chaos - the way i have always been taugth is, and im sure many other have, is dont risk it.... if you swerve at 100km to miss a possum on the road, chance is u will lose control... now, saying this, my parents have lived 1 hour out of the city so its fairly country here, with lots of trees and animals.... and i know a few .. drunk ... people that have swerved to miss an animal, and ended up in the paddock on the side of the road.
boost - its a generic rule that if you hit someone in the back, its your fault. In a case of a pile up.. im not fully aware of fault, but i have heard that if u were hit in the back, and u hit the car in front.. it all depends on if u were stationary or not. If you were stationary, the guy who hit u pay for all... if u were rolling still, then your responsible for the car in front of you.
also, had heaps of freidns ram ppl up the arse, 90% of the time the person in front has braked hard for some stupid reason, but they have all had to pay.