HELP: other party lying!

Engineering

Hi all I need urgent help.

A few weeks ago I was sitting in my car with my pregnant girlfriend as we had been visiting her parents. Outside her parents house there are parking spaces and I was parked.

I was going to move off and nudged my car forward and to the right by an inch at the very most. I noticed another car come into the mouth of the road and abruptly stop, this is because another car (a large people carrier had pulled out to overtake the line of cars that were parked (three cars then my own at the front).

I had noticed this and put on my handbrake as I was going to wait for them to get past. Because it is tight I thought the woman who entered the mouth of the street would simply reverse back out of the street to let the people carrier through or that the people carrier would reverse and allow the small car through.

Neither of them made a move for around ten seconds then the people carrier tried to squeeze through the gap between my car and the smaller car at the mouth of the street. He ran the side of his car along the front of mine and mounted the pavement to make it through.

We got out and he was an older man and was very apologetic and invited me and my girlfriend to his house where he apologised for trying to squeeze through and gave me his insurance details.

Me and my girlfriend got home and called his insurance and they told me they couldn't talk to me as they were going to claim my insurance as I had "pulled out infront of their driver".

I refute this as I had been parked with the handbrake on some 10 to 20 seconds prior to being struck and still within the dimensions of the parking space!

I went the next day to track down the driver of the smaller car to be a witness as my insurance said they can't accept my girlfriends statement as she is too close a relation. I found the woman driver of the other car who is actually the next door neighbour of the man who struck me and she admitted that her and the man were friendly and said that "she doesn't know what happened". I went around the houses adjacent to the incident site to find more witnesses.

I found a young couple who watched the whole thing from their porch and they confirmed my story but asked me not to involve them as they "do not want the hassle". My girlfriends brother also witnessed the incident from the front room of her parents house and again confirmed my version of events but would his statement carry any merit as again he could be considered a close relation?

I also went to the police and they told me they couldn't do anything because I didn't call them at the time of the incident.

I am gutted because this guy is playing the poor old man card and suddenly his friend has went from not seeing the accident to stating that I definitely pulled out infront of the other driver.

What the hell do I do? I am at my wits end over this.

chanz4

a lot of neighbours seem to watch out their windows

sarahg1969

A good engineer should be able to tell, from the damage, which vehicles were moving and in what direction.

Engineering

chanz4 wrote: »

a lot of neighbours seem to watch out their windows

Actually only one person saw it from their window, her brother; from the front room (living room) of their house which faces directly on to where my car was parked. The other couple were sitting on their porch in their garden.

If it goes to 50/50 like the insurance company predict can I compel the couple to give a statement at civil court?

Engineering

sarahg1969 wrote: »

A good engineer should be able to tell, from the damage, which vehicles were moving and in what direction.

Other drivers insurer simply sent a third party "inspection engineer" to see my vehicle. He simply made an estimate as to cost to repair the vehicle.

I have however taken photographs and sent to my insurer.

PaulLuke

I'm with sarahg1969 on this.

I had a very similar situation several years ago where a driver argued that we had pulled out in from of him whereas we had been stationary at the time.

The damage to the cars did not stack up against his story to such an extent that we didn't even bother getting an engineers report.

It did however, end up going to small claims court with the other driver's insurance backed legal representation being pulled just before the hearing because they didn't believe the other drivers story.

At the hearing the judge just stopped short of telling the other driver he was lying and we got our full claim settled.

If you have legal insurance cover, give them a call and talk the situation through with them.