The driver behind is usually the one who ends up liable in an Indiana rear-end collision, and Indiana law gets there through a single question: was that driver following more closely than was reasonable and prudent? Fault is then divided under Indiana’s comparative fault statute, on the evidence of what each driver did. The driver in front owes a duty of their own, and where the evidence shows that duty was not met, part of the fault can sit with them.
A rear-end crash that leaves both cars driveable is easy to treat as minor, and a neck injury does not become minor because the impact looked survivable. Who pays for it turns on the two driving duties below and on how Indiana divides fault, so it is worth knowing where your own crash sits before you talk to an insurer.
In most cases it is the driver who struck you from behind, and the rule that decides it is IC 9-21-8-14(b). Indiana’s following distance rule is a standard, not a fixed number or a car lengths formula: a driver may not follow another vehicle more closely than is reasonable and prudent, having due regard for the speed of both vehicles, the time interval between vehicles, and the condition of the highway.
That decides what the argument is about. The statute names no car length count and no fixed number of seconds, so a rear-end claim turns on the particulars: how fast both vehicles were traveling, how much time separated them, and what the road was doing. Rain, ice and traffic stopping ahead of you all sit inside that test: the standard’s named factors are the speed of both vehicles, the time interval between them and the condition of the highway.
Where the person who died was not a child as Indiana defines one: the wrongful death lawsuit is brought by the personal representative of the person who died, and that action has to be filed within two years (IC 34-23-1-1).
Where the person who died was a child as Indiana defines one, IC 34-23-2-1 sets out who may bring the claim: the action may be maintained by the father and mother jointly, or by either of them if they name the other parent as a codefendant to answer as to his or her interest; or, after a divorce or dissolution of marriage, by the person to whom custody of the child was awarded; or by a guardian, for a protected person. If the person who was awarded custody has since died, a personal representative is appointed to maintain the action. A child’s claim is not one to leave sitting: Indiana’s two-year injury deadline is the one to work to, so ask a lawyer about your own dates rather than assuming you have longer.
Where a government body may be on the other side of the claim, the notice deadline in the Tort Claims Act section below closes long before those two years do.
The rear driver is not always the only one at fault. Indiana’s answer sits in IC 9-21-8-26. The driver in front carries a duty of their own: where there is opportunity to give a signal, a person may not stop or suddenly decrease the speed of a vehicle without first giving an appropriate signal to the driver immediately to the rear. That is one of the ways fault in a rear-end crash can be shared rather than falling on the rear driver alone.
The precondition matters, and it matters most if you were the driver in front. In an ordinary passenger vehicle stop, working brake lamps are the appropriate signal (IC 9-21-8-27). The duty bites where the driver in front had the opportunity to signal and gave none, as with a burned-out brake lamp. Stopping suddenly is not, on its own, a breach of it.
Indiana divides it by share, and your own share comes off what you recover. Indiana compares fault in a claim against another driver, but not in a tort claim against a governmental entity or a public employee under Indiana’s Tort Claims Act, where the comparative fault chapter does not apply at all (IC 34-51-2-2). Where it does apply, your own share of fault reduces what you recover (IC 34-51-2-5), and only a share greater than everyone else’s combined bars the claim entirely (IC 34-51-2-6(a)).
That arithmetic is why a rear-end claim so often becomes an argument with the insurer about percentages rather than about who hit whom. Our page on what happens if both drivers share fault in Indiana sets out how those shares get decided.
This is the situation where the calendar matters most, and it catches people out. If the vehicle that struck you belonged to a city, a county, a school corporation or a state agency, or if the state of the road is part of what caused the crash, Indiana’s Tort Claims Act adds a notice step before any lawsuit, and its clock is much shorter (IC 34-13-3-8(a), IC 34-13-3-6(a)).
