Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests "Hypothetical" Legal Question

Suppose my buddy was showing off his new car, and as we were going around a turn he got on the gas a little hard, and we went sliding across a few lanes of traffic. Now suppose that, in avoiding getting hit by a spinning pony car, another car slams on it's brakes, and is then rear ended by a third car. Now suppose that my buddy takes off.

Would this be considered leaving the scene of an accident, or do you have to actually be involved in the accident to be considering leaving the scene? This is purely hypothetical of course.

Bob

Hypotheticaly speaking, I believe that your buddy was the cause and should have stopped. But, this is purley hypothetical anyway.

I'd say that since the damage is done, your buddy should hypothetically not do such things on the street. Hopefully nobody was hurt. Time to go watch everyone's hypothetical insurance rates climb a tad more.

The car that rear ended the other car shouldn't have been travelling so close to the second car as to cause the accident.

I would say your buddy should have stopped but yes the third car was following too closely and in every court in America is responsible for rearending that person. Your buddy might have got a failure to maintain control ticket and be on his way

  Your buddy, by the way, is an irresponsible dumbass.  That's hypothetically speaking, of course.

Yes, he should have stopped, as there would have been no accident if he had not been driving recklessly. The other driver (3rd car) is also likely at fault for following too closely.

It is possible that you can rear-end someone and not be at fault. This happened to me. Several years ago I was driving on the Kennedy inbound (I-90, into Chicago for all you non-windy city types out there). This part of the Kennedy is 3 lanes in each direction, with extremely narrow shoulders bordered by concrete barriers. I was in the left-most lane, diagnally behind a full size Dodge van (I was driving a 92 Aerostar). That Dodge was in the middle lane, and diagnally behind a white Pontiac Transport, which was in the right most lane. From my vantage, I could not see the Pontiac.

All I remember is seeing a large white cloud (it was winter), and the next thing I know the Dodge is slamming on the brakes and swerving into my lane. I caught a glimpse of the Pontiac as it completed a 360 into the ditch. I was travelling at ~ 50 MPH and overtaking the Dodge by ~7 MPH when this started). I slammed on the brakes, but I could not swerve to the left because of the narrow shoulder (I didn't want to hit the concrete barrier and flip the van, as the shoulder was only 1/2 the width of the Aerostar). I ended up hitting his LR with my RF. It wasn't hard enough to set off the air bag, but his bumper went up and over mine, right into the fiberglass hood and plastic grill/headlight. The old Dodge had a bent bumper.

We never did get the plate of the Pontiac that caused the whole mess. There were a lot of accidents that weekend, so we just reported it by phone. The driver of the Dodge claimed that he never saw me, and didn't know where I came from. I told my insurance company exactly what happened (State Farm), and they placed 100% of the fault for the accident on the driver of the Dodge (failure to clear the lane of traffic before swerving into my lane). Certainly, I felt bad for him, since it really wasn't his fault. Problem was that he had some no-name insurance company that always transferred claims to an answering machine and then never returned calls. This meant that I was out my $500 deductible. Total damage on my van was $3,500.

The funny part is that over a year later this guy calls me up wanting to know my iknsurance information again. He claimed State Farm never paid him for the accident. I laughed and told him that was because SF determined that the collision between our vehicles was his fault. Haven't heard from him since, lol.... some people's kids.... :rolleyes:

I would say the hypothetical police are looking for your hypothetical friend....

Dan, I think you hit the hypothetical nail, right on its hypothetical head, with the hypothetical hammer.

The rear-ending story brings up a question that i'm really curious about.

If you're driving down the road and the ******* in front of you decides to slam on the brakes in a fit of rage, not to avoid an accident but to cause one, who's fault is it?
Yours for following too close, or his for reckless driving?

-Jason