I’m with Trademark on this. Car was illegally parked, would his insurance be invalid?

No, I dont think so – on my recent renewal I was told my insurance would only be invalid if I was under the influence or had not listed any modifications.

That explains why everyone seems to park on the pavement nowadays.

Incidentally its not illegal to park on the pavement except in london and the odd local authority that has brought in laws against it, inherentlythere are no laws against it. I think they can moan if you dont leave 1.2m width as it’s an obstruction.

BTW Diawl, good on you too for offering to pay up, just don’t let him run the show. After all, he only found out about it because of your sons honesty, which is a good reflection on you as a father.

Just because its an accident doesnt mean you lose some responsibility for it.

That’s up to you. You’ve not got kids have you?

If it were my kid it would be told not to scoot too close to parked cars in case of accident

Attacking the OP is a bit low, he sounds like a decent sort.

regardless of whether it should be parked there? Thats what I was told as a kid by my father too, I biked elsewhere and didnt ride into cars as I made sure I was never near them.

Have you ever sought medical attention for that? Most people’s kids aren’t robots. You tell them to do something and ten minutes later they’ll have forgotten about it. It’s not their fault, it’s just kids. Parents understand kids will just be kids, accidents happen and some degree of tolerence is needed, and in this case, accepting that the accident was not entirely the child’s fault is needed on both sides.

Neither of us have seen the car in question so we can’t say but if you would really pay full wack for a repair to an old, possibly tatty car simply because you believe you have a moral responsibility to maintain the high ground rather trying to reach a reasonable agreement with the owner then I’m clearly having my car ridden into by the wrong kids.

if the kids who play outside the back of our house where we park the car were to damage it i would look to the pearents to pay for it ae the kids are their responsability and before you ask yes i do have kids. Just as the bloke if you can get a couple of other quotes though the price seems good to me.

Thanks for the replies. I wasn’t really sure about repair costs, that’s why I asked. The consensus seems to be that it’s reasonable. Just to address some points – my son wasn’t forced into the road because the car was parked half on the pavement. He was ‘scooting’ on the road which, btw, he’s been told not to do. The guy buys cars, does them up to appeal to a certain market i.e. lowered suspension, racing seats, de-badged and sells them on. He’s been reasonable and has told me that he has managed to reduce the price through his work. He’s sending me the paperwork. Good point about not sending him the dosh though. Thanks for the positive comments.

Coffeeking – you have no claim if you are illegally parked. Pavement parking is sometimes illegal and sometimes not as you said. (always wrong tho) a few years ago I hit a car (while on my motorbike) that was illegally parked, they had a claim against me declined as they were parked where they shouldn’t have been

Coffeeking – kids are generally ‘he’ or ‘she’ but rarely ‘it’……

-)

Send your 10 yr old son to the work house to repay his debt for the repair!

Diawl- a good lesson to your son, consquence and shows him the right way. Interms of costs I do think yes due to the age of the car the owner is probably going to pocket the money (but thats his right). IF the car was generally in a poor condition though I would have still brought this up with the owner (otherwise your son would see this as ok behaviour and knocked into other cars probably more expensive as well!).

From a ding from a careless door-opening (we wont go into that one ok again) ;)

I was quoted £300.

“The OP asked where he stood legally, that’s my opinion on that matter.”

Unfortunately, your legal opinion is completely useless (because you’re not the OP’s lawyer) and in fact wrong (I believe – but I am not his lawyer either).

That explains why everyone seems to park on the pavement nowadays.

You have to around my way, its on a blind bend and people dont have complete understanding of how a steering wheel works.

Coffeeking – you have no claim if you are illegally parked.

Insurance may be invalidated but how does that stop a claim (in negligence)?

From my experience of neignbour’s child smashing rear windscreen (accidentally) on my car, they could have claimed on their household insurance for the cost.

But since it didn’t affect my no claims bonus, I put it through that and they paid the excess for insurance.

But kids have accidents, it’s just one of those things, they can’t be held responsible.

errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr………………….

thats the kind of attitude I hate. Kids are as capable as anyone of making decisions, if they have no experience to base those decisions on and make the wrong one then they should face the consequences. Otherwise why would they make the ‘right’ decision next time?

But kids have accidents, it’s just one of those things, they can’t be held responsible.

2/10

Unfortunately, your legal opinion is completely useless

Yep, that’s what I said.

thats the kind of attitude I hate.

What? That kids *are* responsible for their actions? The law disagrees with you I’m afraid and so do I. By all means teach kids what’s right and wrong and encourage them to take responsibility, punish them when the break the rules but in this case a TEN YEAR OLD has had an accident. He’s not vandalised the car, he’s had an accident. I’m just glad my son doesn’t have to live in the tolerent-free world of blame that so many people posting seem to wish we did.

There’s a difference between reasonable expections of children and completely avoiding all responsibility which seems to be lost on a lot of people.