The two years is not the first deadline where a government defendant is involved. Where an injury claim is a tort claim against a governmental defendant under Indiana’s Tort Claims Act, notice comes first: a claim against a political subdivision (a county, township, city, town, school corporation, state educational institution, city or county hospital, or another entity in the definition at IC 34-6-2.1-155) is barred unless notice is filed with its governing body (and, in the cases the statute specifies, with the Indiana political subdivision risk management commission) within 180 days after the loss occurs, and a claim against the state is barred unless notice is filed with the attorney general or the state agency involved within 270 days after the loss occurs.
The notice must be in writing and delivered in person or by registered or certified mail. Both windows are far shorter than the two-year lawsuit deadline, and the Act has narrow exceptions of its own — so if any government body may be involved, speak to a lawyer well before the notice window closes, and do not assume a missed window has ended the claim without asking.
Whiplash is a soft tissue injury to the neck (also called a neck sprain or strain), and car accidents are a common cause of neck pain (MedlinePlus). The MedlinePlus medical encyclopedia describes accidents and falls as causes of severe neck injury as well, among them fractures of the vertebrae, whiplash and injury to the blood vessels.
That is a description of what these injuries are, and no further. What any of it means for you is a question for a clinician who has examined you, and the record that clinician writes is the description of your injury the insurer will work from.
A crash that damaged little more than a bumper still produces that record, and a neck injury claim is built on it. Our page on how long after a car accident injuries can appear covers the timing question separately.
Fault is decided the same way as in any other Indiana rear-end crash: first whether the driver behind was following more closely than was reasonable and prudent, then how the comparative fault statute divides the fault between everyone who contributed to it. What you were stopped for is part of the evidence the question is answered on.
It can. Where the driver in front had the opportunity to signal and gave none, IC 9-21-8-26 is in play, and a burned-out brake lamp is one way that happens. Any share of fault assigned to that driver reduces what that driver recovers, and only a share greater than everyone else’s combined bars their claim entirely.
Indiana gives you two years from when your claim arises to file an injury lawsuit (IC 34-11-2-4(a)). For most crash injuries that means two years from the day of the crash. If a government body may be involved, the Tort Claims Act notice deadline above comes first and is far shorter. Ask a lawyer about your own dates rather than assuming you have longer.
Indiana’s wrongful death statute sets three tests, and all three have to be met. The person has to have been unmarried and without dependents. The third test is age: under twenty, or under twenty-three and enrolled in a postsecondary educational institution or a career and technical education school or program that is not a postsecondary educational program. The definition also includes a fetus that has attained viability. Which side of it your loss falls on decides who may bring the claim, so ask a lawyer.
Personal injury & wrongful death are all we do at Blackburn Romey. A rear-end claim in which the fault share is genuinely disputed is argued in motions and at hearings, which is the work David A. Singleton does: he “handles Blackburn Romey‘s motion practice and oral arguments in the trial and appellate courts.”
If a rear-end crash in Indiana left you hurt, a free confidential consultation is the place to start. We will look at what happened and give you a straight answer about whether there is a claim worth bringing. Call 833-366-6595, or contact us. Our car accident practice covers crashes of this kind.
We have car accident pages for our office cities: Fort Wayne, Merrillville, South Bend, Lafayette, Terre Haute, Evansville and Indianapolis.
Blackburn Romey founding partner Tom Blackburn graduated with honors receiving a degree from Indiana University at the Robert H. McKinney School of Law. Initiating his legal career in 1977, he has been active in practicing law and currently serves as a member of the Indiana State Bar Association on the Ethics and Advertising Committees, the American Bar Association, the American Association for Justice, as a board member at the Indiana Trial Lawyers Association, and as an appointed member of the Executive Committee for the State of Indiana for the National Trial Lawyers Association.
This page has been written, edited, and reviewed by a team of legal writers following our comprehensive editorial guidelines. This page was approved by Founding Partner, Tom Blackburn, who has more than 47 years of legal experience, including over 39 years specializing as a personal injury attorney.
