Ouch… damaged car on company property! Help

Still laughing at that Jamie! 😀

OP – i think what you are looking for is the 1957 Occupier’s Liability Act…

Of course whether you can convince an insurer to pay out, or a court to find in your favour is a matter of debate. Certainly I’d take some convincing that they were negligent by not removing or marking a security bollard.

I’d also expect you to “walk round” your car when collecting it from a garage to check it for damage (as you are forced to do when collecting a hire car) – which would dilute your “I never knew it was there” argument.

Still it should cheer up some people in the Insurer’s claims department.

Next time it could be a child’s parking space.

I’ve done something pretty similar too so I sympathise with the OP. Hit a concrete bollard in my estate. It was on the inside of a tight bend. Driven passed it a hundred times but one morning I got a little too close.

Would have been nice to be able to blame someone else (its in a stupid place blah blah blah) but it was 100% my fault.

In the OPs case I probably would be a little pissed off. I think the garage giving you a good price on the repairs would be the best likely outcome though. Very little chance of them taking full responsibility

I reversed a fleet car into a badly positioned bollard at work once. The manager was trying to get the taxi bill down and thought he was clever, so made us take fleet cars, and “self-insured” (big companies are allowed to do that) e.g. didn’t have any insurance so the damage came out of his travel budget.

It was a proud moment, esp as I was on redundancy notice at the time, so WTF they let me anywhere near a fleet car I will never know !

All I can say is OUCH OP. 🙁

To mitigate your losers. Go to a few ‘under the arches’ garages for quotes to repair/fill the sill then find a door from a salvage merchants (online or Ebay).

I’d rather do that than claim. Plus your ‘lucky’ in a way. Its probably on private land and you damaged (potentially) a companies property.

Too far away and you’d need to get resprayed:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Toyota-RAV4-2-2-D-4D-2010-XT-R-BREAKING-FOR-PARTS-07860-818524-/110858862116?pt=Automobiles_UK&hash=item19cfb3fe24#ht_1671wt_1185

OR can you reskin a door?

As a new driver who had just passed his test at 17, I remember reversing into a tight parking spot in a van with a bollard at the end of the parking space.

I asked a friend to watch me back, so I did not hit the bollard

He kept telling to to reverse back……………………………………. until I hit the bollard, then he fell into fits of laughter!

Lesson learnt..

Never trust anyone when you are driving, especially young farmers!

😉

Just echo everyone else.

So you crashed into something and it’s someone else’s fault?

Although I suspect its worse than you think, as you owe them a new bollard and installation …

Although the circumstances are different, it is the same manoeuvre – turning left as you pull away, and not anticipating or checking that there may be something in the blind spot below the n/s mirror – that has been the cause of the majority of deaths amongst cyclists in London in recent years.

LOL hs125, a new low, OP is akin to a cyclist killer 🙄

Although the circumstances are different, it is the same manoeuvre – turning left as you pull away, and not anticipating or checking that there may be something in the blind spot below the n/s mirror – that has been the cause of the majority of deaths amongst cyclists in London in recent years.

Even movable bollards tend not to cycle up the left hand side of LGVs though….

Drac – Moderator
Next time it could be a child’s parking space.

I think that deserves a quote.

OP you were looking for some sort of negligence on behalf of the land owner? I’d seriously avoid contacting them.

I’d seriously avoid contacting them.

No, do and post their reply here 😉

(big companies are allowed to do that) e.g. didn’t have any insurance so the damage came out of his travel budget.

Is that right?

I thought 3rd party insurance was mandatory for all except maybe the queen

I can understand them not have comp cover, but that option is open to all not just big companies

My wife did this at Hamsterley with a 18″ thick electricity pole in the main car park.
It was there when she parked and still there when she left but it somehow disappeared when she reversed straight into it.

Bizarrely there was a time travelling parked car outside the child minders that she managed to reverse in to at speed without seeing too.

Must be faulty mirrors 🙄

Must be faulty mirrors

Chances are, they are all pointing at her mouth 😉

They always are in my wifes car!

richmtb – Member
I’ve done something pretty similar too so I sympathise with the OP. Hit a concrete bollard in my estate.

Or as Mcmoonter would write:

mcmoonter – Member
I’ve done something pretty similar too so I sympathise with the OP. Hit a concrete bollard on[/i] my estate.

😀

As I said, different circumstances, but maybe a learning point.
About 20 years ago I flattened a plastic cone I hadn’t seen in a car park under about 12 tonnes of vehicle. The thought that it could have been a person made me a whole lot more cautious, not question why the cone was there. I’m reminded of it every time I see the all too familiar scrapes down the near side of vehicles.

Bit of Duck tape over the hole and job’s a good un.

Feel for you. Wee’re only human and we all make mistakes.

I’d loved to have seen your face when you did it though! You’ll laugh about it down the line one day.

Just put it down to life’s learning curve.

All it takes is to feel slightly tired, condensation on windows etc etc etc. Easy done. Bro in law has driven for almost twenty years, is a careful and thoughtful driver- and managed to hit a 2foot high wooden stake in the ground peeling open his wing.. damaging wing whilst parking in a nature reserve carpark. I didnt laugh as in the same carpark someone had brushed past my paint which miffed me so when I saw what happened to him I 😮 (i.e. it put things in perspective for me)..

I can see how that’s doable so sympathies to the OP (it’s a shite place for that last bollard and if it was raised overnight and he approached from the rear then it’s easily missed), however I doubt you have any grounds for a claim.

Is that right?

I thought 3rd party insurance was mandatory for all except maybe the queen

I can understand them not have comp cover, but that option is open to all not just big companies
Anyone can self insure – by lodging money (I think with the treasury). The sum is quite high – but for a large company possibly the same as a single year of insurance premium. Any payout comes directly from company coffers though (the ‘lodged funds’ are only used if you are unable to pay), so you need to be quite confident that if one of your staff kills someone you will have enough £ to pay or face going bust. Many government departments use this approach. It is quite common for companies to only carry 3rd party insurance for hire / fleet cars though as even if you write off a car a year it can work out cheaper than fully comp insurance.

£500,000 with the Accountant General (off the top of my head).

A similar tale. My sister was sitting her first driving test. She was taken on a standard route on the morning of her test by her instructor, and happened to have a very similar route that afternoon for the test.

Reversing around a corner, she hit a bin in the road. All she could say in a fluster was that “it hadn’t been there that morning!”. She didn’t pass. Don’t think the OP would have passes his test for that piece of driving, but I sympathise, people make mistakes.