My wife phoned me yesterday a bit upset after she had gone to pick up our kids from school. She had parked our car in a legitimate parking bay outside the school and then gone in. When she got back to the car a bloke approached and said “I have got the details of the van that has just hit your car!”
Basically what appears to have happened is some bloke in a van has tried to park in the bay behind our car, hit our car and then driven off.
“He always parks in that bay” says the witness. He gave my wife the details, although he was a bit worried about reprecussions of him being a witness and that this bloke would come and put his windows through or something.
Anyway, I told my wife that she needed to go to the Police, but before that I decided to phone the company who the van belonged to, to see if we could get it sorted out without having to go through insurance companies, to keep things simple! Especially because insurance companies will put your premium up even if an accident wasn’t your fault, as we have discovered in the past (don’t see why I should be out of pocket because of someone elses mistake, but insurance companies are the incarnation of the Devil anyway). The woman I spoke to was the Managing Director’s PA was quite pleasant and apologetic, asked me to pass on the reg number and she would contact the manager responsible for the vans and drivers.
On my way home last night, I drove past the school and sure enough there was the van, parked in the bay that my wife had parked in earlier.
My wife had a phonecall to day from the driver’s manager to say he wasn’t working yesterday and has no recollection of hitting another vehicle. She gave my wife their insurance details and told her to let the insurance sort it out.
This has really left me feeling like going round to this bloke’s house, dragging him out of his front door and smashing his head repeatedly against the door of his van. The bloke is obviously a liar and a tw@t. He left the scene of an accident without leaving his details and now is denying all knowledge of it. He obviously ain’t to bright, because the accident happened in the bay where he regularly parks his van, he was seen by an independant witness and yet STILL he denies all knowledge and so now we have gone to the Police, so hopefully he has made it worse for himself. We probably wouldn’t have bothered going to the Old Bill if his company had just said send us the bill and we will pay it. But now we have to faff around with insurance companies and filling in forms etc. I am very grateful that we have a witness, because otherwise I would have just been left with a damaged car and a bill to pay, but why can’t he just own up to it. I pray something really nasty happens to him at some point in the future, preferably in a way that feels unjustified.
Very annoying. It seems to me that all the good people have gone somewhere else. The culture of standing up and taking responsibility for ones own actions has been replaced with the slopey shouldered syndrome. It really and truely does get to me both in the work environment and out there in general. Ive said it on a thread here somewhere before and ill say it again… I am getting really fed up with pulling my own weight, doing the right things, working hard and paying my way only to be seemingly shafted left right and centre.
knwo how you feel, I was in a pub car park once, the van next to me had clearly knocke my mirror off (as my paint was down the side of his van) took pics and that, when I rang the compant they pretty much laughted!!!
Having to deal with insurance claims has always been an unpleasant chore but now I’m older I don’t bother with waiting before acting and giving another party a chance to do the “right” thing. Most of the time you won’t get any thanks by anyone for being like that. Many have no claims insurance and will want to use it.Get a witness or more asap that makes all the difference, pics if possible, call the police and call the insurers immediately and stop thinking about it. Rent a Jim Carrey movie or something lol
Overthinking how things should be done and almost always them not going that way is only going to spoil your day/week/month on top of the actual damage so try and put the situation through the grinder and forget about being helpful to the third party that put you in this situation in the first place.
In this situation I always expect the people I’m going to deal with to be unhelpful and unpleasant, if they are not then I’m pleasantly surprised but if they are then I’m sort of prepared for it, meh.
If it makes you feel any better, a few years ago I was hit by some twot who decided to overtake me in a 30 limit but when faced by a bollard in the middle of the road decided to carry on and swipe the front of my car rather than brake.
He span round, none of the other cars behind would give their details to be a witness, but he did give me his details and insurance details. Off he went.
Fortunately (as you will see), his insurer was the same as mine.
A week later I get a letter from the insurers containing a statement from him and his work boss to the effect that he was in work elsewhere all that day so couldn’t be him.
Fortunately, he wrote in long-hand and his very unusual style (all capitals, some funny) exactly matched that I had sent to my insurer beforehand in a copy of the details he gave me. So I pointed out to them that any Judge would say that the hand-writing was a clincher, so we had 2 choices, either go to court with my legal insurance so that the insurer (Direct Line) could sue itself, or they could pay for all my repairs with no excess and put it down as a ‘no claim’ claim. They were sensible.
Top tip: always get witness statements, be nasty if you have to, pretend to faint, whatever but get their details.
As an aside, all insurers have a ‘claim’ based NCD system where blame is irrelevant - you have to sue the other side for the claim or loss of NCD/increased premium (yes, those nasty insurers also put up your next premium for a claim even if the same % NCD applies to it through a protected NCD policy).
This lack of a sense of personal responsibility to each other that people have these days is an aspect of modern living that winds us all up -
I guess it’s because as human beings we originated in small groups or communities where basically every one knew each other - if someone did you wrong everyone would know about it and the perpetrator would be expected to make amends or risk exclusion from the group.
These days in our mass atomised societys where there is no personal connection between people - a lot of people don’t feel that they have any personal duty to their fellow citizen.
Not everyone is like this though (thankfully) and there are still a lotof decent people out there who will do the right thing.
It’s a nice evening Waxy - go for a nice walk around the block and chill out! ;)
I am sorry to say that if he hit my car and drove off I would not for one minute want to be nice to him. I would ring the police and then my insurance company.
People like this deserve to be put in stocks on the village green and have sh*t thrown at them.
It wasn’t so much about being nice to the bloke…that was the last thing on my mind.Quite simply I wanted a quiet, easy life, as I have enough on my plate without unnecessary s**t like this to deal with.I wanted to phone the company, explain what happened, them to tell me to go and get it repaired and they would pay the bill. The bloke is bang-to-rights and I very much doubt there will be any legal justice, so I just wanted to avoid the whole shenanigans with insurance companies and get my car repaired.<sigh>
A quick word of advice I’ve seen elsewhere (eg see Honest John in Daily Telegraph), at the first sign of hassle get a lawyer and take him to court.
I’ve not done it myself, but HJ has published lots of letters to him thanking him for the advice where it worked wonders (but beware, who would publish letters critical of them when it has gone wrong?).
Don’t muck about, start a Small Claims Court action straight away, it costs next to nothing and the delivery of the court papers is one heck of awake up call that says “I’m serious”.
You can still settle out of court before the action is heard but remember to stuff them with the up front costs of registering the claims action.
