I have always thought that if you rear-end another vehicle, no matter what the circumstances, you are legally at fault. Is this true?
I was given a ticket for unsafe driving in Cocoa Beach, Fla. many years ago, after having been hit from behind at an intersection. The intersection was a T, with the intersecting street coming in from my left, and as I approached the intersection, in the far right lane, I noticed two police officers sitting on the shoulder to the right, and that the light had turned yellow. Not wanting a ticket for running a red light, I stopped, and was promptly plowed into. One of the officers came up to me and asked why I had stopped, and I mentioned the yellow light. He asked me to walk back to the other side of the intersection with him, and when we got far enough back to see the lights, he said, "You see that light over the lane you were in? Well,
when that light is working, it's a permanent green light." I mentioned that I was from Houston, had never heard of such a thing, and asked him what exactly the city planned to do about actually
FIXING the light. He said he didn't know, it had been out for awhile, and actually, the reason they were there at the time was because they had just cleared another accident for the same reason.
I never went to court on my ticket. I had the common sense to take a picture of the accident scene, with both cars in the picture, along with the lights above, clearly showing the inoperable light. I sent the picture to the courthouse, along with a letter stating my side of the story, and told them they could contact me if they thought the guy that got hit from behind, while slowing and stopping at an intersection where the functioning lights were yellow, then red, was driving unsafely. I never heard another word.
