content: It depends on which state you're in.  For example, in my state, it's always the fault of the driver in the rear, regardless of who caused it.  There are a few exceptions such as a recording showing that someone intentionally tried to cause the accident by immediately merging in and slamming on the breaks, not allowing the driver to even break in time to recover a safe following distance.  I believe other states will do partial fault depending on the circumstances and they may say that the driver in the rear is 70% at fault and the driver in the front is 30% at fault. I'm not a lawyer (or am I!?) but I believe there is a difference between the traffic court and civil court.  You may be able to argue a percentage fault in a state where the traffic court says you are always at fault. Generally, if someone rear-ends you, you shouldn't call the police unless you really feel like the person is a danger to others.  New drivers often make mistakes like this.  I was once making a right hand turn and stepped off my breaks but didn't release the clutch, causing my break lights to turn off.  The car behind me thought I was going, looked to the left to see if they could go too, and ended up lightly rear-ending me.  I let them go and warned them to never admit fault at the scene of the accident because you never know what kind of crazy, sue-happy people may actually set someone up for such a thing and try to sue for millions.  In my state, the police will tell you to move your vehicles off the road, issue a ticket for following too closely, and that's pretty much the end of it.  Police rarely need to be called for an accident. If you get into a minor accident, find out if everyone is okay.  Take pictures of the scene and then get your vehicles off the road and exchange information.  Take pictures of the damage, licenseplates, and drivers license as long as it matches the driver.  Get your butt back to work so you're not late and find out if the other party wants to settle without informing the insurance company of the incident. I once rear-ended a firefighter because the road was COVERED in oil.  Like, the car just slid like it was on ice and he was sitting there even though the light was green.  He called a friend, an arson investgator, to give me a ticket.  The whole thing was shady-as-fuck.  He never claimed any vehicle damage but I got a letter from the city's workmans compensation firm over a year later asking for information about the accident.  I think it was fraud.