Not breaking hard so as not to get rear ended for a car that cuts you up illegally.

londonTiger

Hypothetically speaking

A car cuts you up in a way that any collision is their fault. You have a choice to break sharply and really hard and avoid a collision, but you choose not to and you break softly and collide with the car in front but lessen the impact of the collision from your breaking.

You do this to avoid being rear ended by the car behind you. Because if you brake really sharply and avoid the front end collision and you just get rear ended you could be at fault for breaking too hard and the car that cut you up and caused you to break harsh could get away scot free and even deny that he was ever an obstruction to you.

Do you ever tell the insurers that you didn't brake sharply to avoid being rear ended. Or will you open up another can of worms, so it's best to just said you braked and still collided and say no more.

paddedjohn

You should brake as hard as you can to avoid coliding with the car in front of you, if you get rear ended then its the fault of the car behind you for being so close.

photome

^^^^^ as he said

Hintza

And so if you hit the car in front instead it will be your fault.

slyracoon

If you hit the car in front it is your fault.

If you get rear ended it is not your fault.

roddydogs

slyracoon wrote: »

If you hit the car in front it is your fault.

If you get rear ended it is not your fault.

Even if he/she has just "undertaken" you and slammed on His/her brakes because he/she dosent like the fact your in front of him/her?

agrinnall

roddydogs wrote: »

Even if he/she has just "undertaken" you and slammed on His/her brakes because he/she dosent like the fact your in front of him/her?

Depends on the situation. If, as the OP has described, it would be possible to brake hard enough to avoid a collision, then if in fact you do run into the car in front it's your fault. But if the car in front is so close that their braking causes you to run into them before you can react that would be their fault. But it would be tough to prove unless there is CCTV or independent witness evidence.

Lum

roddydogs wrote: »

Even if he/she has just "undertaken" you and slammed on His/her brakes because he/she dosent like the fact your in front of him/her?

This ultimately comes down to a question of which is most likely to get you a successful payout with the least amount of hassle, so actually a very good question for a financial forum like this.

Rearending cases are settled in favour of the car in front in around 99% of cases.

You are going to argue that the car pulled in front and caused the collision. They are going to claim that they did not pull in front, they were already there and you just drove into the back of them.

If you had a dashcam you could disprove that claim, but questions are going to be asked about why you braked so slowly. It wont show the tailgater after.

If you do an emergency brake for any reason; be it a car cutting in front, or just that you didn't want to kill an animal; and the person behind hits you; it is their fault even if you could have braked slower. Braking hard is (or should be) an instinctive reaction in most drivers in an emergency situation so you should always expect that someone may brake suddenly.

Remember that while the person who cuts in front of you is in the wrong for changing lanes without looking (possibly just a momentary lapse in concentration) the person who has been driving up your backside for the last half hour is also in the wrong and has been for a very long time.

Also remember that the front of your car contains a lot more expensive and breakable things, unless you drive a Toyota MR2 or Mazda AZ-1 or something like that.

If I had the time to actually think about it, I would brake as hard as I could initially, which might wake up the idiot behind, and if possible back off aiming to stop just short of the car that pulled in front of me, then put the handbrake on before getting hit.

od017

I think that not avoiding a collision because the person behind you could be daydreaming is madness.

JQ.

You may find the car driver behind becomes a witness for the car driver in front : "Yes officer, I'm happy to give a statement, the car in front of me was cut-up by another, they had plenty of time to avoid a collision but instead drove into the back of them, it was definitely their fault."

You would be a fool to do what you've suggested in the OP, there are too many assumptions. For a start, who's to say the car behind didn't also see the car cut you up, knowing there could be a collision they breaked hard thereby avaoiding any collision with you. So instead of there being no collision at all, because you assumed the car behind wouldn't stop, you actually caused an accident.

arcon5

You run in to them it's likely a write-off. Your front will crumble.

Somebody runs in to you then you may well be lucky to get out of it with a few scratches and dents.

The latter also means you don't have to try prove the other driver was at fault, s fault will be automatic on the rear car.

The idiot in front will not only potentially injure you, but cause you a massive inconvenience finding a new car, cost you an excess, potentially add points to your license, affect your NCDs whilst this other guy has his car repaired and makes a frivolous claim for whiplash - who looks like the winner?