Popped into the local store and came back to be greeted by a kind soul that had witnessed a bloke reverse into my car. The guy had stopped and inspected the damage and then just drove off!

The witness gave me a reg number but was vague on everything else apart from car colour and that it was “an old guy”.

My assumptions are: –

Tesco will not give a crap as its not their liability.
The police will have zero interest as its on private property.
The driver will deny everything even if I find him.

Judging by the last Tesco prang (I appear to be a magnet in these places) I estimate £150 max to get the car sorted (its pretty minor). Assume I have to take a deep breath and accept that stress in my life isn’t going to improve by pursuing this?

I do have the reg number and its distinctive so my inner fury may find a home at some future point…

I’d be surprised if Tesco don’t have CCTV in their car park?

People are often creatues of habits. If you go back there weekly a
T around the same time you may well sport the car and get the chance to talk to him/invoice him

Try and get Tesco to check the CCTV.
You can get some of the car details on mycarcheck.com using the reg number, if that helps.

You say the damage will cost around £150. Whats the excess on your insurance? If you claim on your cover then the insurance company should do the chasing around for CCTV and liability from that old bloke. But it’s possible they might increase your premium and is it worth it for a £150 repair bill. How old is the car and do you like to have it immaculate?

You’re insurance company will contact Tesco to ask for footage, if it has caught anything then your insurance will chase after them.

Yeah – the insurance bit should have been my fourth bullet point – even if they do have cctv and the insurance gets involved I guess my premium will see an increase? Even though its protected no claims – they always find a way to decide that I’m a higher risk.

I’ll talk to Tesco to see if they have cctv covering that area. The car is a 2009 Mondeo so we’re not talking pristine but it just boils the preverbial that that people like that get away with this type of behaviour.

DVLA and request driver details.

Plus the old chap in the car has commited a crime by driving away from the scene of an accident. I’m sure the Police would be interested in that.

https://www.gov.uk/request-information-from-dvla

Happened to my wife. She reported it to the local police station. They phoned up the old guy there and then, who admitted to it. At this point we then got the insurance companies involved, and his company paid up without a fuss.

You may just get as lucky as us, so give it a go. If he doesn’t immediate admit liability then you can then ponder as to whether to take it further.

– Ask Tesco if they do have CCTV covering that part of the car park.
– Report to your insurers as “notification only” as this time, won’t go against policy, but they can run an MID Search to tell you whether the other car is insured.
– once you have the third party insurers, report the accident to them.
– Report it to the Police, if he has hit vehicle and driven off, they should at least visit the other driver and see if there is corresponding damage on their car.
– Get a “pro-forma” invoice for the repairs needed to your car, if the other driver still denies the accident and if you are satisfied that they caused the accident, then seek recovery via Small Claims Court trying to get a statement from the witness.

Similar thing happened to my Mum a few years ago, phoned her insurance, gave them the reg number and started the claim process – other driver admitted the prang and a new bumper later, it was like it never happened.

You can withdraw a claim at any point, you can also easily tell your insurer you’re not interested in completing a fault claim if you want.

Insurance companies, not always shit.

You can withdraw a claim at any point, you can also easily tell your insurer you’re not interested in completing a fault claim if you want.

Careful telling the insurance company about anything. I left the handbrake off my car and it hit the garage. I started going through the insurance, but when the final bill came in it was only just above the excess. I told the insurance company that I wasn’t to claim, and to remove it from my records. And now 4 years later it is still on my records….

The old man has been listening to Brian….

I had a similar incident on a pub car park and the police weren’t interested as it was on private property, ergo no road traffic offence committed!
Basically it boils down to you and/or your insurance co being ‘private detective’ to sort.
If you find out who it is you can threaten him with a private claim through a solicitor and that might force some cash out of him, or go via your insurance if damage > excess.

OK – so I shouldn’t moan and then do nothing! With that in mind I’ve reported to the police and have an incident number. They will now contact the registered keeper and will be back in touch with me. Police reckon Tesco won’t release any cctv to me (no great surprise) but they should be able to keep it in case of a claim later on.

We’ll see.

I had a similar incident on a pub car park and the police weren’t interested as it was on private property, ergo no road traffic offence committed!

