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I was involved in a collision where a car behind me failed to stop in time and rear-ended me. The driver claims that the car behind her hit her, causing her to hit us (we all had to stop suddenly - I managed not to hit the car in front of me). As she has placed the fault on the driver behind her, she is saying that she's not liable for crashing into me, which results in me having to pay my excess. Is this right? Is there not a road rule for maintaining both a safe following distance and a safe stopping distance (e.g. the distance you should stop behind a car at a traffic light)? Therefore, regardless of the actions of the other car, she is still at fault for hitting my car?

Hi there,
This one is a little tricky as there would be an order of who it who and this could be harder to establish with moving vehicles than if they were all stationary. Unless the police attended and established who was at fault and had it written in a report- your claim would be with the one who hit you and if they were not to blame- then the one who hit them- of which you hopefully have their details too.

Unfortunately, neither her nor the other car pulled over after the accident (it occurred on the habour bridge so we couldn't pull over immediately after the accident and there was moving traffic around us) - we did manage to get the details of the car who hit us but not of the car who hit her. What would be the normal process of determining who had the right account (we say she hit us first and then was hit by the other car, she claims the other car hit her and then she hit us)?

Hi there,
In this case I would claim through the person who hit you and have them prove to you otherwise.