Is contact required in a collision for not at fault insurance claims?

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Fr33On2Wh33ls

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I have been wondering something relating to an accident that you might be able to avoid but curious as to what are the consequences of successfully avoiding that collision but only to crash and have a single vehicle accident. Picture a car in front of you makes a sudden u turn, or swerves into your lane, or does anything hazardous and illegal with no witnesses around. You might have the ability to avoid a collision but it means going over a curb, hitting a pole or damaging property or swerving so hard you could go down and injure yourself in the process. The driver may or may not pull over and realize their errror.

What would do you do?

Is it ever better in any circumstance (especially from an insurance payout point of view) to minimize the damage by slowing down but having the collision with the vehicle instead of trying to avoid it and risk being at fault for single vehicle accident?
 
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Unfortunately, from the insurance point of view ... If another vehicle is going to cause you to crash, always hit that vehicle.

If that's likely to have fatal consequences, you may wish to take your lumps in the single-vehicle crash instead.
 
I those type of scenarios your best bet is having a dash cam to show what happened. Unfortunately insurance will rule it a single vehicle accident because everyone on the road would say 'this happened and caused me to crash...'...
 
x3, it seems that doing your best to avoid a collision only to involve yourself in a single vehicle accident as a result potentially leaves you holding 100% of the bag. Also as mentioned, dashcam potentially saves your *** if you get into that sort of situation anyways out of instinct to avoid the collision in the first place.
 
I can say from personal experience, no. I have been in an accident where the insurance wrote off my bike, and I was deemed to be completely not at fault even though I did not make contact with the other vehicle.

The other vehicle was a tractor trailer, making contact would not have gone well for me. I would say generally intentionally making contact on a motorcycle is an extreme risk no matter what the other vehicle is
 
You'll have to do some soul searching in order to truly answer this question. Unless you have strong witnesses and dashcam or helmet-mounted GoPro that can read license plates and facial features; you're going to be found 100% at-fault for single vehicle collision.

It's a serious morale question; do you make contact with a pedestrian/vehicle/animal in order to get comprehensive (animal) or be found not at-fault (ped/vehicle)?

In 99% of the situations where you avoid initial contact and crash by yourself. The other vehicle/ped/animal is nowhere to be found. They may not even know what they did, and imagine the "flight tendencies"... why stick around and take responsibility for a collision where you didn't even make contact?
 
I agree with the general sentiment.
Damage to a car or motorcycle can generally be repaired easily.
Damage to your body takes much longer to repair.
Save yourself.
If that means hitting the car is the best available option, then hit the car.
 
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The majority of the time, it's not like the rider would have much of a choice to either hit the vehicle or not. Our instincts take over and we'll avoid seriously injuring ourselves at all costs... If it's an obstacle in our way, we'll veer to try to avoid it in the hopes that we'll be better off by having done so. It's not like we have the luxury of time to weigh out the pros and cons in a split second, and act any different than our instincts would dictate.
 
What hurts/kills is typically rapid deceleration from hitting a large object. Given that a car or other vehicle fits into this category, I'd like to think most would try to avoid it at all costs, if they thought in that split-second it was possible. Not to mention yes, maybe you'll hit a curb but then maybe you won't...or even if you do, maybe all you will suffer is a broken leg and a few hundred in repairs, vs paralyzed with an insurance payout.

Now, that said, if we are talking very low speed (say 30km/h or less) and your options are hit them or low-side/hit a parked car next to them...then I guess try to stop but aim for the offender just in case you don't.
 
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Also, fun fact I learned from one of my own claims...regarding animals, if they are alive when you hit them it is covered by comprehensive, but if they are dead it is collision. Reason being is if an animal walks out in front of you there might be no chance to avoid it (like in my case with a suicidal raccoon), but it was already dead there is an assumption you should have seen it and been able to stop or avoid.

Overall I can agree with the above, but it does make me wonder what about larger animals and in bends? Sure maybe in a car if you come around a bend and there is a dead dear or moose on a road you'll be able to skid to a stop before hitting it or anything else...but what about a bike? Chances are you'll hit it or go down in an attempt to avoid.
 
Getting an insurance hit caused by another driver who gets away scott-free is a real risk, especially for motorcyclists.

The way to mitigate this risk is to:

1. Improve your situational awareness - to avoid the situation when possible

2. Improve your riding/evasion skills - to react to an unanticipated situation without falling over, colliding with anything, or getting hit by the person behind.

I'd suggest #1 and #2 to be a much better thing to do than working on how to ensure a collision occurs with the least physical impact to yourself.
 
