However, I wonder what case you could make against him as the cause of the accident.
This sounds harsh, but the cause of this specific incident was the woman behind driving too close to be able to stop for an emergency, which is what happened.
Although this guy was a nob, the woman should have been keeping a safe distance.
Basically you have a reason for the emergency braking, she has no reason for not stopping in time.
That's not strictly the case now - the guy overtaking in dangerous conditions would be found at least partially at fault as he was what caused the emergency braking
Interesting post, Joe. Any precendents you can quote, as this isn't too dissimilar to what happened to me?
I remember reading about one particular case Christo, I'll see if I can dig it out.
I remember a few years back there were a couple of status quo changing cases in this field, one being a case where an old lady was being followed by a motorbike down a dual carriage way, and for no apparent reason braked very hard, the chap tried to brake but went into the back of her. Typically that would have been considered 100% his fault, but as they proved there was no reason for her to brake, and the chap had done all he could to stop, it was awarded entirely in his favour (was quite handy that, as it meant that case could then be used in case law against phony whiplash accidents).
The second was something to do with an overtaking car but was born of the back of the case above, but all I can remember is that the blame was split between the car that overtook dangerously and the rear ender - I think it was an oncoming car decided to overtake, the front car then braked but the second car didn't brake in time - the liability was split as the second car was found guitly of not leaving a big enough space, but the overtaking car was found guilty of causing the front cars braking in the first place?
There was another case that I should be able to find a lot easier (EDIT:
MacDonald v. Hemminger[/size][size=78%] - basically a queue of cars, the front one stopped suddenly and without warning, the two cars behind managed to stop but the third following car hit the car in front of him - blame was split between the first and last cars[/size]