At the end of the day, there was an accident.
The lad owned up to his error, the OP has offered to make ammends financially.
Until the child is 16, they are still considered a “minor” and the parents are responsible for their childs actions as they are the childs legal guardian.
Its unfortunate but accidents happen. The OP is doing the right thing by making good any loss the car owner has sustained. It would stick in my throat too, but i’d still pay up.
As others have said get the invoice sent direct to the OP so this way the work gets done by the people being paid to do it, rather than the car owners back pocket.

Too many people these days look for ways to shirk their responsibilities as decent people. You should be ashamed if you are one, but i suspect you couldn’t care less.

Its a car. Essentially, it is a planet destroying, cyclist murdering tool.
Offer to give the bloke a £197 bike instead, that’s what I reckon.

“a TEN YEAR OLD has had an accident“

Not only an accident, but one *caused* by someone parking on the effing pavement. It’s a child FFS. As said above, if he’d deliberately damaged the car through wilful vandalism, then that’s one thing but he had an accident. That is what insurance is for. Accidental damage.

Some of you really need to take a long look at yourselves.

There’s a difference between reasonable expections of children and completely avoiding all responsibility which seems to be lost on a lot of people.
See now this seems to be where people are dissagreeing with you Samuri. No one has stated that kids dont make mistakes. Show me one who hasnt and i will check for a pulse. What people are saying, just like the OP, is that if a kids makes a mistake it is down to the parent to guide the child into not doing it again and also to take ownership of the kids responsibilities by coughing up for the damage. The OP just wasnt sure if he was getting his leg pulled or not regarding the cost. It was you that insinuated it wasnt his reponsibility.

You havent really let anyone have an opinion other than your own when discussing this.

Someone damages your property beit child or adult, intentional or accidental the owner should still expect to be recompensed. Everyones value of money is different. A tatty car? Whose to say the owner in question works for minimum wage and his car is his pride and joy? If you earned c£200 a week, a car would be a big outgoing and you would cherish it more. So you’d worry about how much you would get back depending on its condition at the time of sale.
My personal idea of a flash car is a 2004 Subaru Forester. There will be people on here who’s idea of their flash car is a Audi A8 etc etc.
I dont care what values you give your kids but if one causes damage you’d rightly expect the parents to pay. If your child broke a neighbours window with a football would you shrug and say ‘thats life’?
would you shrug if the owner was bigger than you or smaller?
Are you the type that dings a car in a Supermarket carpark, looks round then quietly pulls away (‘as these things happen’)?

Coyote, if my son accidentaly kicks his football through my nextdoor neighbours window do i use that statement or do i cover the cost of the window?

Actually i go back 20yrs to when me and my 2 brothers used to smash at least 2-3 neighbours windows every holidays due to playing football in front of the houses. It got to be a running joke that my dad knew the sizes of the windows and had dicount for them.

Never on purpose and we always got a good hiding for it and made to pay for it out of our savings from our paper round. We were told to play football on the school field but were sometimes too lazy. See parental resposibility, good neighbours and we learnt the lesson of not doing as we were told.

You havent really let anyone have an opinion other than your own when discussing this.

You’re wrong.

TheLittlestHobo. Did your neighbour deliberately put his window in a place where your son was likely to kick his ball?

Oh, and…

It was you that insinuated it wasnt his reponsibility.

People posting on here seem to have some problems reading. They do courses at most colleges for free where they will give people refresher courses. I suppose it’s only to be expected what with parents trying to avoid responsibility and all but the OP actually asked where he stood legally. Not morally, legally. I gave my opinion which as has been clearly been pointed out by me and others, is not worth anything at all but I still suspect I’m right in that legally if your kid accidentally bangs into someone’s car and damages it, you as a parent are not responsible.

There is so much s**t in this thread it’s hard to get down to the facts!

Try your home insurance and good luck.

I’m not at all precious about cars. A woman reversed into my old car, denting the drivers door. It was an old car, so I settled for a lower cash payment instead of a higher one to formally do the repair. I crowbarred the door into rough shape and drove it like that for another couple of years, no issues.

Cars are nothing more than metal donkeys! A man who loves his car is a man who needs to open his eyes!

*Off topic I know, deal with it*

mysterymurdoch agree but we are then ‘assuming’ everyone should accept what we would. Some have higher expectations of what they would expect from a situation.

If a friend dropped his bike against mine, TBH I’d let it go. I wouldnt expect someone to let it go though necessarily if I did the same. If this makes sense? :)

Are you suggesting that the car owner deliberatley put the car somewhere so that it would be damaged. From my understanding it was damaged on the roadside rather than the pavement and the OP has stated that his kid hadnt been forced onto the road, rather he was enjoying himself on his scooter on the road.

The windows were indeed put there deliberately by the glazer so that it would be smashed when my sons lack of ball skills caused the ball to clear the trees, the wall, the garden, over the car and then through the window. The blighter!!

Samuri :-)

At what point in this thread have i stated that the OP is LEGALLY responsible for paying for the damage Samuri?

Nowhere.