u/Some-Tap-7449

Location: San Diego

Hey everyone, I need some honest advice about a situation that just happened to me.

I was working for a rental car company where my job was moving and parking vehicles in the lot. I recently got into a work-related accident and was fired a week and half later.

Here’s what happened:

We were almost off shift (around 12:27, shift ends at 12:30). My lead told us to do one more run, so I went to park a vehicle in the assigned area. While driving through the lot, I entered through a route that I had previously been told by my previous supervisor was sometimes used to save time when customers weren’t present or we are almost off.

When I arrived in the area, I turned left I saw the van I was fully stopped. At that moment, a van in front of me started reversing. I honked to alert the Lead driver, but they continued backing up and hit the vehicle I was in. I did not hit them. I tried to reverse but it happened to quickly and accidentally put it on neutral thinking it was reverse but it did not move.

A coworker was inside the vehicle with me and witnessed the entire incident. They can confirm I was stopped and that the van reversed into us.

After the accident, I was asked to write a statement and I was also drug tested (urine test). The accident happened about a week or two ago, and the test results took that long to come back to the company. Once everything came back, I was terminated.

On top of this, I’ve worked with coworkers who have noticed patterns where certain employees were consistently given easier assignments while others were given harder work. Some coworkers are willing to confirm this and say it happened multiple times over a long period. It felt like there may have been favoritism in how work was assigned, though I can’t fully prove intent.

Now I’m trying to understand:

•	Was I at fault for the accident?

•	Was it legal for them to fire me after this process?

•	Do I have any grounds for a complaint or case, or should I just move on?

I’m trying to be completely honest and open to feedback. I just want to understand if this is worth pursuing or if this is just a tough situation I need to accept.