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1. LMT - Member

   Had a minor bump yesterday in the car, not great start to the week. Other driver got out and first comment was you stopped? yep bus in front stopped across 2 lanes in front, so i had to stop. It wasn't a sudden stop it was a slow paced stop with traffic flow. She hit my rear wing, dent in bumper, a chunk out of my rear wheel, rear wheel arch went from curved to flat pack style.

   Pulled to the side of the road, she got out the car again, and said get a quote i will pay, here's my number give me a ring with the amount. I took her details, photo of her car which tbh looked in worse state than mine looks like her front end just crumpled compared to mine which just flattened out, took a few shots of mine job done.

   Headed back home, got a quote from a mate his words where costly and i would be carless for at least 10 days as his words ive got that silly blue paint which takes ages to match, french blue he called it. He recommended insurance job, get a them to sort it would be better than her to pay up front as would be at least £1k min.

   Thoughts on this? call her back and say its going to be atleast 1k? or just call the insurance and let them fight it out.

   Posted 6 months ago #
2. Surrounded By Zulus - Member

   Always get the insurance involved.

   Posted 6 months ago #
3. Drac - Moderator

   It's what she pays her insurance for, contact yours and sit back pulling your hair at for weeks whilst they palm you off and eventually pay for it anyway.

   Posted 6 months ago #
4. bruneep - Member

   Thoughts on this

   Its RTC now Road Traffic Collision. RTA: road traffic accident, implies there is nobody to blame/Cause.

   Other than that call the insurance Co

   Posted 6 months ago #
5. carlos - Member

   If you going to go down the route of letting her pay, get 3 propper written quotes and present them to her.

   Personally I'm with SBZ on this and would involve the insurance without a doubt.

   Posted 6 months ago #
6. LMT - Member

   Thanks for the correction RTC

   Posted 6 months ago #
7. druidh - Member

   Insurance.

   It's her fault if she ran into you, regardless of how and why you stopped - and she probably knows this.

   Posted 6 months ago #
8. CharlieMungus - Member

   Depends on the value of your car. I had a very minor bump, if it were my own fault i would have left it. But i didn't want to find myself in a situation a few months down the line where I'm trying to sell the car and someone is try to knock of a few quid because of it. So, turned it over to insurance. In the end, the cosmetic fix cost her company nearly as much as the car was worth. I'd have happily taken half of that and just left it.

   Posted 6 months ago #
9. stevepitch - Member

   Insurance for that much damage oddly enough this happened to me only the other week. Lady went into the back of me but the damage was minimal the tiniest crease in the boot floor but as the cars only worth a grand I knew they would right it off if I claimed so left it.

   Yours sounds a lot worse and I'm sorry I would be reluctant to get the work done unless I had all of the money up front for the work and to cover a rental.

   Posted 6 months ago #
10. LMT - Member

    Should i call her and tell her im going insurance or just let them sort it out. TBH i haven't been in contact with her since the accident.

    The other snag is, the car had major repairs about 2 months after i brought it, city council bin lorry reversed into it, all the back end had to be rebuilt, my mates concern was the damage to the previous repair.

    Right will phone insurance now, take it from there.

    Posted 6 months ago #
11. Surrounded By Zulus - Member

    Dont call her. Just involve the insurance and let them sort it out. I take it that you have let the police know about the crash? If not, you also need to do that.

    Posted 6 months ago #
12. stumpy01 - Member

    INSURANCE.

    Otherwise you will ring her and say "I've got a quote it's going to be £1k+"
    She will say "How much - but it was hardly damaged" and start to change her story, you reversed into her, she wasn't there, it wasn't her car, she was on holiday at the time........

    Posted 6 months ago #
13. LMT - Member

    Well called insurance, emailed them pic's of my car, her car, picture of the junction etc.. Got the call back as they see it her fault, as i said!! Car will be picked up today by 2pm and a courtesy should be dropped off by 7. Waiting game for my day off.

    Posted 6 months ago #
14. 5lab - Member

    be *VERY* careful that your courtesy car isn't provided on a credit hire. These have very high costs (often ~£100 a day) which the other party can turn down. They're beasically rip off merchants.

    Posted 6 months ago #
15. v8ninety - Member

    Not required to report to the police unless an injury, or third party property damage who is not present.
    Damage to cheap cars that are otherwise still roadworthy but not worth repairing, in my experience insurance companies will offer cash in lieu of repairs. Might be an option.
    Not withstanding the 'obligation' that you have to inform your insurance co of ANY bump, coming to an arrangement might be a good idea, as it keeps yours and the cars records off the databases. (but technically could be considered fraud. Benifit needs to be weighed carefully against risks of her not paying up or being an arse, anyway.

    Posted 6 months ago #
16. LMT - Member

    Hhhhmmm Enterprise supply the courtesy car, need to weigh up what they have to say when they call, need a car probably twice in the next week due to shifts, rest of the time i could catch the bus.

    Posted 6 months ago #
17. 5lab - Member

    if its enterprise its probably legit, just carefully check any paperwork they send you. if its more than £40-50 a day then turn it down and arrange hire yourself

    Posted 6 months ago #
18. Surrounded By Zulus - Member

    The credit hire thing is a bit of a racket but they tend to get you to sign an insurance policy, which costs you nothing, which guards you against any liability for cost of the hire car.