Brian P said:
Unfortunately, from the insurance point of view ... If another vehicle is going to cause you to crash, always hit that vehicle.

If that's likely to have fatal consequences, you may wish to take your lumps in the single-vehicle crash instead.
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Even non-fatal consequences. Had a swerve-to-avoid-sudden-idiot incident last year. Many friends thought I should have just hit the vehicle...until they learned the hitting part involved two toddlers in the idiot's back seat (invisible behind tinted glass). Know way to know that in the split second of reaction time. Dash-cam or not, that would have been a s***storm of a situation.
 
P.S. With or without a dashcam, a detailed written account of the incident (preferably soon after it happened) can be handy. TBH I don't know if it's standard or not for adjusters to request it since I've only been in the one accident, but it definitely made it easier for my insurance company to decide in my favour (the other party also gave a similar written account)
 
TwistedKestrel said:
I can say from personal experience, no. I have been in an accident where the insurance wrote off my bike, and I was deemed to be completely not at fault even though I did not make contact with the other vehicle.

The other vehicle was a tractor trailer, making contact would not have gone well for me. I would say generally intentionally making contact on a motorcycle is an extreme risk no matter what the other vehicle is
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TwistedKestrel said:
P.S. With or without a dashcam, a detailed written account of the incident (preferably soon after it happened) can be handy. TBH I don't know if it's standard or not for adjusters to request it since I've only been in the one accident, but it definitely made it easier for my insurance company to decide in my favour (the other party also gave a similar written account)
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What saved your situation is that the driver of the other vehicle stuck around. Too often, they take off and disappear ... often doing so even IF contact was involved. Then, proving what happened becomes an uphill battle, unless you have video showing what happened.
 
conundrum said:
Also, fun fact I learned from one of my own claims...regarding animals, if they are alive when you hit them it is covered by comprehensive, but if they are dead it is collision. Reason being is if an animal walks out in front of you there might be no chance to avoid it (like in my case with a suicidal raccoon), but it was already dead there is an assumption you should have seen it and been able to stop or avoid.
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Brian P said:
What saved your situation is that the driver of the other vehicle stuck around. Too often, they take off and disappear ... often doing so even IF contact was involved. Then, proving what happened becomes an uphill battle, unless you have video showing what happened.
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Worse for hitting an object. I had a furnace fall off an open trailer 2 cars ahead of me on the inside lane of the 400. Guy in front veered into the centre lane so I didn't see it until the last second. I had a guy beside me so no place to go. Furnace hit the left front of my car launching it 2 ft in the air. Insurance rules say that once it touches the ground (it bounced and was still moving), I was responsible to avoid it. The only reason I got off with not-at-fault was because of several witnesses and the guy with the trailer stopped & took responsibility with the cops.

Insurance rules seem to be designed to find fault as much and as widely as possible. I guess that's so as many as possible can get dinged with an increase!
 
If you hit something to avoid a collision, you still had a collision. Hit the F'er! Leave a dent!
 
I handle insurance claims for a living. I am typing this from a temporary office in Fort McMurray due to the wild fires. I can tell you unequivocally that there doesn't NEED to be a second vehicle to be not at fault. The best option in this case is to call the police and get them to come out to the scene and write the report showing that you were forced off of the road. You NEED that driver 1 section to be 'unknown, fail to remain' and then it's all good. You will still pay a deductible and will still need collision coverage but you can be NAF.
The other thing is **** the bike - save yourself
 
Face said:
Worse for hitting an object. I had a furnace fall off an open trailer 2 cars ahead of me on the inside lane of the 400. Guy in front veered into the centre lane so I didn't see it until the last second. I had a guy beside me so no place to go. Furnace hit the left front of my car launching it 2 ft in the air. Insurance rules say that once it touches the ground (it bounced and was still moving), I was responsible to avoid it. The only reason I got off with not-at-fault was because of several witnesses and the guy with the trailer stopped & took responsibility with the cops.

Insurance rules seem to be designed to find fault as much and as widely as possible. I guess that's so as many as possible can get dinged with an increase!
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I figure there must be a range on this one...if it fell out 10 cars ahead and you hit it, then yeah you could be deemed at fault. If it fell out of the car in front of you, or in such a way you couldn't react or even stop in time, then it should be treated as a not-at-fault.

Also brings up the question, I know if there is a car accident and you hit debris that damages your car it is also collision, but what about debris flung from a car? Thinking of ones where one of the cars is nearly obliterated, sending bumpers, panels, etc all over the place. I'd assume that if they hadn't stopped moving when you hit them, it wouldn't be treated the same as if it were laying on the road.
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