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some pleb thumped my poor little car last weekend.
I wasnt there, it was while it was parked up at home (on street)
Its ripped a significant amount of paintowkr off, and left some nasty scrapes, but it was on plastic, so it wont rust, and it hasnt actually cracked or split.
Anyhoo, i was just heading out in said Vehicle, and a loverly lady from the flat opposite (who had one Gold tooth and Love & Hate on her knuckles, just shows you cant judge a book by its cover) came scampering out with a description of events, and the reg of the car that did it (apparently two blokes were trying to bump start a car and lost control of it)
can I claim against these guys?
as described, its not the end of the world, the cars not bent, but if i came to sell it, it would certainly knock a good 10-20% off the price i got for it!
I reckon it was a local car who is parking elsewhere for now, but they probably have T cutted it by now?
Police?
Set the old dear on them.
when a similar thing happened to me I called the police but they 'couldn't find the car's owner' so eye witness plus reg number was useless
iirc, just buggering off from the scene of an accident where damage has been caused without leaving y' details is/was an offence , this happened to me about ten years ago, I reported it to the police and they did follow it up and I did claim sucessfully.
I believe you can request the details of the registered keeper from the DVLA. You need to give a good reason for needing the info (which I suspect this is)
I will be doing this as soon as I get the CCTV footage from work, some ****ing moron just smudged the front of my car in the car park and didn't leave any info. I'm glad we have CCTV. They won't be.
Contact your insurer, they can run a thing called a MIDIS search which will tell if it insurered and can request the DVLA registered owner of the vehicle.
Then contact their insurer and the Police and get a statement taken from the witness.
If they are not insured, make sure gives a physical description of them and sue them via small claims court.
I just used my protected no-claims and had the replacement parts fitted (poorly, but that's another story) by my insurer's appointed garage
Your insurance should find out the details from the DVLA. the police will not give an address out to joe public
Find the type of car - https://www.mycarcheck.com/ - and go looking locally. Some other searches will even tell you the colour.
Leave a note telling them you know what happened, you have their reg, and you have witnesses, and you'd like them to contact you to 'discuss' reporting the incident to Police/Insurance.
AIUI, OP can get their insurance company to look up the details or s/he can obtain them directly from the DVLA. There is no obligation to go through the police or an insurance company in this case as the OP has "reasonable cause" to obtain the information directly: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/OwningAVehicle/AdviceOnKeepingYourVehicle/DG_4022066
Interestingly, that page is phrased in such a way that it suggests that individuals can't request vehicle information for insurance claims - but that is not the case IME. It's especially useful when there is no insurance company involved e.g. when you're riding your bike and some **** in a cab crunches you.
You used to be able to do a free search to see if any vehicle registration was listed in the Insurance Database, although now you need to pay.
[url= http://www.askmid.com/ ]Might be worth £3.50?[/url]
Cheers, Rich
You should report to police anyway as its an offence to leave the scene without leaving details. They may do all the legwork for you anyway.
I was 'that little old lady' last month, saw a freezer lorry drive off with his rear door open, it swung across the pavement, he eventually noticed it in the mirror and slammed the brakes on, which meant it swung forwards hard and punch a hole into the rear door of a hire van, creasing it from top to bottom. Got his details, and then just to make sure I hadn't made a mistake, he did another drive by an hour later to have a proper look at his handywork. 'Victim' was quiet happy as he was picking up a brand new van the next day so could have been worse.
I saw something similar in a motorway services - someone stoved in the side of a parked car trying to park got very red faced & then drove off.
I took his number down, left a note under the victims car windscreen & left my phone number. Had a call from the owner later that day he was grateful about a year later his insurance company called me up asking me if I could remember details... so I guess they got there eventually!
Do you need insurance to push a car up the road ??
This happened to me. Dad caught the buggers pranging my car, checking out the damage and then trying to leg it. Confronted them, they copped and it seemed all would be OK. Then they flatly denied being anywhere near the area. My insurers were useless - basically told me "he's denied it so we can't take it further". Only on my insistence was anything done. Details he left gave wrong address and phone number. Eventually got to court 18 months later with a very peed off judge threatening him with purdgery(sp?) charge if he continued to lie.
The court baliffs treated their whole family like long lost mates (they were regulars). The stranger thing was that he was insured anyway - just thought it would be fun to drag the whole thing through the legal system.
EDIT: Sorry, my point is that you will need to be able to ID the driver, a vehicle can't be prosecuted!
Complete form V888 and post to the DVLA, setting out that you want to trace a party to a road traffic incident:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/OwningAVehicle/AdviceOnKeepingYourVehicle/DG_4022067
Or alternatively (and probably quicker) go via the MID:
http://www.mib.org.uk/Motor+Insurance+Database/en/Motor+Insurance+Database+Information/askMID.htm
(AskMID link appears to be down at present).
Get the details of their insurers, and write to them - you may get success. If not, write to the owner of the car advising you intend to commence county court proceedings. If they don't respond, leg it to the nearest CC and bung in a claim for the cost of the repairs. When they don't reply to that, you get a default judgment.
Once you have that, go back to the insurers and say you wish to pursue them pursuant to s151 Road Traffic Act 1988. That should do the trick.
Just phone your insurance company they will be able to trace the car.
They will then write a letter to the other party.
You will need the witness, as I did not have one ( just a reg left on window )and hence got no where.
Another free way to find out a little info about a car if you have the registration is to go to some of the car tyre web sites and put in the reg plate, they ususally give you a little info about the kind of car it would be, you can also begin to ge an insurance quiote for it and they also usually give you some more info on type, colour model of the car.
i have used both these methods for finding out if parts i have got from the scrap yard will actually fit my car.
Both are free too.
Put the number into www.askmid.com and see whether it comes back as "Insured".
Gutted, no CCTV covering my car at that point. Roll on 1984.
You need to get the Men In Black onto the case. http://www.mib.org.uk/. That is a serious link to an organisation that you pay money to specifically for this type of case. (Or they were a couple of years ago)
Something similar happened to me, someone left a note on my car the registration of the offender so I went to the police. They followed up with the guy and he had to pay for the repairs. Actually he just gave me the money as it was an old car and I said I could sort it out, I just kicked the dent out and lived with it £250 better off 🙂
You need to get the Men In Black onto the case. http://www.mib.org.uk/. That is a serious link to an organisation that you pay money to specifically for this type of case. (Or they were a couple of years ago)
You only pay for it by added premiums, not worth making that worse for a bit of damage, save that for people who are left in wheelchairs after uninsured drivers hit them.
[i]Do you need insurance to push a car up the road ??[/i]
Of course. You need insurance just to leave a car on the road, let alone push or drive it!