    Posted 6 months ago #
19. stevepitch - Member

    On the note of notifying the police you dont have to if no one was injured or so I was in informed

    Posted 6 months ago #
20. wheelz - Member

    A similar thing happened to me about four weeks ago. Driving slowly through a car park on the main thoroughfare and a young girl in a hurry to get to work pulled out of one of the parking rows without looking, on the wrong side of the road, straight into the nearside wing of my car. No witnesses.

    She admitted liability on the spot, gave me all her details and said that her father was a mechanic and would be able to repair the damage. I got the car home and, on checking, there was a lot of damage and it was obvious it was going to be expensive.

    So, I called the insurance company and left it for them to deal with.

    Surprise, surprise, she refused to admit liability (when her insurance company eventually contacted her - she didn't report it) and now her insurance company want to go knock for knock, which would cost me a £350 excess and whatever premium increase my insurance company deem appropriate. Their argument is that it was in a car park , so I should have been paying more attention.

    My argument is that she should have been looking where she was going, stopped before pulling out and that I was in no way to blame for the collision.

    Luckily, although it wasn't reported to the police, I got loads of photos of the collision that also showed the position of both cars in relation to the main thoroughfare. When I checked the OS maps for the area I discovered that the part of the car park I was on is classed as a road, as it is the only access to the street behind the car park, so it was no different to her pulling out of a T-Junction without looking.

    I am still awaiting a response to this information from her insurance company, but I'm not holding my breath.

    If something like this happens again then I won't be going anywhere until the Police have attended!

    Posted 6 months ago #
21. stumpy01 - Member

    wheelz - Member

    Surprise, surprise, she refused to admit liability (when her insurance company eventually contacted her - she didn't report it) and now her insurance company want to go knock for knock, which would cost me a £350 excess and whatever premium increase my insurance company deem appropriate. Their argument is that it was in a car park , so I should have been paying more attention.

    Wheelz - tell them to take a hike. I had a similar thing in a cinema car park. The woman reversed into me, then claimed that she had been stationary and had hit her.
    Insurance company wanted a 50/50 and I told them no way. It went all the way to court proceedings with letters going back & forth between our insurance companies. Basically they waited until the very last stage before it was definitely going to end up in court and then they backed down and I got full payment and it ended up as a no-fault claim on my record.
    They will try to either worry you with court action or just hope that you give up & accept 50/50. Keep at it and don't accept any less than 100% her fault!

    Posted 6 months ago #
22. wheelz - Member

    Cheers stumpy01. I have every intention of taking it all the way to court if necessary, as I was in no way liable.

    It's become a matter of principle now, as she refuses to accept responsibility for her mistake and that's a particular bugbear of mine.

    I'm already £350 out of pocket, as I had to pay the excess when I collected the car from the repair workshop. Obviously I will get this back if I'm deemed not at fault in the future, but it's still annoying.

    Posted 6 months ago #
23. Munqe-chick - Member

    Haven't read rest of thread except for OP, do it through your insurance company so no issues/allegations, plus she is knackered she went into your behind! Simple she is at fault.

    As mentioned as well don't have to call police and they won't do anything as it was non-injury and they weren't called to scene. SO it's not like they were phoned at the time and may have relevant paperwork to assist the insurance company. Just ring your insurance and pass her details on, don't ring her as you could be open to all sorts of allegations.

    Posted 6 months ago #
24. Mrs Toast - Member

    I remember on a supermarket carpark a bloke reversing out of his space on a busy Saturday morning, straight into a woman's Fiat Punto. She was in a queue waiting to get out, cars in front of her and cars behind, and was completely stationary at the time. The guy just reversed straight into her, panicked, reversed into her a bit more, then moved. He then said that he just didn't see her, but it was her fault for blocking his exit. :/

    Felt really sorry for her, it was a brand new car she'd only picked up the day before. It was also a hideous bright yellow, so how he didn't see it I'll never know. :/

    Posted 6 months ago #
25. LMT - Member

    We had one at work where the woman had put on foot on the accelerator instead of the brakes, went straight through the parking bay, into the car opposite, into the car going past and wedged the car into the support beam of the store.

    When she got out the car she had no idea what she had done wrong.

    Well my car has gone, still no news on the courtesy car, might have to get the bus to work tomorrow and a mile walk.

    Posted 6 months ago #
26. NZCol - Member

    I got hit in a tunnel from behind when i was in stationary traffic. Strangely the woman that hit me decided it was my fault that she didn;t realise i was stationary (foot on brake, brakelights on!) and thus the blame was on me. Bizarre. Went to court steps before the insurance co backed down - amazing. Wrote off a 1mth old Forester - thank fook for airbags as she was doing 80kmh (in a 50 limit). She got done for danegrous driving and driving without due care & also DIC which was interesting as it was 8am and she had just fnished a night shift but had a couple fo drinks afterwards.

    Posted 6 months ago #
27. Munqe-chick - Member

    It's amazing what people try on though we were driving a little 1.2 Skoda along a dual carraigeway 50mph, having just joined it from a roundabout, massive Waitrose lorry pulled onto dual carriageway behind us and hit us as we were moving!!!!! He quite clearly has just pulled out of depo and was fiddling with his sat nav! he straight away jumped out and said "i'm phoning the police as you are in the wrong" ..WTF!!! Police turned up and said "shift it" on dual carriageway causing mayhem, no injury! he tried to fight it for a while as I imagine Waitrose would have gone ape, however no surprises he was in the wrong and they paid out! Plums though!!!!

    luckily bikes were in car and not on a bike rack othewrise it would've been a super expensive trip!

    Posted 6 months ago #

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