Car insurance-been rear ended.

I thought it was pretty simple that if you’ve been hit up the bum its the car that’s hit you that is at fault?
I seem to have the worst insurance company in the world who are very pessimistic and pinning me as maybe liable!

Briefly:
I told them i pulled onto the road(it was very foggy)after a lot of checking with my window down, but DID NOT pull out in front of anyone.
But 78ft(24m)down the road i’m hit hard up the rear. The other car has left skid marks 155ft(47.5m)long. But she’s adamant she wasn’t speeding, but i said she was for the conditions. Despite skidding for 155ft she has still carried enough speed to cause £9000 of damage to my car. Its written it off.
She is claiming i pulled out, i never. There was no one on the road-visible-when i pulled out.

My Insurance are very negative and pessimistic, umming and arrghing at every call. Saying how can i prove her speed? I said the pictures of her skidmarks.
How can i prove the weather conditions? I said pictures, and the policeman, despite not making any major inquiries did put poor visibility on his note.

Is there anything i can throw at my insurance to get them to pull their finger out? And show them surely its up to the other driver to prove she was taking care, as it was her who hit me?

Any advice is appreciated as this is really starting to cause me a lot of stress and anguish.

Cheers

If I’ve read it correct, she was already braking as you pulled out…

Hmm.

155 ft skids, and she hit you at 78 ft from the junction, so she was braking before she hit you and she saw you, but you didnt see her.

you could claim for whiplash off her insurance, plus a hire car etc.

Well she wasn’t there, i pulled out and stuck at 30. I reckon she was at least double my speed from the skidmarks (googled stopping distances) and the damage caused.
Wouldn’t she have hit NSF not rear? and a lot earlier If she was that close this is my first real accident in 17 years so i’m not really experienced in it!

Your account doesn’t add up.

You were 24 metres from the junction. The other driver had started braking 48 metres away, which means she started braking 24 metres before the junction.

So you did pull out on her. The reason you didn’t see her, may be because she didn’t have her lights on?

What was the speed limit?

Edit: You managed to get to 30mph and then stick to it, all within 24 metres?

If you were doing 30 in a 30 limit at the point of impact, she was speeding.

If you pulled out believing it was clear and she hit you, she was driving too fast for the conditions and couldn’t stop in the distance she could see.

Maybe.

Ok, the stopping distance at 30mph is about 24m ish, so she was still travelling when she hit you, and clearly was doing more than 30 when you pulled out. However, by your admission, you didn’t see her, but blame her for not seeing you. What was the speed limit of the road?

How can you prove the skid marks were heres? How good were your pictures of them? Have you emailed your pictures to the claim handler?

You realise under new rules, your insurer has only about 14 days to make all enquiries into liability if it’s going to minimise costs under the new Ministry of Justice Protocols, and so won’t be writing for Police Reports – theres never time and the police are hoplessly slow, inefficient and inadequate about this sort of thing. Your best bet might be to ask the attending police officer to make a statement.

In the absence of witnesses, and compelling proof that they were not there to be seen when you pulled out, given they clearly saw you some way before the junction to have started braking, your heading for a split on liability at best. But I say that without any of the “evidence”.

No, she was no there(or visible)when i pulled out, Im sure.

Its a 60 limit road. But at this point you go through a staggerd crossroads and passed a layby and a bus-stop almost opposite each other. And the fog. 60mph is not really a sensible speed in the sunny weather.
I use this junction at least once a day, the other driver works up the road too, so is aware of the dangers.

Cougar;
Thats what i thought, but again i don’t know!

jujuuk68;
No, i didnt know a lot of that.

Pictures have been sent this afternoon, we had internet problems all weekend.
The pictures i have show the skidmarks stop at the point of impact. There is the glass and the coolant on the road at the spot.
I don’t know that she has denied that they are her skidmarks. Its just the the immediate negativity and pessimism of my insurer.

My belief is she was speeding into the fog. She claims it wasn’t foggy where she had come from(i don’t know).
I think she has continued at speed thinking nobody was infront, but didn’t take the junctions into account. By the time she has seen me the breaking distance is not sufficient to stop.
Another second she may have come out of the fog, but i pulled out after i’d waited, observed and thought it was safe.

So she may have been driving with no lights or side lights, on a 60 mph road, she sees you waiting to pull out and brakes, you pull out, and fail to reach max speed for the road, she hits you in the rear, it happens.

Joint liabilty willl sort it out, and your insurance goes up.

It took our insurer 3 weeks, pictures of our un-damaged car and recipts for purchases in shops at the time, to prove that ‘our car’ was not having an accident in Lancashire. We and the car were 300 miles away at home in Perthshire…
I would not take the insurers negativity as much more than proving the case and incompetence.

Project;

To be honest, with the other junction, layby, bus stop and fog. I dont think i was going to do more than about 30. I don’t do 60m through there in the sunshine.

Hmmm…. I’d always say that its your responsibility to make sure its safe to pull out onto a main road. She may have been driving to fast for the conditions depending on how bad they were at the moment of the crash, but she may not have been speeding.
Good luck, but your insurance will probably push for a 50/50, unless you want to take it all the way, in which case you might just lose the case! 🙁

My work is on a very busy 60mph road, If I pulled out from a junction and only accelerated upto 30 mph, I would get hit up the arse too

The amount of people driving in fog without main headlights on is stupidly amazing

MMM, guess its not as clear cut as i thought.
The way my insurance handler was going it was all my fault! Which i just cant accept!
I’m just concerned that if he’s using that negative and pessimistic manner with her insurers its a lost cause anyway.

But her insurance company may be equally pessimistic…

The way my insurance handler was going it was all my fault! Which i just cant accept!

tbh Having now read it was a 60mph road (and the previous info), it certainly sounds like a SMIDSY – and as a biker I’ve ‘witnessed’ many, many of those…

Maybe you need to accept?

If you had of pulled out and then braked hard to avoid bus at the bus stop and she had run into you, whos fault would it have been then, if you hadnt hit the bus.