) if I were to rear end him. Bbut when he is slowing from 60mph to a stop using braking, with no method of warning other road users behind him, that is different. I would not expect to be given any blame at all.

Regardless of how the insurance companies decided the blame, if I were to have been given any of the blame I am quite sure I would have taken it to court.

[Messie]

Is it not a legal requirement to have fully working lights on a trailer? If it is (I realsie I might be wrong on this and they may not be a legal requirement) then they are on the road illegally. I was always led to believe that if you're on the road illegally then you shouldn't be there in the first place so any accident is necessarily your fault.

Maybe

i agree that the caravan shouldnt have been on the road knowing its rear lights werent working. however the vehicle behind still had not allowed enough room to allow an adequate reaction time.

for example you go round a corner and theres an object/broken down car/horse/cyclist in your lane as you go round the bend and you collide with them, its your fault for going to fast round the and not having enough to time/space to safely pass/avoid them.

i hate insurance companies! i'm still dealing with a claim where an older swerved round a parked car, across a hatched central line/box and collided with me. i dont know what there is to argue about, she crossed into my lane when it wasnt safe to do so.

as a responsible driver you should leave sufficient distance in order to stop Dependant on any obstruction which may occur.

However in real life you cant always do this and so there are some occurrences which you cannot be held responsible.

A guy on this forum i believe has just been paid out after the car in fronts brake lights weren't working and he rear ended it..

[maviczap]

Originally Posted by Messie

Is it not a legal requirement to have fully working lights on a trailer? If it is (I realsie I might be wrong on this and they may not be a legal requirement) then they are on the road illegally. I was always led to believe that if you're on the road illegally then you shouldn't be there in the first place so any accident is necessarily your fault.

Maybe

Yes, Messie's right, same as driving with a car with defective lights. Hard to prove a cars lights were defective, but the driver of the car towing the caravan knew his lights wern't working and posted a sign on the back.

I'd have used that as evidence. Shouldn't have been towing it, until the lights were working.

Originally Posted by malks

i agree that the caravan shouldnt have been on the road knowing its rear lights werent working. however the vehicle behind still had not allowed enough room to allow an adequate reaction time.

for example you go round a corner and theres an object/broken down car/horse/cyclist in your lane as you go round the bend and you collide with them, its your fault for going to fast round the and not having enough to time/space to safely pass/avoid them.

If the road is a certain speed limit and you are not exceeding that limit, end up rear ending someone because they have caused an obstruction of some sort, how can that automatically make you accountable for that accident? I would have said they were liable for causing an obstruction. I was not speeding and neither was the man with the caravan. Excessive speed was not a factor to consider. I didn't hit the caravan, I stopped in time. But I had to brake extremely hard because I had no warning what so ever the vehicle in front was slowing down, let alone stopping to turn right.

Originally Posted by 454697819

as a responsible driver you should leave sufficient distance in order to stop Dependant on any obstruction which may occur.

However in real life you cant always do this and so there are some occurrences which you cannot be held responsible.

A guy on this forum i believe has just been paid out after the car in fronts brake lights weren't working and he rear ended it..

Again, I left plenty of room. Remember this was a 60mph road. The vehicle I was following was doing 60mph. In any normal circumstance you would expect to see brake lights and react accordingly. Even if there were no brake lights but his right indicator came on, this would give some sort of indication of the drivers intention. This vehicle slowed quickly for the right hand turn on a straight road without any road turnings. No brake lights and no indication. Had I rear ended him, how could that possibly be considered my fault?

[Dave20046]

Originally Posted by leedsmatt7

+1 to bandit - not sure the details are spot on but someone on here did win a claim where they hit the back of someone.

Yes, thulfie (sp?) did