I was thinking about the recent news story about the lady in Atlanta who veered across several lanes of traffic on a busy highway in order to take shelter under and overpass to protect a sofa she was hauling from the rain. She was not involved in the ensuing accident, but her actions caused a 24 car pile-up. She was issued a citation for an improper lane change, but that’s all.
So…for the 24 people who crashed into each other…who do they sort out who’s at fault for insurance purposes? Is it really possible to totally reconstruct the accident so that everyone knows who hit whom and in what order? And since the lady who truly caused the chain reaction (or at least the beginning of it, since I’ve seen people say that it shouldn’t have extended to more than a few vehicles if drivers further back had been following at appropriate distances, etc.) didn’t actually hit anyone, can her insurance company still take the fall for some of the people’s damages?
Any insurance experts out there ever handled a situation like this?
I’m not an insurance expert, but I have unfortunately been involved in a multi-car pile up. The police attending the scene and my insurance agent both said more or less the same thing: usually, if blame can’t be reasonably ascertained, all of the insurance companies involved divide the costs. They either pool the cost of all the settlements and then pay their share, or each company pays the settlement to their insured drivers.
I ran over and asked my claims subro friend about this and she confirms that if blame can’t be ascertained that, yes, everyone pretty much covers their own losses. Usually though, there will be an attempt to determine who’s at fault – and there may be more than one person/vehicle at fault. For example, car 1 stops and cars 2, 3, 4, & 5 pile up into car 1. Car 6 stops in time to keep from hitting car 5 but gets rear-ended by 7, 8, 9 & 10. Cars 11, 12 & 13 stop but car 14 pushes 13 into 12, 12 into 11, 11 into 10.
She said they have to try to figure out what the time interval was between impacts (I believe she said if it’s more than 3 seconds it’s treated like a separate accident but don’t quote me on that). They also have to get statements from every person (or every person they can track down) in the pile-up and that these are by far the worst types of claims to be assigned to.
Now, I’m not saying that every insurance company will handle it this way but she’s been in the claims business for 25 years so has some knowledge of the matter. From what she says it’s definitely not a given that all the companies will throw up their hands and say “Forget it, we’ll all pay for our own”, but that sometimes happens. Keep in mind that there could be large liability claims made in these accidents and most insurance companies aren’t going to eat a $100,000 claim if they can help it.
Car 3 rear ends Car 2, which pushes Car 2 into Car 1 again.
Car 2 is responsible for 1 accident.
Car 3 is responsible for 2 accidents. (hitting car 2 and car 2 hitting car 1)
It must really suck to be at the back of one of those 100 car pile ups you hear about.
This is only true in simple cases. A one lane one way street. Pile ups tend to happen on multi lane freeways. Car 2 hits car 1. cars 1 and 2 move out of their lanes to be hit by other people who were not following either car 1 or car 2.
True Story follows: I was driving west on I 40 in Albuquerque when some idiot in the left most lane crossed 4 lanes of traffic to get to the Louisiana exit. This exit often backs up because there is a stop light at the end. This guy plowed into the stopped traffic knocking cars all the way back across the freeway. Fortunately the freeway was not that crowded and the only cars damaged were the idiot and the stopped people at the exit. I could see 10 or 12 cars on the freeway being involved with only the idiot being at fault.
This is all very interesting. I can imagine the nightmare of being the adjustor assigned to that claim. Yeesh.
One thing I didn’t see addressed, though (and maybe AllShookDown’s friend can answer it…can the lady (and/or her insurance company) who dove across traffic causing everyone to swerve and crash be held responsible for anyone’s damages? Or would people have to file civil suits against her?
I’m home from work now but I e-mailed her and will see if I get a reply today.
I believe it’s true that once you allow your insurance company to represent you, you forfeit your right to sue on your own. So if you leave your insurance out of it I think you could file a civil suit. You can sue for pretty much anything but whether you’ll win or not is up to the court. She’s not automatically going to be held responsible for anything. I’m not positive on the forfeit part but maybe someone else can confim/deny it before I hear from my friend.
You/your insurance company can go after the instigator but again, whether it’s successful or not depends on whether a settlement can be reached or, if it goes to court, what the ruling is. In the scenario where it’s just Jane Doe cutting across traffic it’s probably not worth the trouble. In a pileup that big with a person that has $100,000 worth of property damage coverage, and $500,000 of liability coverage (if that much) the money may run out fairly quickly. How much money is available is also probably (probably because I’m not the claims expert) going to be based on how many separate incidents there were, since insurance coverage goes on a “per occurrence” basis. (But then I wonder, if there are separate incidents how could she be at fault for all of them?) Also, adjusting and legal expenses to go after Jane Doe or her insurance company aren’t insignificant so companies have to weigh how much it’s worth to them to try to recover damages whether by settlement or in court.
If the instigator is a commercial vehicle owned by a firm insured for big bucks, it might be a different story and I did touch on that with my friend this morning. She said yes, if it was a commercially insured vehicle that might very likely change how things shake down.
Also, all of this is going to depend on the laws of the state it happens in. We work in Wisconsin.
If you let your insurance company recover damages you forfeit your right to sue for those damages (probably property damage and bodily injury). But you retain the right to sue for anything that wasn’t recovered by the insurance company like lost wages, deductibles and tort fees.
Wrong. I was fourth in a 7-car pileup (I-5 Seattle, at low speed in the rain.) The police stated that the second car was at fault, since that one rear-ended the first one, then the rest could not avoid the instantly-halted cars ahead of them.
Once the first collision has occurred, the cars involved have INSTANTLY changed speed. Drivers are supposed to maintain safe spacing so they can respond when drivers ahead of them brake suddenly. But they can’t respond to a car ahead of them that went from normal speed to 0mph in a fraction of a second. Think! The “two second following” rule gives you plenty of reaction time for putting on the brakes. It isn’t intended to let you stop your car entirely, in two seconds. That’s what it would take to avoid becoming part of the pileup.
The ‘two second following’ rule? So, car number 1 passes a fixed object and 2 seconds later, car 2 passes that same point? Seems like something NASCAR might reccomend. What happened to one car length for every ten miles per hour of speed? Two seconds sounds like you are drafting.
At 30 MPH 2 seconds is 88 feet. At 60 MPH 2 seconds is 176 feet. My car is just under 16 feet long.
So 2 seconds at 30 MPH leaves me 5 1/2 cars lengths back and at 60 MPH a nice even 10 car lengths back.
Two seconds gives you more time to react than the old 1 car length rule, not less.