Rear-ending a car that stopped for a broken-down truck

Attorney Answer

Being the following driver is the hardest place to stand after a collision like this, and Alabama's law makes it harder still. But the vehicle that was broken down in a live traffic lane is a third actor in this, and it is the fact most likely to change the picture.

Ala. Code § 32-5A-89(a) sets the standard, and Alabama puts a number on it where most states do not:

The driver of a motor vehicle shall not follow another more closely than is reasonable and prudent, having due regard for the speed of such vehicles and the traffic upon and the condition of the highway. Except when overtaking and passing another vehicle, the driver of a vehicle shall leave a distance of at least 20 feet for each 10 miles per hour of speed between the vehicle that he or she is driving and the vehicle that he or she is following.

Twenty feet for every ten miles per hour is 120 feet at 60 mph. It is a concrete duty — but a breach of it is evidence of negligence, not an automatic answer, and being struck from behind does not by itself decide fault.

So the distance rule is a real standard and not the end of the analysis. Twenty feet per ten miles per hour is a concrete measure that a lawyer or an adjuster will apply to you. It is also the measure that assumes normal conditions — and a tractor-trailer stopped in a moving lane is not a normal condition. Whether the distance you were keeping was reasonable is judged against what was actually happening on that road, not in the abstract.

Alabama's contributory negligence rule is the thing to understand, because it cuts in both directions and most people only notice one of them. A claimant whose own negligence helped cause the harm recovers nothing at all — not a reduced share. So if you are the one claiming, any carelessness of your own is fatal to your claim rather than merely expensive. But the same rule is the strongest defense there is when somebody claims against you: if the person claiming contributed to the collision even slightly, their claim fails outright.

Two limits travel with it. It is an affirmative defense, so the side raising it has to prove it, and proving it takes more than showing simple carelessness — generally that the person knew of the danger, appreciated it, and failed to take reasonable care anyway. And it is no defense at all to wanton conduct, so how the other party's behavior is characterized can decide whether the rule applies.

Applied to you, here is the shape of it. If you want to recover anything — for your own vehicle or your own injuries — from the driver in front or from whoever left the truck in the lane, then your own following distance is the first thing they will raise, and in Alabama it does not reduce your claim, it ends it. That is a hard fact and it is better to know it now.

But the broken-down vehicle matters, and not only as background. A disabled tractor-trailer occupying a travel lane creates the hazard that the whole sequence came out of. Who left it there, how long it had been there, whether it was lit, whether warning devices were placed, and whether anyone had reported it — those are questions about somebody else's conduct, and they are the ones worth answering. If a claim comes against you, the same facts are the beginning of a defense.

The evidence for all of that is disappearing right now. A disabled truck gets recovered within hours and nobody photographs it.

What you can do

1. Get the crash report as soon as it is available, and read what it says about the disabled vehicle — whether it is recorded at all is itself important. 2. Find out who owned and operated the broken-down tractor-trailer, and whether a tow or recovery was called. A recovery company's records will fix the time and place. 3. Identify witnesses now, including other drivers who had to stop. Their accounts of how long the truck had been there are the evidence that matters most. 4. Photograph the location, the sightlines and the approach, and note whether the stopped truck would have been visible from a distance. Do this before the road looks different. 5. Report the collision to your own insurer promptly. Reporting is not admitting, and late notice is a separate problem. 6. Speak to an Alabama attorney before giving any recorded statement about your following distance or your speed, whether to your own insurer or anyone else's.

⏱ Time limits apply. Ala. Code § 6-2-38(l) gives two years: “all actions for any injury to the person or rights of another not arising from contract and not specifically enumerated in this section must be brought within two years.” Evidence goes sooner — footage is overwritten and memories fade — so the practical deadline is usually much earlier than the legal one.

An Alabama attorney can tell you quickly how the facts here line up, and most will look at a matter like this at no cost.