So I got rear-ended on Monday…three times.
In 45 seconds.
Stopped at a light a guy hits me from behind. Pretty solid shot, too.
Then, after we stop rocking he taps us again. Not very hard this time.
I look behind me and he’s raging at the steering wheel, screaming (inaudibly to me) and waving his arms around.
Then, as I’m shutting down the truck and taking off my seatbelt he smacks us hard again.
My passenger (a pal from work) says, “Dude, don’t get out. He might not be done!”
Eventually we get out and the guy tells me ‘My shoe came off and lodged behind the brake’. His shoe is off.
We pull off the road (a very busy 6 lane local road) onto a side street. During this process he almost hits me again and ends up going parallel to me across a lane of traffic into the intersection.
I notice that there’s plastic on the seats of the car. I ask him if it’s new (it’s a really good car) and he tells me ‘I just picked it up’. We swap tag numbers and insurance companies and he tells me he doesn’t have his stuff because it’s not in his car. He does give me his name, address, phone and insurance company, however.
I notice that his tag reads ‘Dealer’ and get suspicious. I call the local Audi dealer and sure enough…he didn’t own it…he was test driving it. And the guy at the dealership tells me he had his insurance card in his wallet the whole time.
So I’m irritated. Mightily.
He didn’t seem drunk or incapacitated at all when we spoke at the side of the road. He just lied to me.
My guess is (and I don’t know this) that he was driving a stick shift and didn’t know how to handle it, lost control 3 times and smacked me seriously twice (I’m counting the first two as one, if you get me).
So what’s the legal position there? Is there negligence?