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I don't know about the procedure in question, but maybe someone else will chip in. I assume your friend is concerned about having a moving violation for insurance purposes, since the fine isn't really significant.

Regretably, there is an assumption in most jurisdictions that if a car behind clips a car ahead, it was following too close and is presumed to be at fault. This is pretty much regardless of what the car ahead does. I agree that the car ahead in this case behaved very foolishly, but I'm not sure what the chances are of making that point so it will stick with the courts or the insurance company.

I should probably say nothing, since I know so little about these things. And I am very sympathetic to your friend's plight. However ...

Any contact between a "car in front" and a "car behind" might (possibly) be seen as cold hard proof that the "car behind" was at an unsafe distance. Had your friend been 2 miles back, no contact would have been made. So 2 miles was a safe distance. The actual distance in the case you are citing might well be seen as "unsafe" on its face.

Not trying to be a jerk, but courts are often pretty literal-minded.

A few years ago, I was involved in an accident when I hit a pickup truck who had made a left turn on a straight green light. I was coming from the north and had the green light. The other vehicle was coming from the South and was in the turning lane. The let turn arrow on the turning lane was already turned off, hence my green light. As I proceeded through the green light the other vehicle did too, and wham. This happend early in the morning and the driver of the Truck had turned of his headlights, because he was going in to Ft. Campbell where it is required to turn of the lights when going through the gates.

To make the stor short, the police officer gave me a ticket for failing to yield. I went to court and the Judge didmissed the case when I proved that I had the green light.

The bad thing about your friend is that he might not can prove that the vehicle in front of him made an illegal U turn in front of him. As far as I know it is illegal to make a U torn across the median on a Interstate.