Police fobbed you off. Careless driving is on a road or other public place.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/3

Multi storey car parks, hospital car parks and pub car parks during licensing hours have been held to be public places. A pub car park may only be a public place after licensing hours if the public, in fact, do use the car park at that time.

http://www.1itl.com/news/284/

Public place also applies to the failing to stop/report offence.

170 Duty of driver to stop, report accident and give information or documents.

(1)This section applies in a case where, owing to the presence of a [F60mechanically propelled vehicle] on a road [F61or other public place], an accident occurs by which—

RTA 1988 S170

Tesco’s car park may be private property, but its publicly accessible i.e. a public place.

Plenty of streets are privately owned but it makes no difference if you have a prang.

A yellow megane convertible left a fair bit of paint on my car a few years ago. He was a repear customer too. In knew this but left it as my car at the time wasnt worth the hassle.

Police have called back – they are contacting the witness first before they trace the registered keeper – seems common sense enough. Somewhat pleased (and surprised) that they have acted so quickly.

What is your excess?

My door blew open once and smashed someones wing mirror off. I tried to find them but can only guess their excess was more than the value of my car.

Get his details from DVLA, contact him and ask him to pay for damage or else you’ll report it to both police and insurance.

Trust me it would be by far in his best interests to pay up, he should see sense. Don’t tell your insurance company, not worth it for the hassle and probable increase in your premium despite being non-fault.

Oops just seen you’ve already called the police.

Just like fanatic278 said, once you mention it to the insurance company it goes foe as a claim on your file (even though you’re claiming on the other party’s insurance or if you decide to settle up in cash peeve not pursue it).

Happened to me in a hospital car park. I used the insurance company to trace them, whereupon they fessed up immediately and went through the process of paying 600 quid to repair my car. Next time I went to insure my car I couldn’t complete the online form – on calling the insurance company I discovered the “claim” on my file. Heated discussion ensued. I took my business elsewhere and immediately ran into the same issue!

There was a thread on this recently.

– Report to your insurers as “notification only” as this time, won’t go against policy, but they can run an MID Search to tell you whether the other car is insured.

I tried notification only. Woman in a car reversed into my car, round about the time the 15 occupants all with whiplash scams were rife so notified no damage and no claim.

Premium went up at renewal as I’d had reported an incident. Sing to the tune of Have Love, Will Travel. Make call, inflate premium 🙂

Yep same happened to me. Don’t report to insurance as premium will go up. That£150 will disappear pretty quickly. Shit but true

Police fobbed you off

More likely civilian desk staff without a clue fobbed him off. It is very rare that a real live PC will answer the 101/999 calls

Update – Tesco has no cctv covering their car park – just the front entrance. The witness email address appears to be wrong. Police have little option left to them. They will now assign to an office who will (time permitting) make sure the registered keeper provides his details and vice versa.

At least I tried…

Update – Tesco has no cctv covering their car park – just the front entrance. The witness email address appears to be wrong. Police have little option left to them. They will now assign to an office who will (time permitting) make sure the registered keeper provides his details and vice versa.

At least I tried…

Just goes to show the inconsistency in police approach. When it happened to me the witness just left a note on my windscreen with the car registration details. They never left any contact details for themselves. Nevertheless, the police still had no problems phoning the old guy immediately.

The witness email address appears to be wrong

Have you tried to contact the witness yourself? Not saying that some Police are illiterate or anything. 😉

Roter – tried all derivations of the email address that I can think of. I thought it would be the lack of a ‘dot’ between the names but all get returned.

Perhaps I’ve been duped and it him that pranged the car!! Gave me some dodgy contacts to make it look like he’d swapped details!

Fanatic – they will contact the driver but now have no evidence that he left the scene knowing that he’d had a prang. If they can’t prove it then all that’s left is a bump between civilians and a whole load of insurance hassle…

Police fobbed you off

More likely civilian desk staff without a clue fobbed him off. It is very rare that a real live PC will answer the 101/999 calls

Same difference. The organisation fobbed him off. Either deliberately or through poor staff training. It’s hardly an uncommon scenario. Civvy staff should know the law on it.

If ever you hit an un occupied car in a car park always leave a false address and apology and telephone number,on a piece of paper, witnesses then think youre being a good driver accepting blame you drive off, everyone happy except the owner of the car youve hit.

Its an old scam but works for a lot of the time. oh and i cant condone these actions, as thats what insurance is for .