Auto Insurance Claims: Approach to expressway, wet road, california road

Question
I was going to make a right turn onto an expressway from a cross street.  A small car went by me on my right in the turn lane.  I pulled into the turn lane behind him, and the car in front of me now accelerated into the express way approach right turn (about 40' of turn lane to a perpendicular Expressway).  There was an extra lane to the side of the expressway for cars to increase there speed to help them merge into the express way.  Also used for decelerating into the next street entrance up a ways.  There were no cars on the expressway so the front drivers' way was clear to go. I made my approach to the curve, looked to see that the expressway was clear which it was, looked back to the curved road in front of me, and the small car hadn't entered the clear expressway, but instead was at a complete stop to the approach to the express way.  I couldn't stop in time, and I skidded on the wet road into his car at 10mph.  Afterwards, in the parking lot, he told me the reason he stopped is because his car has a weak engine that can't get up to speed easily.  He was blaming me, as though I should have known that.  So he's saying he stopped to make sure he could enter the expressway (around 45 mph speed limit on the expressway).  That means he'd be going  from a dead stop up to 45mph, using an entrance right next to the express way lane to do that.  Instead of merging with the extra lane available at 15mph and merging with traffic.  However, there weren't any cars for him on the express way to merge into, the road was clear, as my passenger can be a witness too.  This is a California road.  Can approach curves to expressways be used as stop locations to look for expressway traffic, using an expressway lane as the place to accelerate from 5mph to 45mph, instead of using the extra side lane to the express way to gain ones speed to enter?

Answer
Hi Carl,

You have many questions here, however, all of then are moot. The law states that the person with prontal vision has the greatest duty to know what is happening in front of them. Also anytime you hit someone in the rear you are at fault regardless of why they may have slowed or stopped.

Unfortunately, in this case it appears thet you will be considered at fault.

I hope this helps
Richard Hixenbaugh