I Hit A Dog With My Car - Advice On Court Action

somech

question answered then
he's skint so take to court. win and get nothing
its a case of cost of repairing the car yourself versus claiming on your insurance and losing 1 years no claims which would amount to about the same

mikey72

somech wrote: »

question answered then
he's skint so take to court. win and get nothing
its a case of cost of repairing the car yourself versus claiming on your insurance and losing 1 years no claims which would amount to about the same

claim would be there for at least 3 years, and would load up the insurance.

DirectDebacle

propaintballa wrote: »

So i'm not really sure on the conclusion of this now as it has gone way too far due to some people...

I may be able to take this to court without incurring court fees as i'm a full time student? Also depending on household income?

Just about sums it up. By court standards small claims is about as cheap as it gets.

Reading here;

http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/infoabout/claims/index.htm

A note on your driving. Not a critcism, just a tip. If you ever have a similar incident, small animal running out in front of when driving at speed. DO NOT slam on the brakes or steer violently to avoid it. Run it over and come to a controlled stop. Reason is sudden and violent changes in speed and direction can and do cause cause much more serious consequences than a dead dog, cat, fox or whatever. Slightly different timing and your mate could have had a head on with a bus trying to avoid rear ending you.

Larger animals, horses, deer, cows? elephants?? may kill you if hit at the speed you were travelling. So try to avoid them if possible.

mikey72

DirectDebacle wrote: »

Just about sums it up. By court standards small claims is about as cheap as it gets.

Reading here;

http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/infoabout/claims/index.htm

A note on your driving. Not a critcism, just a tip. If you ever have a similar incident, small animal running out in front of when driving at speed. DO NOT slam on the brakes or steer violently to avoid it. Run it over and come to a controlled stop. Reason is sudden and violent changes in speed and direction can and do cause cause much more serious consequences than a dead dog, cat, fox or whatever. Slightly different timing and your mate could have had a head on with a bus trying to avoid rear ending you.

Larger animals, horses, deer, cows? elephants?? may kill you if hit at the speed you were travelling. So try to avoid them if possible.

Lucky for you mollycat's gone to bed.
True though, good advice.

propaintballa

Ian_W wrote: »

I think it is you who should grow up!
By his account the OP was driving within the speed limit.

The owner of the dog exercising it off a lead so close to a main road was either:
a) Too stupid to realise,
or
b) Too uncaring to be bothered
that a collision between a 1 ton piece of metal travelling at ANY significant speed and an animal was likely to kill or maim it.

Others have asked how the OP thinks the owner is feeling to-night, he should be feeling like !!!!!!, his irresponsible behaviour led to his dogs death. I speak as the loving owner of 2 dogs, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I was so irresponsible about their welfare! I certainly wouldn't be blaming the driver, unless they'd done something wrong which, in this case, there is no indication.

OP ignore the ones flaming you, others have given sound advice.

Thanks for the support buddy, i myself was a dog owner... So i can imagine what it was like for the owner, but at the same time, it was horrible for me.

mikey72 wrote: »

claim would be there for at least 3 years, and would load up the insurance.

Yeh, so the increased price of insurance over 3 years far outweighs the price i'm paying to repair.

DirectDebacle wrote: »

Just about sums it up. By court standards small claims is about as cheap as it gets.

Reading here;

http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/infoabout/claims/index.htm

A note on your driving. Not a critcism, just a tip. If you ever have a similar incident, small animal running out in front of when driving at speed. DO NOT slam on the brakes or steer violently to avoid it. Run it over and come to a controlled stop. Reason is sudden and violent changes in speed and direction can and do cause cause much more serious consequences than a dead dog, cat, fox or whatever. Slightly different timing and your mate could have had a head on with a bus trying to avoid rear ending you.

Larger animals, horses, deer, cows? elephants?? may kill you if hit at the speed you were travelling. So try to avoid them if possible.

Awesome, thanks for the link. Yeh, i'm completely aware of what you're supposed to do (and thanks for the tip) but as i'm sure you could imagine, natural instinct when you see a fairly large animal sprint across in the road is the stop really, was quite a big doggy!

DirectDebacle

mikey72 wrote: »

Lucky for you mollycat's gone to bed.
True though, good advice.

Yes natural instinct is to slam on the anchors or swerve.

Some years back four people I knew were out in a car in the countryside and on a bend a stag appeared in front of them. Couldn't avoid hitting it.

Result?

Dead stag. Dead driver, 3 seriously injured and car written off and parked on its roof. Investigation showed no fault of the driver and of course the stag couldn't be blamed. On occasions unavoidable tragedies will happen.

tabskitten

As a dog owner I can say that in any circumstance where my dog was hit by a car I cannot think of any reason that I would have to blame anyone but myself.
My dog, my responsibility to make sure it cannot get into that situation.
Owner i am sure is distraught, but needs to do the responsible thing and pay for the damaged caused.

propaintballa

DirectDebacle wrote: »

Yes natural instinct is to slam on the anchors or swerve.

Some years back four people I knew were out in a car in the countryside and on a bend a stag appeared in front of them. Couldn't avoid hitting it.

Result?

Dead stag. Dead driver, 3 seriously injured and car written off and parked on its roof. Investigation showed no fault of the driver and of course the stag couldn't be blamed. On occasions unavoidable tragedies will happen.

Damn, that's unlucky to say the least. Was a really good job i didn't swerve because i would have ended up hitting my buddy going around me Could have been bad.

tabskitten wrote: »

As a dog owner I can say that in any circumstance where my dog was hit by a car I cannot think of any reason that I would have to blame anyone but myself.
My dog, my responsibility to make sure it cannot get into that situation.
Owner i am sure is distraught, but needs to do the responsible thing and pay for the damaged caused.

Thanks for the further support

vaio

propaintballa wrote: »

So i'm not really sure on the conclusion of this now as it has gone way too far due to some people...

I may be able to take this to court without incurring court fees as i'm a full time student? Also depending on household income?

Think it's your income not household, in any event as I said back in post #39 a £100 fee will cover a claim of £5k so no big deal if you have to put your hand in your pocket.

If you do go down the court route do a little bit of research on the dog owner, does he work? own a house/car? If he's jobless with no assets there is little point in court action

GemJar_2

I think you might have to 'cut your losses' so to speak here- I think its pretty obvious you aren't going to get anything from the dog owner (unless he has insurance to cover it) and as a young driver to be, I know myself how expensive insurance already is and will go up by if you claim its a very unfair situation