Damaged car by fachia board on the motorway

noodlespink2

We were travelling back from a funeral late yesterday and on the motorway there was something that looked like cardboard, obviously you cant swerve to miss it so us and the car in front drove over it. We didnt think anything of it but when we got home we noticed a piece of fachia board with a companies name had done damage to the front bumper and damaged the oil cooler.
What are our rights and what do i do now!

Hintza

Get the car fixed.

Without any proof of how it got there, who put it there etc or if there was any negligence you have nothing, you could contact your insurer if the damage is too bad.

InsideInsurance

If you are particularly irritated then you could contact the relevant highway agency and see if the area is covered by CCTV to identify which vehicle dropped it.

Your insurers may do this for you but of cause you then have to declare the incident for the next 3-5 years and if they dont discover who dropped it and make a successful claim against them it would be considered a fault incident

neilmcl

Just one of those things I'm afraid. Proving liability by anyone is next to impossible.

Strider590

You don't know who dropped the offending item....

If my car loses a wiper at speed (because for arguments sake, I fitted it wrongly) and it hits+damages someone's car, do they have a claim against Valeo?

Prothet_of_Doom

If the oil cooler was damaged you were lucky to get home.

1) Contact the police with the part. Loose / dangerous loads are an offence.
2) Contact the company with a photo of damage, a photo of the part, and 3 quotes. or your insurance company.
3) Expect that you or your insurance company will have to pay because you can't prove that the offending item fell off one of thier trucks.

(Although the police might find a missing piece and forward you the details - which means in a small claims court you have a reasonable case that on balance the item fell off thier truck)

4) Thank yourself lucky that you are all safe and well, and that you didn't swerve and end up upside down in a ditch, after spinning 3 times. (That happened to a mate 3 weeks after passing his test. He was uninjured, but his G/F finished with him as a result of his bad driving)

Aretnap

What's the company - a manufacturer of fascia boards, or a local company which fits them? The former would be of no help to you. If it's the latter it might help establish that it was that company which dropped them... but equally how do know it wasn't someone else taking some old boards to the tip? If that's all you have to go on I think you might struggle to establish fault on the part of anyone else in particular.

If you can't find out how it got there then your options are to fix the car yourself if it's minor damage, or if it looks expensive and you have comprehensive insurance go through your insurer and take the loss of the excess and no claims bonus on the chin. It's unfortunate, but at the end of the day that's what insurance if for.

Happychappy

InsideInsurance wrote: »

If you are particularly irritated then you could contact the relevant highway agency and see if the area is covered by CCTV to identify which vehicle dropped it.

Your insurers may do this for you but of cause you then have to declare the incident for the next 3-5 years and if they dont discover who dropped it and make a successful claim against them it would be considered a fault incident

Do you honestly think the highways authority will have someone sitting and scanning hundred and hundred of hours of video :rotfl:

Aretnap

Happychappy wrote: »

Do you honestly think the highways authority will have someone sitting and scanning hundred and hundred of hours of video :rotfl:

It wouldn't be hundreds and hundreds of hours though - large objects tend not to stay on the motorway for long so if the time and location of the accident can be pinpointed it would be a few hours at most. And the appearance of the board could be found a lot more quickly than that - check 15 minutes before the incident to see if it's there, check 30 minutes before the incident to see if it's there, check 45 minutes before to see if it's there etc and you'll find it almost as quickly as its taken me to write this post.

Stooby2

It's not going to happen for a minor damage only collision. The board could have fallen off 200 metres away on the other carriageway and been blown/flicked all over the place before it hit the car . The Highways Agency have better things to do. Or they'd charge you far more than the cost of the damage to do it.

Ratboy

So you smash into something on a road, that damages the vehicle, but don't seem fit to pull over and examine what happened?

The oil cooler was damaged in this collision, but that had no effect on the vehicle until you got home? When you viewed the damage?

And you didn't report to Police, that debris in a carriageway that had damaged your vehicle was there, or reported in any way?

You just carried on? So that someone else might have a further accident due to this debris?

And you want to find out who to sue?

Last time I checked, it's illegal to not inform the Police of a RTC, be it a dog, person, whatever, therefore posting on a forum, you have broken the law.