Found this thread and hopefully the OP had it all straightened out, but wanted to share my 2c on a remotely similar thing.
Unfortunately, it is very much possible to end up being liable even for a "contactless" accident in the absence of any hard evidence backing it up, just based on a witness testimony. It seems it depends much on a state - from my limited research some state agencies will not even look into "contactless accident" claims and dismiss them on the spot with "you're just an idiot yourself, next time be more careful" comment (don't quote me on this, but I read this is what Maryland will do in 99% of cases like this). Unfortunately some other states have it the other way round - and my relative learned it a hard way.
The only thing they had was a testimony of a driver that he allegedly tried to avoid a collision due to my relative's unsafe maneuver and ended up in a light pole (no contact at all between cars!), AND a testimony of a driver who allegedly was following him on the road and saw the whole thing. This was enough for a local court to find my relative guilty, slap a fine on him for careless driving or something like that and rule the accident at-fault for him (with subsequent raise in insurance premiums).
Nobody ever inspected his car (and nobody debated that it might well have no damages at all) and the judge didn't even want to listen to his side of the story - the thing was basically "no reason NOT to believe an independent unbiased witness" (who, btw, from what I heard, came to the court hearing in the same car with the victim lol, but those may of course be just rumors).
The only thing that honestly surprised me is why this is still not a much more common type of insurance fraud now with how easy this was on the accuser's side...