Rear end collision and third party disputing – any experience?

Oh yeah, sorry I thought they carried further on along the road and wasn’t taking the ZC into account 😳

Isn’t this /\/\/\/\ a refence to reserved parking for Chelsea tractors or something similar?
Or perhaps that there’s a zebra crossing, not literally a zebra crossing the road, but you know what I mean…

So he’s saying I pulled out of the parked cars on left and hit him…

Did you?

Motorists should not overtake, wait, or park in the vicinity”

… which, presumably, is what he did. That’s more ammo for you.

Having seen the picture it now seems fairly obvious what has happened – you may have started to move and he’s gone for the right hand lane, but you then stopped (no law against that) and he hit you.
On this assumption I would say you’re innocent and i’d like to think he’ll get all the blame.

Did you?

No

So do we think it possible that the damage could have been caused from me ‘alledgedly’ pulling out from those parked cars? I think the damage would be worse and I may have spun…

Having seen the picture it now seems fairly obvious what has happened – you may have started to move and he’s gone for the right hand lane, but you then stopped (no law against that) and he hit you.
On this assumption I would say you’re innocent and i’d like to think he’ll get all the blame.

That’s what I wanted to hear!

Lesson learnt – whatever the hold up, get pictures before moving.
(I’ve been guilty of not doing this, but thankfully the bloke ‘fessed up and didn’t change his story after – he hit my van which was stationary in a queue of traffic on a roundabout.)

I think the fact he hit your rear quarter is going to make it hard for him to substantiate the claim that you had just pulled out from a parking space – as if you were in the act of doing so, he should hit the middle/front of your car, not the rear, which of course would be sticking out the least.

I’d say your car is so badly drawn I doubt it’s roadworthy, that could count against you.

Ignoring that, if you didn’t pull out from among the parked cars then it’s all on him.

(But, if you had pulled out from being parked some many seconds and several tens of yards earlier – without any incident at the time – he may be using that irrelevant truth to muddy the waters.)

That’s what I wanted to hear!

Unfortunately it’s not up to me!

Oh Jesus…..why is it so hard to understand what happened?

Single lane roads often split into two lanes at a roundabout. The OP was waiting in the left hand lane, bloke behind attempts to go round the OP for whatever reason into the right hand lane. In doing so, he whacks car.

Zig-Zag lines are for level crossing.

They will always dispute a claim. I had someone reverse into me in a car park and then claimed that she was stationary and I had hit her.
Just hold your ground, be as accurate as you can and stay calm when explaining things.

Have you sent that pic as an explanation to your insurance company. I would. It describes what happened much better than a 1000 word essay.

Good luck!

Zig-Zag lines are for level crossing.

Watch out for the trains!

“To be honest,always get the police involved it makes it more cut and dried”

I had a police report where the other guy admitted he’d forgotten the mini-roundabout was there and had just driven straight across it (into me) but i still copped for a fault accident. I even had a witness. The other insurance company refused to communicate, mine (Directline) decided it didn’t want to go to court so offered 50:50. Shafted.

^^^ HA HA! I am such an idiot.

I of course meant pelican crossing……
toucan crossing……
zebra crossing!

I must have been low on blood sugar or something above. I appear to have had a mini-rantette…..

(Directline) decided it didn’t want to go to court so offered 50:50.

Could be wrong but, I don’t believe they can do that without your agreement.

The OP was waiting in the left hand lane, bloke behind attempts to go round the OP for whatever reason into the right hand lane. In doing so, he whacks car.

stumpy01 – Its as if you were there…(err, were you?)

stumpy01 – Its as if you were there…(err, were you?)

Unfortunately….no, I wasn’t. Hope it gets sorted. I’d keep fighting it. Mine kept coming back to me until the other person’s insurance decided to take it to court. There’s a certain procedure that has to be followed (can’t remember the ins and outs), but it went on right until the 11th hour and then they backed down.

Turns out they had never received a written statement from the woman that hit me. They were just disputing it on the back of a phone call they had with her, where she told them it was actually me that had supposedly hit her.

If you can’t get your story straight and consistent, you’ll get DBFed by the insurance lawyers.

Agreed – or even it just goes to a local magistrates court.

That happened to my brother – he was involved in a collision that he insisted was not his fault (the other party swerved into his path and clipped him).

The insurance people were only going to settle 50/50 even though he continued to refuse to accept that as he was 100% confident he was not even slightly at fault. Then the other party decided to launch a personal injuries claim so my brother’s insurance company then sat up and decided to let it go to court.

At the hearing the magistrate asking a series of questions, to which my brother was clear, honest and confident in answering. The other party started to stumble over simple things like answering ‘was it raining’ with ‘I am not sure, I think it was’ whilst my brother said ‘no, the roads were wet but it was a passing shower that had stopped and my wipers were switched off’.

So basically he won simply because he KNEW his answers – irrespective of whether or not they were true (they were in his case) he was confident and prepared.

^^^ Yeah, I’d agree with that.

When I contacted my insurance company, I had already prepared my statement.
It sounds stupid now, but I wrote a detailed report in Word with a header giving a brief overview of time, date, weather etc.

I then used images from Google Maps to play out what occurred in a series of steps. I did as the OP has above & placed coloured blocks & arrows on the maps to indicate what was going on & where our cars were positioned.

I was very precise in saying how the other car moved in relation to mine and the garage reported that the damage to my car was consistent with the description I had given of the incident.

I also made sure that I knew that statement inside out so every time I was questioned on it, I could recall it the same, every time.

It took about 6 months, but the claim originally went from my insurer’s originally saying the best they expect to get would be 50:50 to me being cleared of fault.

??
Presuming you were stopped at the roundabout when the collision took place, why would you then drive off?

Because car was drivable and I was obstructing traffic

… witnesses then 🙄
not much help now but would have been better to leave it in the way if it meant obtaining a few people to support your version of events.

Type yourself a comprehensive account of the incident (your own witness statement) stick to the facts, dont be emotive and use short sentences. Put in every detail you can (except what you ate for lunch etc)

Draw a big plan showing position of cars at time of impact. Go back and take photos of the scene showing layout etc.

Look at it from his story point of view and work out the holes in that story. Dont conjecture, be logical and methodical.

If his story holds water, it will be down to ‘on balance who’s story, or which parts of both stories, are most likely to be true’ this is where matiles brother got it right, he was the more credible witness.

If other bloke is making it up he will have holes in his story/memory of the events because – he made it up.

Magistrate will also look at what is the most likely senarios in normal traffic real life.

Last, dont be fobbed off by insurance claims handlers, they are mostly untrained morons whoc talk b*****ks. Once had some stupid oik give out to me about fault when he clearly didnt even know the first thing about negligence and duty of care to other road users.

had a similar – driver of other vehicle claimed was side swiped on roundabout sent photos of the damage to our vehicle and of junction layout (pre google map) and that sorted insurance co – other party then tried civil claim (courtesy some ambulance chasers who got sold contact details i guess)and insurance company dealt with that thru legal cover
good luck used to work near there and that roundabout and the leeds ring road ones are terrible for shunts