Car Insurance/accident advice required :-(

surfer_dude_2

hey all, looking for some advice from anyone that may have had a similar experience as im stumped as to how to proceed...

i'll try keep this short !

- had an accident on a roundabout sep 2006.
- was an A road, 3 lanes before, on and after roundabout
- the third party vehicle was in middle lane turning RIGHT (3rd exit)
- I was in 3rd lane (outer lane) correctly turning RIGHT.
- third party realised was in wrong lane, appeared to overcompensate turn and hit my passenger front wing/wheel/door

i took pictures to prove damage to my vehicle (and 3rd party vehicle) so it would be evident which vehicle was placed where (in case of dispute)

- all road markings present, 3rd party definately in wrong lane for the wrong exit (again took pictures of signs/road markings arrows etc)

- i had a passenger in my vehicle who witnessed whole event and willing to testify to that effect. (that accident not my fault)

situation at present...

my insurance company unwilling to fight this and have recommended a 50/50.
i have expressed my disapproval at this as i have pictures of damage, road layout, witness etc however insurance company are not budging.

they do not want to pursue this at all and add that my witness in my car is not independent and as such cannot provide a statement to assist me to clear this matter up ! any accident my family/friends have been involved in during the past with witnesses in other vehicle haave always been fine? is this some new regulation?

so thats where i am ! i have legal protection through caar insurance company and am willing to go court etc all the way as I believe I am in the right ...

can anyone help? or offer advice.. im totally stuck on what to do ...

thanks

surfer dude

mattymoo

The comments relating to witness statements are correct. People travelling in the vehicles involved are not classed as independent. No sure what happened with the other claims you mentioned though.

Roundabout accidents are notoriously difficult ones to sort out, partly as a result of your constantly changing viewpoint as you traverse the roundabout. It is impossible to track all the other vehicles that might possibly hit you and so discrepancies between each parties version of events are common.

One suggestion I would make though is to revisit the roundabout and try and take some digital video of it from a high vantage point. It sounds a lot like the other driver drifted in their lane and this is something you will often see on a roundabout. Try and get some video of a car executing same manouvre as you and some video of someone doing same as third party.

The aim here is to present the evidence in a form that your insurer's claims handler will understand.

Astaroth

Any witness will be considered by the court but the judge will decide if they are biased or not, prior to going to court however most insurers will not "bother" with non-independent witnesses as the stock response from the other side will simply be they are non-independent and so not providing an non-biased version of events.

The current version of the highway code states that you can basically be in any lane to go to any exit so unless there are road markings or signs which define which lane they should be in then they would not have automatically been "in the wrong lane". If there are such signs/ markings it is potentially worth either telling your insurers and suggesting they get a Locus report done or if it is safe to do so, take photos of the said signs/ markings yourself.

The other thing you need obviously is a copy of the TPs version of events so you can cross compare with the road markings. Typically in these sorts of accidents you get 2 very different version of events and if you read either of them independently with a locus report you would say the person writting it was in the correct lane and it is the other party that was at fault.

Due to this a large proportion of accidents on a roundabout (not joining one) end up on a 50/50 basis as there is no proof of who is telling the truth and it is a pure judgement call on who is believed