Was rear ended - other driver blamed me and he has a witness

[Charcharm]

was Stationary for around five seconds at a t junction with a give way box, traffic ahead of me meant I couldn’t advance so I was letting one or two cars through. All of a sudden there is a crash from the impact of the car behind me driving into me.

we move over to a side road and exchange details. I’m shaking from the shock at this point. The guy had a friend in the car so has a witness to back up his story, which is that I slammed the breaks out of nowhere which caused this to happen.

This is completely untrue but that’s his story. I don’t have a witness as I didn’t have the presence of mind to get the details of the people around who saw the incident. I’ve made a police report, my husband spoke to the other driver who repeated his story. Will call insurance next.

what’s my situation? There is around £400-£1000 damage to my car and I have a light concussion (despite the low velocity). I feel sick and shouldn’t be on my phone but I’m feeling so stressed, and wanted to see if anyone else has been in a similar situation?

Thanks in advance

This. He needs to be able to stop in case a child runs into road etc causing car in front of him to brake.

Stick to your guns and if insurance suggest a 50/50 split tell them no way - sometimes they just look for easy way out.

Not strictly true.

As a general rule, a vehicle has to maintain a safe braking distance and said vehicle should be able to stop safely if traffic is stopped ahead of it. However, the general rule often results in a misconception that a driver who is at the rear of a rear-end collision is automatically at fault for the collision.

https://www.jacksonboyd.co.uk/rear-end-collision-becomes-complicated/

Some people do this on purpose to scam people, they slam their brakes on and then claim all sorts and it's well known scam that got very big.

Remember to declare your concussion to your insurance company.

I was once rear-ended at a roundabout by - of call things - a stairlift salesman. I had to see the doctor with a bit of neck pain. I had no intention of claiming compensation, but the insurance company insisted on a report and I recall that I was given a thousand in injury compensation. (That didn't make up for the fact that the insurance company wrote off my Fiesta, however.)

I had a similar thing where I was waiting at a roundabout and the car behind me decided that I'd gone because they would have gone in that gap. I thought it was black and white because I was stationary, but they argued it. My insurer had to accept 50/50 liability because there was no proof either way. Doesn't matter that he has a witness, his mate int he car with him doesn't really count, it's still your word against theirs. Leave it to your insurer

It doesn't matter if you slammed the breaks on. He was up your arse and he shouldnt have been. It's absolutely his fault.

As far as I’m aware it’s always the driver behinds fault they obviously haven’t left enough distance between you and them and may not have been paying enough attention

Stop worrying and dissecting what happened. Leave it in the hands of your insurer. If you were hit from behind it was not your fault, it’s a very simple claim decision.

It is never your fault if someone drives into the back of you. Always theirs.

as i thought you were in the right-hes panicked and is trying to intimidate you-dont accept 50 50

Its called a stopping distance for a reason.

Honestly OP don't accept a shred of liability and don't let this take up any more headspace. If your insurance company is decent as mine was when similar happened they should be telling you this as well. Remember that you will never have to see these arsewipes again even if it goes legal. It's honestly not worth getting stressed about you pay the insurer to take on the stress.

It's their fault end of. We had a similar situation. Ready to go but it was a temporary bus lane so had to stop. Knob came charging out of no where and hit us. His explanation was you should have moved. No knob rot we would have been hit by a bus and you should have slowed down. So many don't observe Give Way and just carry on driving. Don't feel bullied.

Obviously, the insurance company will look at your car. The damage is at the back so it's clear that you didn't drive into husband car. You will have to submit information to insurance.

I had a car drive into the back of my car as I was waiting to pull onto a roundabout. He tried to claim I had driven out of an access road nearby. Totally impossible as it would have meant I would have been driving against the traffic. The insurance company saw through his lies.

That happened to us but we had no liability - as long as the car at the front confirms they only felt 1 impact, the middle car is never liable. So the car at the front of yours must have said they felt two impacts if you had any liability assigned.

You poor thing, what a shock. Go and seek medical attention right away for your concussion.

He doesn’t have a leg to stand on so don’t worry. Easier said than done but you are in no way liable. But please seek medical attention asap and make notes now by email on exact chain of events and email them to yourself with events leading up to, during and after the collision.

If its a box junction I bet there ARE cameras!

First of all the insurance company won't accept his friend as a witness, hes clearly biased. Second of all, there's never an excuse to drive into someone from behind. Even if they stop suddenly that's why you leave the 2 second (or 10 second, in the ice!) stopping distance. He's an absolute chancer, let the insurance company deal with him.

Try not to worry because a rear hit is the fault of the driver who could not stop in time and could possibly be looking at a dangerous driving charge.
Also using a friend or passenger could be deemed as a biased and unreliable witness who could lie.
You could also get a doctors letter for compensation for whiplash this is definitely a thing that people do but do it ASAP. Fight back you are in a good position.

I thought rear end collisions were automatically the fault of the rear-ender on the eyes of insurance companies. Obviously the fellow in this case will try to say it’s not his fault because he doesn’t want to pay his own excess. But tough luck for him. It won’t wash.

You’ve completely got this wrong. She HAD to stop as the space in front of her was a keep clear space; you cannot drive into that if there is no room to drive out of it. You keep it clear, so other cars can move through. That’s the whole point. People coming from the other direction are able to continue turning down that road, and cars coming out of the road can come out and then right and continue on their way. If you sit in the keep clear box then you block up traffic which should be flowing. You can’t sit in those boxes.

He drove into you, doesn't matter who witnessed what. He is to blame & he knows it so trying to intimidate you to accept the blame. As others have said. Pass the information to your insurance company & let them deal with it.

was Stationary for around five seconds at a t junction with a give way box, traffic ahead of me meant I couldn’t advance

All the information you needed was literally in her first sentence. Everyone else understood it. She was at a box which you cannot enter if the way out isn’t clear and she told us that the traffic ahead meant she could not drive forward. Doesn’t matter if she said give way box or keep clear box; it’s very obvious what she meant.

This also happened to me. I was at a traffic light junction, turned green, cars moved forward and I followed. Ambulance came searing through across our junction, car in front of me emergency stopped and I couldn’t stop in time so went into the back of them. Very slow speed but still my fault according to law/ insurance, because you should always leave enough room to stop in an emergency regardless of speed.

Well, it wasn't obvious to me. There is no such thing in the UK as a "give way box", so forgive me for misunderstanding the original post.

It only became clear to me when she posted the photo of a KEEP CLEAR area much later in the post.