Multi-car accidents, especially those involving 10 or more vehicles, are some of the deadliest types of accidents.

Multi-car accidents often result in serious injuries and fatalities. When it comes to establishing liability for these accidents, things can get quite tricky, because there are numerous vehicles and drivers involved.

Where Multi-Vehicle Crashes Often Occur

Accidents involving multiple vehicles can happen anywhere. However, there are certain locations and situations where these accidents happen more frequently. Some of them are:

• Areas with high traffic density and vehicles moving at high speeds.
• Intersection crashes often take place when a vehicle runs a red light, resulting in multiple vehicles on that intersection crashing into each other
• Interstate freeways and other highways. The vehicles travel at very high speeds and the drivers may fail to react quickly to the situation ahead and end up crashing into another car.
• Winding roads and roads with blind turns where a driver may suddenly encounter stopped traffic or an accident site immediately after a bend and would not have sufficient time or room to react.
• Roads with snow, ice, or that are slick are more prone to accidents. A driver may fail to control his or her car and can end up hitting an impaired vehicle.
• Low visibility due to fog, rain, smoke, snow, or dust impairs the drivers’ vision and can result in a car crash when the driver fails to see stopped traffic ahead on the road.

Multi-vehicle crashes happen in urban as well as rural roads. The main cause of accidents on urban roads is the high speed of vehicles on the highways and heavy density of traffic in the cities; whereas, curvy and narrow roads are the most common cause of multi-vehicle accidents in the rural areas.

We hear of these types of accidents as highway pileups. Most often they happen during times of high traffic volume and are usually caused by one inattentive driver who fails to brake in time for slowed or stopped traffic. It may also happen on a quieter roadway, where one driver hits a car while barreling through a red light, causing that car to spin uncontrollably into the path of oncoming traffic.

This type of collision occurs when one car hits another car from behind. In some cases, such an accident may involve more than two cars. The rear car is almost always at fault in the event of a rear-end collision; however, there are exceptions.

Let’s first understand why the rear car’s driver is almost always held responsible for the accident – even in cases where the front car’s driver stopped or slowed down his vehicle suddenly. This is because the Assured Clear Distance Ahead (ACDA) rule requires that the person driving the rear car maintain a safe distance between his car and the car in front. In other words, a car’s driver needs to make sure that he does not follow another car too closely or drive too fast to get enough time to stop and avoid a collision, should the car in front stops or slows down suddenly.

Cause of Multi-Vehicle Crashes – Houston Truck Accident Attorney

Multi-car accidents are generally preventable. Most multi-car accidents are a result of negligence on the part of one or more drivers. Some of the common causes of multi-car accidents are –

• Weather – Bad weather conditions like snow, fog, rain, or ice on the roads necessitate drivers to exercise caution and drive extra safely. When drivers fail to do so, multi-car accidents can take place as bad weather affects visibility.

• Speeding – Speeding is an extremely dangerous habit. Some of the most deadly multi-car accidents result from over-speeding. Speeding-related accidents often result in more severe injuries and fatalities.

• Drowsy driving – Drivers need to be constantly vigilant on roads. If a driver gets drowsy or falls asleep, he may not know when to stop, steer or reduce the speed of the car, causing an accident on the road.

• Tailgating – Tailgating is another dangerous habit that does not give the tailgating driver sufficient reaction time to slow down or stop his car, resulting in a rear-end collision and at times, a pile-up.

• Distracted driving – Distracted driving has become an increasingly serious safety hazard. Talking, texting, or web browsing combined with other activities like eating, drinking or even co-passengers can lead to multi-car accidents.

• Rubbernecking – Driver focusing on another accident without paying attention to the road ahead of them can cause a multi-vehicle accident.

• Disregarding construction zone signs – Often, the traffic lanes are narrow on construction sites and there are traffic jams, where vehicles pass through in single files. Construction zone multi-car accidents take place when drivers over speed, zipper merge unsafely or simply do not adhere to traffic rules.

How Vehicle Damage Can Establish Fault in a Rear-End Collision

Damages caused to the vehicles involved in a rear-end accident are often the biggest proof of what happened in the accident and who was at fault. For instance, in an accident involving two cars, it is almost always evident that the car with a damaged front-end struck the other car from behind, while the car with a damaged rear-end was hit by the trailing car. The nature of the damages often reveals how the accident occurred.

What if a Collision between Two Cars is Caused by a Third Car?

In an accident involving three cars, the last or the third car may hit the second or the middle car, pushing the front-end of the middle car into the back of the first car. In such an accident, the liability is often placed on the third car’s driver. This means that the first and the second cars’ drivers are entitled to claim financial compensation from the third car’s driver for the damages to their cars. In this case, even though the second car struck the first car from behind, the driver of the second car was not at fault for the accident, because the collision between the first and the second car resulted from a prior collision between the third car and the second car, in which the second car’s driver had no fault. In some situations, even the third car’s driver may file a claim against a third-party driver, who caused the second car’s driver to stop or slow down his car suddenly, thereby causing a collision between the second and the third car.

What if The Middle Car’s Driver is Partially at Fault?

In some cases, the middle car’s driver in a rear-end accident involving three cars may be partially at fault. This could be a case where the middle car driver’s negligence is partially responsible for the accident. For instance, the middle car could be held partially responsible for the accident, if the car’s horn or brake was not working at the time of the accident or if one of its tires blew at that time. In such cases, the second car’s driver may end up receiving a lower amount of compensation or even no compensation at all.

Multi-Vehicle Accident Attorney Houston