Rainy Hydroplane Rear End

[evan7889]

I was driving in a very hard rainstorm and approaching a bunch of cars stopped at a red light (light was ~200m away) when the car in front of me slammed the brakes for a reason I do not know why. I slammed on mine too, and had what would be considered a safe stopping distance with a large gap between the cars. My brakes locked up and I hydroplaned all the way to the car in front of me. Very minor damage to both cars. Mine was the worst of the 2. I know for a standard rear end I am at fault, but does the torrential rain and her slamming the brakes make any difference on at fault percentage or anything?

Thanks for any help.

 

[djs]

No.
Be thankful nobody was hurt. Cars are easily repaired/replaced. Its a pain, but no long term problem.

This falls into the category of you can do almost everything right and still have an accident. It happens. That's what insurance is for.

Dan

 

[evan7889]

No.
Be thankful nobody was hurt. Cars are easily repaired/replaced. Its a pain, but no long term problem.

This falls into the category of you can do almost everything right and still have an accident. It happens. That's what insurance is for.

Dan

Thanks for quick reply but :( ... would the premium hike be as steep in this case as a regular rear end would be? Asking as a 17 year old male.

 

[djs]

An at fault accident is rated as an at fault accident, it doesn't matter if its $1000 in damage or $100,000 in damage. In some states, it can change if there is an injury, but for property damage, its the same rating factor.

May not appear to make sense, but it really does over time.

On the other hand, your premium increase may not be as much as you think it will be. Might be more... a lot of variables and it depends on how much you think it will go up. You can call the agent and ask him for an estimate on the premium change on policy renewal. He can't tell you exactly, but can give you a pretty good idea.

Dan

 

[xrac]

I was driving in a very hard rainstorm and approaching a bunch of cars stopped at a red light (light was ~200m away) when the car in front of me slammed the brakes for a reason I do not know why. I slammed on mine too, and had what would be considered a safe stopping distance with a large gap between the cars. My brakes locked up and I hydroplaned all the way to the car in front of me. Very minor damage to both cars. Mine was the worst of the 2. I know for a standard rear end I am at fault, but does the torrential rain and her slamming the brakes make any difference on at fault percentage or anything?

Thanks for any help.

Could be considered driving too fast to avoid an accident. Sounds like the real problem was not enough tread on your tires to channel water and make contact with the road. It is what it is and nothing you can do now will change anything.

 

[HoosierLife]

I was driving down the interstate in between appointments on Monday. It had been raining all day, but happened to be pouring at the time. I said a short prayer for safety.

And I'm not kidding, 5-10 seconds later, this old beat up car flys past me in the fast lane. Then they start hydroplaning and fish tailing back and forth. I started slowing down as soon as the fish tailing started to happen.

I thought she was going to recover, but then she smacked into the wall, bounced off and smacked into it again and settled down in the fast lane.

Fortunately, she slowed down enough while fishtailing that she didn't hit too hard. Still pretty bad though and right in front of me.

Called 911 and gave them the location.

Some people don't slow down when it rains. Drives me nuts. Especially people that probably have bald tires.

Anyway, to the OP, glad no one was hurt. Chalk it up to life lessons, pay the piper and slow down next time.

 

[senior-advisor-indiana]

I was driving down the interstate in between appointments on Monday. It had been raining all day, but happened to be pouring at the time. I said a short prayer for safety.

And I'm not kidding, 5-10 seconds later, this old beat up car flys past me in the fast lane. Then they start hydroplaning and fish tailing back and forth. I started slowing down as soon as the fish tailing started to happen.

I thought she was going to recover, but then she smacked into the wall, bounced off and smacked into it again and settled down in the fast lane.

Fortunately, she slowed down enough while fishtailing that she didn't hit too hard. Still pretty bad though and right in front of me.

Called 911 and gave them the location.

Some people don't slow down when it rains. Drives me nuts. Especially people that probably have bald tires.

Anyway, to the OP, glad no one was hurt. Chalk it up to life lessons, pay the piper and slow down next time.

Did you close your eyes during your prayer? That could have been why she was fishtailing....

 

[Indiana_Adam]

DJS and Xrac are correct. Rear-end accident is all on you.

Also, a safe distance is dependent on several variables such as speed and road conditions. If you had been truly following at a safe distance, you would not have hit her. You are lucky the responding officers didn't ticket you for following to closely and that only physical damage was done.

 

[HoosierLife]

Did you close your eyes during your prayer? That could have been why she was fishtailing....

No haha. But I did have a crazy aunt who did that and ran into a tree. She told the judge he couldn't stop her from praying while driving!

He took her license away haha!

 

[evan7889]

Thanks for all the help and advice but its almost all settled now. My car suffered little damage and so did hers. The collision center said this was far too minor of an accident for them to even file a report. The lady decided to end up calling insurance which seems odd to me as i was going to pay for a brand new bumper from the dealership. $1400 dollars for a crack the size of a quarter. But now both premiums hike and she pays her deductible. (Talked to O.P.P. and insurance about that and they confirmed). I'm fixing my car outside of insurance so no deductible for me but a hike in premium. I will be getting new tires because this all would've been avoided if the treads were deep enough. I had clearly underestimated the road and have learned a good lesson there. To respond to a few comments, there was no responding officer as we simply just exchanged info, quickly assessed damage and continued on our way to work. Speed is obviously a factor but speeding wasn't, I had just accelerated from being stopped less than 100m back so I wasn't approaching the car like a missile or anything. Finally, the gap I had between cars was obviously not adequate given all this happened and I 100% believe that had I been able to stop without aquaplaning, nothing would have happened. I learned another lesson about stopping gap the hard way though and there is never enough room between cars. Thanks for the help and hopefully my insurance doesnt double.