Who's fault would it have been

keithclancy

So was driving home from work tonight.

Driving down a dual carriageway, speed limit is 100, I'm driving along doing the speed limit in the right hand lane (Its in the Netherlands)

A Mercedes M Classe comes past in the overtaking lane, swerves across with the back of their car about a meter or two away from the front of mine, immediately they slam on the brakes.

We went from about 100 to around 30-40km/h in the space of a few seconds.

Next thing the car behind me barely manages to stop, he skidded and ended up drifting slightly to the his left.

Now if I had hit the Mercedes first, then then the guy behind me hit my car, whos fault would it have been ?

Or indeed if the guy behind me ran into me and pushed me into the Merc would that be any different.

Just wondering your take on it.

Anyways I think i'll be investing in a dash cam , I was stuck behind the guy that was behind me originally for around 5 kilometers, he had the interior light on and was reading something, kept changing his speed and almost crashed into a roundabout (mounted the pavement)

BTW they both had German plates (Although the car behind was on Export plates so he could have been from anywhere)

Also he had only one functioning headlight.

CiniO

IMHO if you had a dash-cam and could prove what acutally happend it would all be Merc M Classe fault.

Otherwise - hard to say.

Bruthal

Id say if the car behind you had hit you, and you didnt hit the merc in front, it would be the fella behind you at fault then, even though it really still is the merc`s fault. The driver behind you should be far enough behind you to avoid anthing you do.

Merc`s fault for cutting in and hitting brakes, but hard to prove, unless you have the cam as said. Maybe it was one of them scams was it?

dr.fuzzenstein

That sounds like a scam alright, swerve in front, hit the brakes, claim they where just gently slowing down when that maniac driving way too fast plowed into them and claim big time.
Dashcam FTW.
The car behind might have just been there by chance.
It's a bit different on the continent.
The thinking here is, if you hit the car in front, you are at fault.
On the continent, if the car in front brakes hard for no good reason they carry part of the responsibility.
In Germany for example if someone brakes hard to avoid a small animal and it causes a pile-up, that driver carries part of the responsibility.
It's of course hard to prove without backup that the car in front braked hard for no reason, so it would be your word against his.

puppetmaster

Fair play for not hitting him atleast!!

I bought a dashcam after a similar miss just before christmas as there is little other ways to prove it. Ive already recorded another near miss from a guy pulling out infront of me.

As for liability, with your word against theirs the only exp ive had of it is throught a friend who was in the middle of a 3 car smash, car infront stopped to quickly, he hit him, car behind in turn rear ended friend. He (his insurance) paid for car he hit, car behind him paid for his car. Logic given was he should have been far enough back from the car infront to deal with him slowing quickly. so his responsability. All well and good if the car slows from 100 to 80kmh, but 100 to 30kmh is basically emergency stopping. but id imagine the same rule applies.

*he/his/him, all refers to 'friend' center/second car in three car pile up.