Who Is At Fault in a ‘Chain Reaction’ Car Accident?
From the perspective of accident victims, there are many issues that may arise when it comes to establishing fault in a car accident cases involving chain reaction accidents.
What is a chain reaction accident? A chain reaction car accident happens when three or more vehicles hit one another in a series of rear-end accidents that is caused by the force generated by the first collision. Chain reaction accidents account for over 15% of the traffic-related fatalities, and cause 13,000 casualties a year. Many of these types of crashes take place on freeways where there can be considerable traffic congestion.
Here’s an example of a typical chain reaction accident:
Car 1 is rear ended by car 2. Car 3 was driving too close and wasn’t able to stop and hits car 2. Car 4, also unable to stop in time, hits car 3. Now you have four cars involved in one accident.
Bringing forth an insurance claim or personal injury law suit against these types of accident can pose a challenge. Because such a chain reaction accident involves many drivers each of whom may or may not have been acting carelessly. When it comes to establishing who is at fault there are a variety of issues that needs to be examined.
If you file a car accident claim, you will need to prove liability against the other motorist under the legal theory called “negligence.” In order to conclude which driver was negligent you need to determine which driver(s) carelessly cause the accident, and if one or more drivers was negligent, you need to determine each driver’s share of liability.
Each driver on the road must leave a safe following distance between their vehicle and the vehicle in front of them so they have to time to react and stop in time in order to avoid an accident or road hazard. If a driver fails to maintain this safe distance and rear-end another vehicle it will almost always be considered negligent.
Syracuse Chain Reaction Car Accident Claims
Chain reaction accidents are very dangerous because they are more just one threat. In just the blink of an eye the roadway becomes an obstacle course and everyone is frantically trying to avoid a major collision. This confusion can lead to more cars being hit in the disorder that follows that resembles an obstacle course.
To be able to establish the order of the impacts and determine who was careless and who wasn’t, a good attorney will look at different sources. That will include: eyewitness accounts, police reports of the accidents, including finding as to whether any driver committed a traffic violation, vehicle damage as evidenced at the scene of the accident.
The attorneys at McMahn, Kublick & Smith know there are many things in chain reaction car accidents that need to be addressed in order for your case to be done right. That is a big reason you need to get proper legal advise.
