Van Obscures View of Broken Down Vehicle

Occurred on July 19, 2019 / Birmingham, England

Info from Licensor: "I was driving down the A45 towards Birmingham (England). This is a dual carriageway with two lanes in either direction. A lorry driver was slowing in the left lane, so I moved to the right where a van in front of me was traveling faster than me. I was keeping a two-second gap and with the van going faster, I had no reason to believe anything was wrong.

What I didn't realize is that there was a broken-down car in the right-hand lane. It was obscured from my view by the van. The driver of the van had an unrestricted view of the broken down car yet carried on towards it at at least 50mph without using brakes or hazards warning lights.

At the last second, the van driver swerves out of the way in front of the truck and I had nowhere to go.

The insurance classes me at fault because I went into the back of someone. However, I see this as a freak accident, possibly even avoidable if the van driver had seen the vehicle and responded to it. Even if the van driver had performed an emergency stop, I had enough distance to have also come to a stop safely behind the van. I believe the van driver with his lack of observation should share some of the responsibility.

As I was able to slow my car down so much, thankfully no one was injured, though the collision with the truck ripped off my wing and bumper damaging my headlights in the process.

I tracked down the van company to belonging to islandfireprotection.co.uk. I have made contact, but not heard anything from them."