She could have cut you off while going 30mph slower than you, with a 1
foot gap and then slammed on the brakes and the cops would have still
faulted you and insurance would still fault you.

Least that's my experience.....

Needless to say, you were directly behind her and couldn't stop so... yes
it's your fault. It's pretty clear that if you did maintain distance you
didn't react quickly enough or there is fault in your vehicle's breaking
system. Or you drive one of those giant SUVs that's equiped with brakes I
would consider insuffient on a civic.

Especially telling is the cloud of blue smoke. This means she locked them
up and was sliding. In turn, that means she wasn't stopping as quickly as
possible.

The only way I can see this being her fault is if she did it for no
reason but to cause a collision or she hit something in front of her,
which brought her to a very sudden stop.

As Brent said, the only way you could fail to stop before hitting her
with a 3 sec gap is  mechanical failure (bad brakes), not paying
attention, or very poor reflexes.

There is also the question of why you didn't try to avoid her by
steering around her on one side or the other.

Harry K

Well, you hit her fair and square. A three-second space should have
been enough, but if you still hit her, it obviously wasn't, for some
reason. Are your brakes in good shape? How are your tires? Did you eat
up two of those seconds fiddling with the radio, or anythign else?
It's interesting that you don't complain about paying for the damage
to HER car, just to yours.
I can only surmise you don't have collision insurance, right?

guerrerorunner@gmail.com said in rec.autos.driving:

Did anyone miss the irony of that statement?

If you'd been doing 50 you'd have been able to stop in time. You can't
drive too slow.

Since you ran into the rear of her car you were following too close for
circumstances.  And yes you should and will have to pay for the
extensive damage to both your car and hers.  Period.

Driver reaction times, not following distances, are measured in seconds.
 In driving school, you should've learned to set speeds and following
distances properly.  If your reaction time is measured in whole seconds,
you shouldn't be driving.

It was your fault because you hit a skidding vehicle.

You might want to consult a lawyer with experience in traffic law --
not just in your state, but in your area.  It should be fairly quick
and cheap to get his reading on whether contesting the ticket is worth
your while, and what the civil possibilities might be.   (If you rear
ended someone hard enough to cause "extensive damage" to your own car,
you might end up needing a lawyer anyway...)

One end of the range of possibilities is that she saw some hazard you
didn't, and for whatever reason you failed to exercise your
responsibility to stop short of her.   Woops!   At the other extreme,
maybe she did a very foolish thing maliciously targeted at you.

I would imagine that witnesses will be very important in making a case
that it was anything but the former.    Rear enders happen a lot, and
the usual cause is somebody following too close too fast with not
enough attention.

BTW, a common SWAG is that for a typical car with average brakes and
tires on a dry road it takes roughly 5 seconds to stop a car at 70 mph
when you factor in perception time and reaction time as well as actual
braking time.      If the person ahead has a better car, or shaves off
the perception and reaction time by being sharper, you better enlarge
that.   Expect to be confronted with accepted standards used in the
insurance industry in these matters, and to have a real struggle with
"everybody does it" counter-arguments.   One layman's opinions, worth
what you paid if your connect time is cheap.

So here's something to ponder in the various waiting rooms you're
likely to be in:  Is three seconds at 70 mph a truly safe interval in
something reasonably close to a worst case -- say your mind is
wandering, as minds will do; or maybe you're fishing the last french
fry out of the bag; and you don't realize that there's hard braking
going on ahead quite as soon as you might hope?  Or is it a "success
oriented" interval that makes urban traffic more efficient under normal
conditions, and lets you get out of many predicaments --  but leaves
you facing a substantial risk of parking in somebody else's trunk if
things get worse, faster,  than usual?      Something to think about...

Safety first,
--Joe

The cop's probably right, but you should definitely see a lawyer,
especially if an injury resulted from this accident. Based on what YOU
said, you were following too close, but that woman may be partially at
fault. You need a lawyer to sort this out for you.

Yup.

You were at fault. Accept it and move on.