Saw a similar previous post when researching this so thought I'd join up and pose this one.

This morning, my wife rear ended an old lady at the junction coming off the motorway. The old lady was looking quite confused before she pulled away when the lights changed then suddenly, for no reason pulled an emergency stop right in the middle of a boxed area on the roundabout where the road splits into three separate routes, seemingly confused and panicked by the road layout.

The old woman made no attempt to get out of the car, instead her daughter got out of the passenger seat and started going on about how my wife should have stopped. My wife went to the old woman to see how she was, usual claim of banging her head (so we can quite expect a 'whiplash' claim) but also disclosed that she was feeling unwell but also said that was unrelated to the accident. This, along with her not getting out of the car to assess any damage set alarm bells ringing as to whether she was actually fit to drive.

My wife also had a passenger who has been very objective and unbiased about the whole thing and is willing to put a statement in to describe this inexplicable emergency stop left my wife with nowhere to go except into her rear - any other direction would have had far worse consequences.

No doubt people will talk of stopping distances but I have heard of other cases where the 'hit' driver has been deemed to have caused the accident through stopping suddenly in this way and for the driver at the rear to stop in time would be unreasonable.

So, bottom-line question is, is there anything worth fighting on this one, be it on dangerous driving on the old womans part as she stopped in a boxed junction, her questionable health grounds or that my wife's passenger confirms that my wife was driving in a perfectly safe manner for standard and reasonable conditions and it was the inexplicable actions of the old woman that was the cause?

Thanks

Edited by IJF on 25/03/2013 at 13:52