Car damaged - other party will not give details. What shall i do?

jacobsdaduk

thenudeone wrote: »

If police receive a report that someone has failed to stop and exchange details after an accident, as required by law, they WILL investigate it.
/QUOTE]

You are WRONG.

I deal with motor claims on a legal side day in, day out. In my years of experience the response from the police varies from force to force and depends very much on the experience and attitude of the officer concerned. The "no one injured, not getting involved" stance is quite typical and we have tens of cases on file from 2011 where this was the response from the police. The only way you will get noticed here is to go to the local station and cause a fuss.

The insurer of the vehicle has an obligation under RTA law as an RTA insurer. You should direct your claim to them in the first instance if you don't want to use your comp policy. If you want to PM me the reg I will tell you who is registered on the Motor Insurers Database as the insurer. However, without a reg, you are going to struggle. You don't even know if the name given is genuine and without an address you have no idea where to issue Court proceedings, should you even get that far.

Next time your nephew had an accident, tell him to get the reg of the third party vehicle.

If your sister has a comp policy she'll have to use it and pay the excess, which may not be recoverable depending on the insurers outlay and whether or not it's worth them chasing. For example, if the damage is £400 and the excess if £500 you can pretty much bet that the insurer isn't going to chase it as they will have no outlay - especially if the third party doesn't make a counter claim.

Your other option, as previous discussed, is to make a claim via the MIB. It may be subject to a £300 excess and will take some time to complete. The forms are on the MIB website but again, you'll need the reg.

Finally, it sounds like your sister might be "fronting" the motor insurance policy for her son. If this is the case, does she know that's against the law?

thenudeone

jacobsdaduk wrote: »

You are WRONG.

No I'm not.

We aren't talking about the accident here, or the liability. We're talking about the offence of failing to stop after an accident.

This is considered a relatively serious traffic offence. It can carry 5-10 points or discretionary disqualification, plus up to 6 months in prison, and is sufficiently serious that a conviction for it could prevent you working for the police or in security-vetted roles eg: http://www.btp.police.uk/pdf/InformationandGuidanceforApplicants(CentralSt)v.1.1new.pdf

The national policy is here:
https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q432.htm

As long as there is a current keeper it's a pretty easy job to send an officer round, ask the keeper for the name of the driver at the time and, if it was the keeper driving, report them for prosecution. If the keeper refuses, they get reported for failing to provide the identity of the driver. Simple stuff. It's also easy to check they have a licence and insurance at the same time, so they might get a nice fat list of detected offences for a 5 minute doorstep interview.

If there is no current keeper or the keeper cannot be found then I wouldn't expect the police to do much more (unless the accident involved serious injuries).

If I was the victim of a hit'n'run accident and the police didn't at least try to find the driver, I would definitely be making a complaint. What good reason could they give for not making some simple investigations for a relatively serious offence?

jacobsdaduk

thenudeone wrote: »

No I'm not.

We aren't talking about the accident here, or the liability. We're talking about the offence of failing to stop after an accident.

This is considered a relatively serious traffic offence. It can carry 5-10 points or discretionary disqualification, plus up to 6 months in prison, and is sufficiently serious that a conviction for it could prevent you working for the police or in security-vetted roles eg: http://www.btp.police.uk/pdf/InformationandGuidanceforApplicants(CentralSt)v.1.1new.pdf

The national policy is here:
https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q432.htm

As long as there is a current keeper it's a pretty easy job to send an officer round, ask the keeper for the name of the driver at the time and, if it was the keeper driving, report them for prosecution. If the keeper refuses, they get reported for failing to provide the identity of the driver. Simple stuff. It's also easy to check they have a licence and insurance at the same time, so they might get a nice fat list of detected offences for a 5 minute doorstep interview.

If there is no current keeper or the keeper cannot be found then I wouldn't expect the police to do much more (unless the accident involved serious injuries).

If I was the victim of a hit'n'run accident and the police didn't at least try to find the driver, I would definitely be making a complaint. What good reason could they give for not making some simple investigations for a relatively serious offence?

Regardless of your own feelings about how this should be dealt, even considering the police "national policy", I can assure you that in practice it simply doesn't happen in a lot of cases as the OP has herself experienced.

neilmcl

wazza wrote: »

A car which was parked on his left pulled out and hit his car damaging the offside front and rear doors and the sill.

That'll be the nearside then.

wazza

neilmcl wrote: »

That'll be the nearside then.

I stand corrected

only_mee

jacobsdaduk wrote: »

Regardless of your own feelings about how this should be dealt, even considering the police "national policy", I can assure you that in practice it simply doesn't happen in a lot of cases as the OP has herself experienced.

100% agree i was driven into car alarm went off, thankfully i knew where the driver lived, the police were not interested one bit in driving off after and incident, he never even told his workplace the works van was in a collision with a parked car.

Sambucus_Nigra

thenudeone wrote: »

We aren't talking about the accident here, or the liability. We're talking about the offence of failing to stop after an accident.

What accident officer? I think you'll find he did that damage in a car park and failed to give the other person HIS details.

Happychappy

I dont see where the offence of fail to stop has been committed ? looks like everybody complied, and now down to the separate parties to sort it out, not a police matter unless no insurance is raised? but without a registered number how do you prove the insurance, so good it happened to the lovely boy.

Flyboy152

Happychappy wrote: »

I dont see where the offence of fail to stop has been committed ? looks like everybody complied, and now down to the separate parties to sort it out, not a police matter unless no insurance is raised? but without a registered number how do you prove the insurance, so good it happened to the lovely boy.

The offence is failing to exchange details. Not having the registration number is a bit irrelevant, but it does compound the offence on the part of the other party.

redlooney

Time to draw a line under all this
No 2nd car or VRM = no line of enquiry.
It's just one person's word against another's.Police Officers aren't mindreaders and have no access to lie detectors, which is why this scenario wouldnt get past a decent call handler, never mind waste an officer's time.