My Car Died in the Middle of the Road. What Do I Do?

We have all probably posed this question to ourselves at one point or another, "What do i do if my car died in the middle of the road"? This is something that is more common than it may seem on the road. Although you may not have ever had this happen to you personally, it is likely that you have seen it happen to someone else. Unfortunately, having your car die is usually unpredictable. You could be driving just fine and boom, the car dies. There could be multiple things that caused this to happen. The battery died, a belt came off, or your transmission could have decided it was its time to go. To add to this bad situation, you are now sitting in the middle of traffic because your car died. So, what do you do?

Sometimes drivers are able to pull over in time when they notice that their car is about to die. But, sometimes others are not so lucky. The worst-case scenario in this case would be that your car dies in the middle of the road, you can’t move, and then another car hits you. It is hard to not focus on talking about whether the other person saw you or not or why your car died in the first place, but you now have to deal with being in a car accident and having your car die. One thing you may be wondering is if your car insurance will still cover the cost for the damages. This depends on what type of insurance you have. It is likely that the insurance company will offer at least some assistance for the damages, but due to the fact that your car had died, you may be in a bit of a pickle. 

Due to the fact that your car had died, the car will have to be inspected to see if you had any maintenance that you could have done to avoid that happening. If there was something that was unavoidable that you were not aware of beforehand, you would be more likely to receive compensation. But, if you did not get the appropriate maintenance needed for your vehicle and your car died because of this negligence, it is far more unlikely that the insurance company will cover the damages because this could have been avoided all together. Most of the time, when your car dies it is not directly the drivers fault. If this happens to you, you should be sure to pull over if you can and/or put your hazard lights on. If you do these things you will most likely not be considered to be at-fault.

The most common accident to happen when a car dies in the middle of the road is to get hit from behind. This can happen very easily when the driver behind you was driving either too closely behind you and did not have enough time to stop or they were distracted. This all goes back to the importance of maintaining a safe following distance while driving and to be sure that you have your eyes on the road at all times. Running into someone who’s car has suddenly stopped is very easy. Be sure to pay close attention in case you come across this happening to someone else on the road or even to yourself.