It's very complex and without knowing the make and model of the cars involved hard to say.

I suspect you stopped and released the foot break in shock which often happens. So when the car hit the rear of you hit the energy transferred rather than crumpled the car behind your impact the car in front who may well have had his foot on the break.

Much depends on the weight and solidity of the cars involved.

Not relevant now but in a previous life i was shunted in town exactly like our OP.

Maestro van in front, i in a Austin Princess wedge, the driver behind in an XJ6.

My Princess being a weak mass produced and relatively light car (just like a C3) suffered severe damage to front and rear which wrote it off, the van a little bit damaged, the Jag with its proper more than just fashionable bumpers not a scratch seriously you'd never know it had happened.

Fortunately for me the Jaguar driver was an honourable man and put his hands up, including the story told to the insurers, so all ended well...he even phoned later same day to check on my little lad who was in the car at the time and again apologised, not many like him about now.

Attn Galileo.

A, i have no doubt your wife has similar standards of just and fair play just as the young man and his father had.

B, i have no doubt these days that someone in your wife's shoes would need a new BMW for several weeks via credit hire, and the comfort of a large four figure bung to soothe the inevitable whiplash and associated costs.

Somehow i prefer the way we used to do it.

It's worked the other way for me when my first wife caused a minor accident on the road, when i called at the other chaps house he and his father wouldn't hear of me paying for the damage, they said thankyou then shook my hand and sorted it themselves.

This isn't a Charles Dickens novel either, it's but one generation or two has seen the shift to grabbing, monkey see monkey do, when the selfish self important people at the top worship mamon....