Still blaming myself for a rear-end crash years later — did I actually do something wrong?
This has been eating at me for a while and I finally want to hear what other people think.
A few years back I was driving on a two-lane road, going a few mph under the posted limit, when the SUV directly ahead of me just stopped dead — not slowed down, stopped. No construction, no animal, no light. I stood on the brakes immediately and I could feel something was off — the pedal felt weird, kind of pulsing in a way I wasn't expecting. I still couldn't stop in time and hit them.
The responding officer noted my skid marks in the report and estimated I'd scrubbed off a significant amount of speed before impact, but insurance still dinged me as at-fault because... rear-end, I guess. That was that.
Here's what's haunted me: a few days after the crash, a mechanic friend looked at my car and mentioned my braking system might not have been performing right. I never pursued it because honestly I was just relieved nobody was seriously hurt and I wanted to move on.
But lately I keep replaying it. Was there something wrong with the car that contributed? Could the other driver's sudden stop have been a factor at all? I know it's been years so there's probably nothing actionable here, but I guess I just want to understand whether I was actually negligent or whether something else was going on.
Has anyone dealt with a situation where a mechanical issue might have played into a crash you got blamed for? How did you make peace with it — or did you look into it further?