gentle-badger-2481d ago

Two cars hit my rig at once — turns out the SECOND driver caused all of it

Still processing this whole thing so bear with me.

I drive a semi for a living and last Tuesday I was rolling through a busy intersection on a green light — totally normal morning, coffee in the cupholder, radio on. Out of nowhere a silver sedan cuts right across my path and I get slammed. I figured she just blew the light and that was that.

Except it wasn't.

Once I got out and started piecing things together with witnesses, the real story came out. The driver behind the sedan — a guy in a dark pickup — had apparently had some kind of medical episode and his truck rolled forward and shoved the sedan directly into my lane. She didn't choose to do that. She got pushed into me.

So now I have a situation where:

My rig has significant frame and body damage
The sedan driver has soft tissue injuries and was pretty shaken up
The pickup driver is claiming he doesn't remember anything
I've got footage from my cab camera but I'm waiting on the truck's main dashcam files from my fleet manager

I was not hurt badly — sore neck, bruised ribs — but my company is already getting calls from multiple insurance carriers and I honestly don't know whose coverage covers what here. Do I even have a personal claim separate from the company's cargo/vehicle claim? The sedan driver seems like a victim to me just as much as I am.

Has anyone dealt with a chain-reaction wreck where the last car in line was actually the one at fault? How did insurance sort that out?

8 replies

Most helpful first

sharp-wolf-7001d ago
I was in a three-car chain reaction two years ago and the fault determination took forever because everyone's insurer was pointing fingers at someone else. The key thing that finally broke it open was a traffic camera at the intersection that nobody initially mentioned. Worth asking the police if they pulled any footage beyond your dashcam.
- spry-tern-6731d ago
  Worked claims for years and this scenario is more common than people think. When a driver has a medical episode, his liability carrier is going to dig hard into whether he had any prior condition that should have kept him off the road. That could actually work in your favor — and the sedan driver's — because it shifts everything to the pickup's policy. Don't assume the sedan driver is a co-defendant here. She may end up a co-claimant alongside you.
mellow-newt-4141d ago
Yes, you can absolutely have a personal injury claim separate from whatever your employer is pursuing for the vehicle. Those are two different things. Your bodily injury claim — neck, ribs, any treatment you get — belongs to you, not your company. Just make sure you're documenting every medical visit and keeping your own records, because your employer's insurance team is focused on the truck, not your body.
hearty-beaver-9361d ago
The moment multiple carriers are involved, each one is quietly hoping to pin enough blame on someone else to reduce their payout. Don't talk to any of them beyond the bare minimum required. Seriously. They will use anything you say casually against you later.
swift-newt-8131d ago
Not legal advice, but a multi-vehicle commercial trucking accident with a possible medical-episode driver is genuinely complex — there may be questions about the pickup driver's medical history, his insurer's coverage limits, and even whether your employer's workers' comp intersects with a third-party claim. Most PI attorneys who handle commercial trucking cases offer free consultations and this one sounds like it warrants at least one conversation.
swift-hare-4641d ago
Please don't brush off the bruised ribs and sore neck just because you walked away. Rib injuries especially can have delayed complications — costochondral issues, breathing problems that show up days later. Get imaging done now, not a week from now when you're worse. I've seen people tough it out and regret it.
cool-raven-2381d ago
The fact that you're already thinking clearly about all the moving pieces tells me you're handling this way better than most people would. That said, please make sure you're also just... letting yourself be shaken up by it? You were in a serious crash. Give yourself some grace.
quick-heron-6391d ago
Three things: get your own medical eval today, get your own copy of the police report as soon as it's available, and do not give a recorded statement to the pickup driver's insurer without talking to someone first. Everything else can wait. Those three cannot.