Crashed into but Refused to Stop

ben9090

Hi

My wife was waiting in bad weather outside school to pick the kids up. The weather was very bad with wind and rain so visability was poor.

An old lady tried to turn in the road behind her, scraped along my wifes car, stopped then drove off.

She reported it to the police together with the registration plate and the police said they would investigate. They said it may have been accidental, she might not realised she did it etc and that she may offer to repair it. They said unless she admitted she knew it had happened it wasnt an offence as she might not have know she had done it.

They have been to our house today and said that she is 87 years old, knew she did it and didnt want to stop! They aren't going to do anything about it but have given us her details and told us to go through our insurance.

Now this brings raised several questions. Who will pay for the damage? And equally as important is why are the police letting someone like this remain on the road without looking into it? If she can crash into a parked car outside school would it be a child next time? Would she stop then?
Also if I enquire to my insurance will this affect out future premium? My wifes car is already battle scarred to Im not desperate to get it back into mint condition.

What do you think?

Thanks in advance

Ben

Hintza

Well just leave it then, don't bother with a claim.

espresso

ben9090 wrote: »

Hi

My wife was waiting in bad weather outside school to pick the kids up. The weather was very bad with wind and rain so visability was poor.

An old lady tried to turn in the road behind her, scraped along my wifes car, stopped then drove off.

She reported it to the police together with the registration plate and the police said they would investigate. They said it may have been accidental, she might not realised she did it etc and that she may offer to repair it. They said unless she admitted she knew it had happened it wasnt an offence as she might not have know she had done it.

They have been to our house today and said that she is 87 years old, knew she did it and didnt want to stop! They aren't going to do anything about it but have given us her details and told us to go through our insurance.

Now this brings raised several questions. Who will pay for the damage? And equally as important is why are the police letting someone like this remain on the road without looking into it? If she can crash into a parked car outside school would it be a child next time? Would she stop then?
Also if I enquire to my insurance will this affect out future premium? My wifes car is already battle scarred to Im not desperate to get it back into mint condition.

What do you think?

Thanks in advance

Ben

Did the Police give you details of her insurance?

You should claim directly from her insurance company and inform your own of the no fault accident "for information only".

Lum

If you aren't intending to claim, don't inform your insurance company as described above as it'll just put your premiums up for no useful reason.

I guess the police did nothing due to the little old lady sympathy. if it had been a 17yr old who genuinely didn't notice they'd probably have charged him for leaving the scene anyway.

Johno100

ben9090 wrote: »

Now this brings raised several questions. Who will pay for the damage? And equally as important is why are the police letting someone like this remain on the road without looking into it? If she can crash into a parked car outside school would it be a child next time? Would she stop then?

There was a big debate on here some weeks ago about elderly drivers and fitness to drive.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4761654=

It may well be that the police are intending to take the matter further with the DVLA. Did anybody ask them when they came around your house?

zaax

Claim on your insurance and they will claim if off hers - end of. You could ask the police that if she kills a child what will the Chief Constable do then?

espresso

zaax wrote: »

Claim on your insurance and they will claim if off hers - end of.

Bad advice for a no fault accident claim!

anotherbaldrick

It could well be that the Police have seriously suggested to her that she should relinquish her licence. They would not necessarily divulge this info to you.

Aretnap

ben9090 wrote: »

Now this brings raised several questions. Who will pay for the damage? And equally as important is why are the police letting someone like this remain on the road without looking into it? If she can crash into a parked car outside school would it be a child next time? Would she stop then?
Also if I enquire to my insurance will this affect out future premium? My wifes car is already battle scarred to Im not desperate to get it back into mint condition.

Her insurers will pay for the damage, if you make a claim. You will have to declare a no fault accident for the next 3-5 years which may have a small impact on your premiums depending on the insurer (not all of them load for no fault accidents, for those that do 5-10% seems to be typical). On the face of it she's clearly guilty of careless driving, failing to stop and failure to report, but the truth is that the police don't have the resources to prosecute over every minor prang like this - provided insurance details do get exchanged reasonably promptly it's quite common for them to take no further action. She may also have got a sympathy vote for being old and doddery, which seems questionable to me but I don't get to make the decision.

Aretnap

anotherbaldrick wrote: »

It could well be that the Police have seriously suggested to her that she should relinquish her licence. They would not necessarily divulge this info to you.

Good point. If she'd obviously not competent to drive anymore then persuading her to voluntarily surrender her licence would be the easiest and least painful way of getting the right outcome, without having to drag an old lady through the courts.

Prothet_of_Doom

Get 3 quotes for repair, send her the quotes with a letter, asking that she either pays the lowest, organises her own quotation, or passes it on to her insurance company.
If she does the later, and your car is a 'sh1tbox' they might try to write it off, but you are under no obligation to allow them. What normally happens is they pay the value of the car and you keep it.

The reason I suggest this approach is that she clearly should not be driving, and when she next comes to renew her policy, it's going to be difficult for her, and whilst I don't like the idea of depriving the old of their mobility, I do like the idea of not putting them into a 1 ton killing machine, with the eye sight of a bat.