OHTA.ca

Alright so this is in a nutshell what has happened.

1. Got into a car accident. I was stopped behind a vehicle and another vehicle traveling 80km/h

Rear ended me, and in turn I hit the car in front of me.

2. The driver that hit me was driving a rental car, and he was from another country.

The driver that I hit hardly had any damage.

I being stuck in the middle got my car damaged in the front and in the back.

3. Police was called, ambulance almost took me away. I was distraught and a bit of a mess.

4. When I called my insurance company, I told them the situation, and following that they told me they couldn't help me because they had cancelled my insurance 30 days before.

5. They had sent me a letter to my old address (moved a month and a half ago and notified them same week).

So I had no idea of knowing that it was cancelled.

So now I have no idea what to do.

A) I'm injured

B) my car is damaged

C) technically it was 2 accidents , the guy that hit me, and then the lady I hit following!

I'm freaking out right now for many reasons.

Any help or advise would be greatly appreciated.

I think you could be in serious trouble and you should consider hiring professional assistance for this -- it will cost you, but it may pay for itself several times over because you need to deal with:

1. A potential driving without insurance charge - $5,000 fine (+ surcharge) + possible licence suspension + likely future insurance denial... you may need facility insurance which costs $5k to $10k+++ per year. You may also be charged with Careless Driving... it's another serious charge that is sometimes laid in accidents (and may make you uninsurable).

2. Your own repairs / injuries... which SHOULD be covered by the rental car's insurance, but isn't going to happen without some sort of coordination / action on your part. Your insurance company would normally handle this...

3. The potential litigation against your insurance company if you really did change your address and therefore feel that you have a claim... (good luck with this one!)

4. The "lady" - who should be covered by the "uninsured drivers" fund, but still may choose to come after you personally for damages (I believe this is the case -- but could be wrong...)

Tough break -- sorry to hear about this. I would seriously recommend calling around and speaking with a few professionals that offer free consultations... you may be able to personally deal with all the things above, but the stakes are pretty high in this situation. That's my 2 cents....

If the police agree with your version of events, it's unlikely you'd be charged for the accident itself. The driver that struck you should be 100% at fault, both under the Highway Traffic Act and under insurance fault determination rules.

In terms of your lack of insurance, that could be more problematic. Do you know why your policy was cancelled? Was it for non payment? Your chances of defending the charge are better if it was cancelled through no fault of your own and you were truly unaware. If however you failed to pay for your insurance, etc., it will be harder to argue you were unaware, even if you weren't served notice.

Thank you Stanton and finnegan for the advise and help.

I definitely have difficult task ahead of me.

Any recommendations from anyone on a insurance company that

Perhaps wont give me a high premium?

I've been driving since 1999 and I only had this accident.

Thanks again

Were you charged with Operating a Motor Vehicle Without Insurance? If you handed the insurance card over and it was accepted then this will be on the report. If there wasn't anything to peek the Officers interest then they would likely not have checked. I have only once investigated a collision where an insurance company contacted me to advise that the other driver was uninsured. Given the number of collisions that I have investigated I would have to say that there is a very good chance that there are more and the insurance companies just don't follow up with the investigating officer. As said by other responses already it might be a good idea to feel out some professional help but as for actually retaining someone that may be something you will want to wait for, at least until you are served with something, otherwise you will be paying them for nothing.

You say that there were 2 separate collisions.... did the officer attending determine this? Because by your version of events there was only one collision with two impacts. As for you being charged for careless driving as stated by one response, that is unlikely if your version of events are accepted. It would be different if you struck the front car first and then got rear ended. You do still have some liability in this collision even being the middle car however, and the insurance companies may come looking to you to collect. The rear car is 100% at fault in this collision with the fault determination rules, and the front car is 0%, but all cars in between are each 50% at fault. The percentage is not meant to equal out to 100% when totaled together, just merely to determine the level of liability at each of the positions in a collision.

Also what was the reason your insurance was cancelled by your company if you don't mind me asking? Companies don't just up and cancel their clients without there being a reason. It is likely that even without the letter received you would have or should have known that your insurance would be cancelled. Operating without insurance is a reverse onus offense, meaning that the Police don't need to prove you don't have insurance, you need to prove that you do. This will obviously be impossible for you considering you didn't have any. One person already mentioned that if you are charged with Operate without insurance that you face a minimum $5000 fine which is true, but you also provided an insurance card that is invalid, and depending on what the reason for you cancellation was it only needs to be proven that you OUGHT TO HAVE KNOWN that your insurance was cancelled to also be charged with Use Invalid Insurance Card, which is a $10,000 minimum first offense.

diesel82 wrote:Alright so this is in a nutshell what has happened.

1. Got into a car accident. I was stopped behind a vehicle and another vehicle traveling 80km/h

Rear ended me, and in turn I hit the car in front of me.

2. The driver that hit me was driving a rental car, and he was from another country.

The driver that I hit hardly had any damage.

I being stuck in the middle got my car damaged in the front and in the back.

3. Police was called, ambulance almost took me away. I was distraught and a bit of a mess.

4. When I called my insurance company, I told them the situation, and following that they told me they couldn't help me because they had cancelled my insurance 30 days before.

5. They had sent me a letter to my old address (moved a month and a half ago and notified them same week).

So I had no idea of knowing that it was cancelled.

So now I have no idea what to do.

A) I'm injured

B) my car is damaged

C) technically it was 2 accidents , the guy that hit me, and then the lady I hit following!

I'm freaking out right now for many reasons.

Any help or advise would be greatly appreciated.

Passing Thru wrote:You do still have some liability in this collision even being the middle car however, and the insurance companies may come looking to you to collect. The rear car is 100% at fault in this collision with the fault determination rules, and the front car is 0%, but all cars in between are each 50% at fault. The percentage is not meant to equal out to 100% when totaled together, just merely to determine the level of liability at each of the positions in a collision.

I believe that's only applicable when the cars are still in motion. Any vehicle that is stopped when struck should not be considered at fault.

Stanton wrote:I believe that's only applicable when the cars are still in motion. Any vehicle that is stopped when struck should not be considered at fault.

True. Fault Determination rule 9(3) covers when the vehicles are in motion, and 9(4) when all are stopped except for the rearmost vehicle (page 5 of the document below);

So A (being the first car in the line) is always not at fault, B (the middle car in the sandwich) is not at fault if it was stationary when struck, and C is 100% at fault.

If the details of the collision are disputed however, and it appears that A was stationary, B rear ended him and then C rear ended B, both B and C would share fault for the accident (actually each would be 100% at fault for their individual collisions). If the details are disputed the adjuster makes splits the difference.

Thanks everyone.

I being car B, was stopped behind car A.

Car C than struck car B (me), and with impact car B struck car A.

Hardly any damage on car A.