Car hit me from behind. He said it was my fault

Herzlos

BOWFER said:

Looks like there's still plenty on here perfectly happy with the person behind always being the guilty party.
Attention any accident scammers, you have the green light (snigger) to continue.

I don't think anyone is saying that at all. The rear-most car is generally assumed to be at fault, unless the front car has done something unanticipated (like reversing or applying a full emergency stop on a clear road).

Car_54

Herzlos said:

BOWFER said:

Jenni_D said:

born_again said:

Forget it's a roundabout. It is a traffic light controlled junction.
So why was the following car looking to their right, as there is no need, you look at the lights & traffic in front.. Unless they saw the lights changing and made the poorly calculated risk that.
A. driver in front would go through. (opps they did not)
B. That there was enough of a gap for them to get through before the traffic on the right got to them.

Precisely ... whilst you always need to check, to ensure some other idiot isn't trying to jump their lights, you only need to do so after your lights have changed to signal that you can proceed - not on approach to the lights.

I'm not getting either point here.
If I'm approaching a junction and my lights are green, I'm not looking ahead only - that seems like very bad advice!
I'm also checking the stationary traffic to the right in case there's an emergency vehicle or a nutter, I'm not just sailing through them without a care.
If I'm approaching my lights and they're red, I'm not giving a damn about what's happening to my right.

I think you are both making the same point, though I think Jenni is phrasing it from the perspective of someone approaching a red that turns green rather than a green that turns red.
No matter what the state of traffic was like, the light turning to red means the following driver should have stopped.

No, the light turning to amber means the following driver should have stopped.

Sandtree

Mickey666 said:

Sandtree said:

Mickey666 said:

It's difficult to envisage a situation where driving in to the rear of another vehicle can be the fault of the driver in front.

Namely when the car in front is reversing at the same time

If the car in front is reversing and the car behind manages to stop before contact, then it cannot have driven into anything and so cannot be at fault.  I can see there might be some difficulty in proving such an incident, but that's another issue.

The car behind can still be travelling forward and they meet in the middle so both have driven into each other... had more than a few cases where a car was pulling up behind a vehicle waiting at a junction and allege the vehicle in front suddenly went into reverse and went into them. Before days of dashcams it was hard to prove. Did have more cases of "rolling back into" where at least you can test the incline of the road to determine if its even possible.

Only recall one honest customer who claimed they'd "accidently" got reverse rather than 1st but she still thought it should be the car behinds fault because he went into her rear

paul2louise

I will be reporting the incident to my insurance. Got the form to complete. Just keep it simple. I approached the roundabout and the lights changed from green to amber so I stopped. Car behind hit me. I am going to get a friend who owns a garage to double check if there is damage. Can't really see anything but there could be something I have missed. 

BOWFER

Herzlos said:

BOWFER said:

Looks like there's still plenty on here perfectly happy with the person behind always being the guilty party.
Attention any accident scammers, you have the green light (snigger) to continue.

I don't think anyone is saying that at all. The rear-most car is generally assumed to be at fault, unless the front car has done something unanticipated (like reversing or applying a full emergency stop on a clear road).

I disagree, there's quite a few posts on here with no ambiguity at all.
Always the rear driver's fault - always.
Thankfully the law disagrees with them.

ontheroad1970

GeordieGeorge said:

neilmcl said:

AdrianC said:

neilmcl said:

Even though you contributed to the accident by your own poor observation and late braking

Eh?

Green - prepare to stop.
Amber - stop, unless it's not safe to do so.

The OP did exactly what they should have done - stopped when the lights went from green to amber.

It's not their fault the driver behind wasn't looking where they were going.

The OP had to slam the anchors on as the lights changed which suggests they weren't prepared to stop nor was it safe to do so. They may have not been fully at fault but it doesn't take away from the fact that it was pretty poor driving.

You are inventing things now to try to support what was a nonsensical view. There is noting wrong with braking hard when on a derestricted road and the lights change. The alternative, slowing down on approach to every green light, would be silly and annoying.

It's called anticipation.  If I see that a light has been green for a while, at the very least, I cover the brake pedal and reduce the weight of my foot off the accelerator.  If it has been green for a while, it WILL change

ontheroad1970

I think much depends on how close the OP was to the line.  If I am fairly close to the line and I have any doubts about stopping in time, I will go through on amber.  I've already been looking in my mirror to check traffic behind, which you should always do before you change speed or direction.  If someone is very close behind, as inadvisable as that is, is it still safe to stop on amber?  And yes, I also look to the right on signal controlled junctions.  Why?  Not only emergency vehicles, but also cyclists jumping lights and dozy twonks who aren't paying attention and go straight through.  

If people learned to handle roundabouts properly, we wouldn't need so many signal controlled junctions on roundabouts.

AdrianC

oldagetraveller1 said:

"To make it worse it was a Vicar's car."

Was it classed as an act of God?

He was moving in a mysterious way.

zagubov

Before dashcams were a thing, I was behind a car turning into a T junction which suddenly reversed to make space for a racing ambulance.
No witnesses, so I was glad there was no damage when he reversed into my car.
If it'd gone to court how could I have proved he was at fault?
Nowadays you'd post it on youtube or other social media so perhaps dashcams need to be more of a standard.

BOWFER

zagubov said:

 so perhaps dashcams need to be more of a standard.

I agree, but in my experience they're a pain in the backside.
I'm not willing to rip my car apart for wiring, so I have wires hanging down.
Then constant SD card errors, SD cards are so 1990s and I can't believe they still need them.
Manufacturers need to start offering dashcams as part of the car equipment so they're discreet, like built into the rear view mirror and make them cloud compatible so the footage isn't stored on old tech SD cards.
It's baffling that they've not caught onto this revenue stream yet.