Well if you remember from driving school it is a car length. Of course nobody does that these days so here in lays the problem. I get you are mad at the Hartford but if you had a case why didn't you take it to court?
The "rule" is a car length for every 10 mph between moving vehicles traveling on the roadway. Moving vehicles traveling on the roadway. My son was staionary, the car in front of him was stationary. I guess if your crystal ball is working and you knew you were about to be rear ended you could try hanging back 5 car lengths at the stop light. But then you are stopped way back in the roadway, see how that works out for you. And yes, it's good to be able to see the tires of the vehicle in front of you on the pavement. That gives you room to maneuver in an emergency. But if you are sitting stationary and get rear ended by another vehicle traveling 45 mph the impact will drive you forward 40' - 50' or more. So that little distance you left between you and the car in front is meaningless. Stupid argument.
The Hartford paid all expenses to fix the truck, less the deductible. All good there. I made a visit to the uninsured drivers house and had a discussion with him about his responsibility in the accident and over the course of 30 days he paid my deductible directly to me. That worked out. But by assigning 1/3 of the responsibility to my son, who clearly had no control over the event, his insurance rates went up. That stayed on his record for three years. So for three years he paid for something that wasn't his fault. And to add insult to injury The Hartford cancelled us. It was just a bunch of ridiculous nonsense.
