As others have already said. Your grandson is responsible - he was driving too close behind, too quickly, or a fault with the brakes (almost certainly not the last option), and did not leave enough braking space between himself and the car in front. He needs to report the matter to his insurance company immediately - as in NOW, not tomorrow, or sometime in the next week or two.

The dog is irrelevant.

I disagree. The mini owner has a clear claim against the grandson but he in turn could potentially claim against the dog owner for not keeping their dog under control.

If the Mini stopped without hitting the dog, it's not the dog's fault (therefore not it's owner's fault) that the car behind the Mini was unable to stop.

But it appears the dog did NOT cause the accident. The person managed to brake, and come to a stop.

The person following on, however, was driving too close / too fast, and did not leave sufficient braking distance, and thus rear-ended the other car.

I'll put it in an extreme instance. An accident has occurred. Another car now comes round the corner travelling at an excessive speed, fails to stop, and ploughs into the cars already present. The latest arrival then claims that the earlier accident was to blame.

The Highway Code, section 126. You should drive at a speed which allows you to stop well within the distance you can see to be clear. You should leave enough space between you and the vehicle in front so that you can pull up safely if it suddenly slows or stops.

"If the dig [sic] had not been there, there would not have been an accident and therefore the dog did cause the accident."

No - both from the common-sense and legal perspective. If you follow such an argument to its logical conclusion you get some absurd excuses. For example, you could argue that if the mini had not braked there would have been no collision, so its the mini's fault; the mini-driver should have killed the dog rather than brake hard.

Or it was the grandson's car's fault for not having more powerful brakes. Or it was the parents of the mini-driver's fault for conceiving him in the first place.

The law will look only at the immediate cause of the accident, not at a possible chain of causes. The two cars collided and the hindmost should have stopped in time.

If the mini-driver thinks they have a case against the dog-owner that is a separate issue, but the collision happened in the course of normal driving by the mini. It is accepted that drivers will need sometimes to brake suddenly and it's up to those following to be able to stop. I don't think anyone has a case against the dog-owner, actually.

Any offence committed by the dog owner is an entirely seperate matter, and utterly irrelevant.

The mini driver managed to stop. The following driver was following too fast, too close, or not paying enough attention, and failed to stop. That is the only relevant fact.

If it was a child that had stepped into the road - and the mini driver had stopped, and the following driver had failed to stop and run into the back of the mini - would your post read the same ?

Edited by RobJP on 05/12/2016 at 21:06

You are not answering the question are you?

"If the dog had not run into the road because it was on a lead, would an accident have occurred in this case?"

As I have said, the dog is completely irrelevant. The person in the mini managed to stop. The young man following did not.

You might just as well argue that if the dog's owner had not been born, then the dog would not have been there - hell, let's go back and blame Henry Ford, because if he had not invented an efficient production line for the motor car, then the mini (and the following car) would not exist, and the accident would not have happened.

Simple facts : Dog runs into road.

The mini brakes, and stops. No collision. Driver in car further back does not stop, for whatever reason, and runs into back of stationary mini.

Cause of accident : driver in second car was following too close, driving too fast, not paying enough attention, or had faulty brakes.

That's the way the insurance company will look at it. Rightly so, in my opinion. You feel differently. Good for you.

"If the dog had not run into the road because it was on a lead, would an accident have occurred in this case?"

Probably not, but the uncontrolled dog is not the immediate cause of the accident.

The dog is one step further up the chain.

If the wind had blown a tree down, the situation is the same - the only reason it seems different is that you've got someone to blame with the uncontrolled dog, but the fact that the owner is not controlling the dog doesn't make the owner responsible for a whole chain of events.

The absurdity of this faulty argument is again shown by the following scenario: dog runs into road; car brakes; car behind hits first car; car behind him hits second car. There is a young bride in the second car and her wedding is ruined. In the third car a pianist's hand is so badly injured his career is terminated and he loses thousands of pounds of potential earnings.

The dog owner is not reponsible for any, let alone all, of this.