Rear Ended by a Semi-Truck But Found At-Fault

My question involves a traffic ticket from the state of: California

In a nutshell, my car rear-ended by a semi truck on the freeway, truck driver not at fault because my car brake-checked him not just once but twice and on the second brake-check caused the truck to hit my car. The only witness states nothing about any malicious braking, only that the truck driver had been speeding and did not apply his brakes in time to miss my car.

My friend was driving my car at the time, I was not in the vehicle but there is a witness and he said the truck driver was speeding and at fault as far as he is concerned. But the truck driver states that my friend purposely put the car in the lane in front of him and slammed on the brakes for no reason. My friend said there were cars in front of him, he was on a freeway in CA at about 9:00 AM, that were stopping so he had to stop. But, according to the truck driver, he (truck driver) moved to another lane and my friend also moved in to the same lane in front of him and again, slammed on the brakes...for no reason! If my friend is causing ("brake checking" allegedly) the truck driver to have to stop suddenly, not just once, but twice... Why didn't the truck driver slow down and let my friend get a fair distance away so as not to be anywhere near him? Does that make sense?

The final report from the CHP finds the driver of my car to be at fault and violating the minimum speed requirements because the witness said he did not see if there was traffic in front of my friend that was causing him to have to slam on his brakes.

First off, your description of what happened and what you claim was in the CHP report do not match up at all and make no sense whatsoever.

With that in mind I'm going to whip out my crystal ball and suggest the following. Most truckers now have dash cams in their front windows. I am going to bet your friend told his story to CHP, the trucker told his version, then pointed to his dash cam and said, "Take a look." I'm going to further bet that the dash cam supported the trucker's story about brake checking and made your friend out to be a liar. Hence, your friend was found at fault, your insurance will pay if your friend has none, and if the loss exceeds your insurance limits, be prepared to empty your savings account and sell off your stuff to help pay the difference.

The moral of the story: Don't let idiots drive your car.

From reading your original post, your friend maneuvered to the left lane to then stop in traffic in front of a truck.
To me it seems your friend did not allow for the breaking distance of the truck, and even though the truck also changed lanes (behind him) he may have been trying to place himself in what he thought to be the safest lane UNTIL your friend also popped in!
As car drivers on the road, we should not jump lanes in traffic to then immediately stop eith a truck coming up behind..
To me it looks as though (from your writing) that your friend was in the wrong. Just bad timing, because if it were a car coming up from the rear THEN your friend would have been in the right, as car drivers require less time to stop than trucks.
"brake checking" allegedly, is correct EVEN if your friend was ignorant to what was happening at the time.

Quote:

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Quoting L-1

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your insurance will pay if your friend has none

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FIY I've seen this claim being made a bunch of times when I was test-driving people's cars that I wanted to buy. Basically they were asking me if I had insurance so that they wouldn't be responsible for anything I did with the car.
However, searching online as well as asking the insurance companies, all the answers I found were that insurance follows the car, so basically the owner is ALWAYS responsible. If the non-owning driver has his/her own insurance, it will not apply, the insurance company will reject any claim ( unless the car is from a rental company and the policy has a special exclusion for rental cars ). Any damage done by the car will be the responsibility of the owner and the owner then has the option to pursue the actual responsible party(unless the car was taken without the owner's consent).

Would love to know if someone has more info / experiences with this.

You are right in California, the accident vehicle owner's policy is liable but that doesn't mean the person casually borrowing (or otherwise driving) someone else's car does not also have protection under their own policy. My policy for example will cover ME in the case that the borrowed vehicle has insufficient insurance.