A bus hit me!

LeeSouthEast

When you're rushing around trying to save the world, individual niceties sometimes get forgotten.

Good luck with it.

talksr

LeeSouthEast wrote: »

When you're rushing around trying to save the world, individual niceties sometimes get forgotten.

Good luck with it.

They sure do. Sorry about that.
Thanks for your contributions.

hayleythedaisy

Just a thought, your brothers insurance co. may try to wriggle out of it as you are supposed to report accidents in a specific time. Although this could also work in your favour for the bus companies insurance.

Fire_Fox

talksr wrote: »

My brother had insurance and everything else and is a law abiding person,
He has not been driving all that long
Myself being the oldest sibling in my family, have to manage the household, I earn more than my mother, and my brother put together, and this is not very much at all.
I have to pay the bills and sort things out when things go wrong. Last night, among the usual things, my brother came along to me telling me that he had received another letter from the bus company despite the incident happening rather a long time ago.

Being a family oriented person, I tried my best to help him and thought it may be worth me writing them a letter, asking for copies of their witness statement and driver statement etc.

Whilst I think it's lovely that you want to help your brother, I do wonder if you are getting helping confused with taking control. The demand for payment was written to your brother, any response should be from your brother, your brother will be the one getting letters from debt collectors if this is not resolved. The bus company probably shouldn't communicate with you in any way over this matter due to data protection.

I have been composing my own letters of complaint or other formal communication since I left home at 17 - I am now 36 and my father still checks (and occasionally edits ) the final draft! By all means do the same for your brother but don't write the letter for him. If he is old enough to drive he is an adult.

This website is amazing, it has advice on every matter directly and indirectly related to finances. I think it could benefit you all to point your brother in the direction of this website and start delegating a few small tasks so that you have support managing the household. Maybe you do not "have" (your word) to do as much as you think.

nikki2804

Are accidents not meant to be reported to the police within 7 days?

They will still be able to claim, this happened to my dad, he gave the guy his details and heard nothing for about 9 months.

The £2000 will probably include repair damage, respraying, paying for lost mileage as the bus would have been taken off the road and fares would have been lost and probably a safety person checking the bus met safety standards after it was fixed.

I'm surprised none of the passengers claimed.

Can you tell I come from a family of bus drivers?

tripled

nikki2804 wrote: »

Are accidents not meant to be reported to the police within 7 days?

Not unless someone or certain types of animal are injured, or insurance details cannot be exchanged at the time (e.g. you drive into a telegraph pole), in which case the accident must be reported within 24 hours.

bryanb

nikki2804 wrote: »

Are accidents not meant to be reported to the police within 7 days?

No but all insurance companies require customers, ie the brother to report all accidents to them, whether there is a claim or not.

drpellypo

A new bumper for a bus costs £1,200, so the £2k figure will be right.

Can you describe what happened?

If the bus company did it's job properly, the police would have been called (necessary when the accident involves a public service vehicle... might even be the law - I'm not 100% sure) and they would have dispatched the local manager to come and take polaroids. This would have all been documented, and if indeed the bus driver hit your brother (I'm assuming we're talking about his car, not him personally) then it would be clear in the documentation. Also the fact that he admitted liability at the scene should have been recorded.

It sounds a lot to me like the bus company are trying to pull a fast one. I would merely write them a letter saying your brothers insurance company is dealing with the issue and you no longer wish to enter into any correspondence with them and any further attempts to contact you will be ignored. In terms of the insurance co, it's your brothers words against theirs and they will ask for proof (2 witness accounts is not sufficient for several reasons - firstly because witness accounts are notoriously unreliable and second because when you're on a bus it's unlike being in the passenger seat of a car where viewpoint is concerned.)

olly300

drpellypo wrote: »

It sounds a lot to me like the bus company are trying to pull a fast one. I would merely write them a letter saying your brothers insurance company is dealing with the issue and you no longer wish to enter into any correspondence with them and any further attempts to contact you will be ignored. In terms of the insurance co, it's your brothers words against theirs and they will ask for proof (2 witness accounts is not sufficient for several reasons - firstly because witness accounts are notoriously unreliable and second because when you're on a bus it's unlike being in the passenger seat of a car where viewpoint is concerned.)

Just a correction.

The OP should write the letter with his brother and the brother should sign it.

Also OP get your brother to get an account on this site and ask questions. Some posters are in their late teens.

As another poster kindly pointed out if you don't start delegating responsibility to your brother, he will never grow up. In addition in years to come you solely will be burdened with your mother, which is not fair on you.

talksr

olly300 wrote: »

Just a correction.

The OP should write the letter with his brother and the brother should sign it.

Also OP get your brother to get an account on this site and ask questions. Some posters are in their late teens.

As another poster kindly pointed out if you don't start delegating responsibility to your brother, he will never grow up. In addition in years to come you solely will be burdened with your mother, which is not fair on you.

Thanks that is a good point. However, he is one of these types of people who does not use a computer, despite his age. Odd I know. The last place he would go is moneysavingexpert. May sound a little nasty, but no matter how hard I try, he would not come on here and use the site. He is just one of those sorts of people. Even though it would really help him, he just won't. It is not that he is lazy, he is just I am not sure a dreamer I guess. In his own world.

So because of this, rather than see him get conned, I would like to try and help him. As I think I mentioned before, I don't know what happened (I wasn’t there, he was on his own), but it was very low speed. He explained to me he stopped as the bus came around a country road corner, he was stationary and the bus as it edged past, the back end came out slightly and scraped his car. It also smashed his driver's window. But he remains adamant that he was stationary.

Literally 10 minutes after the incident, I drove down to the scene to find a pile of his broken glass and no skid marks of any kind on either side of the road or any mud missing from the bank etc. I took pictures for him in case it went to insurance.