Fail to stop, is it worth reporting

henrygregory

Hi, this morning, I came across a van well on my side of the road, I tried to move as far over as I could for it and as a result have severely scuffed my alloy wheel. The driver of the van did not stop and when I turned around to have words, he had literally vanished.

I called the police to report it for insurance purposes and they have advised me to go to my local police station and report it as a fail to stop (even though he did not actually hit me), which I thought was a little strange. I explained that I had not really expected him to stop as he probably would not have known I had damaged my wheel.

Can anyone tell me if it is worth pursuing this? The alloy is going to need extensive refurbishment with just under half of the wheel very badly scuffed and I am almost certain this will have effected the tracking given the damage to the wheel. I don't think it is worth an insurance claim, but I can't believe I could pin the blame on someone even though they did not hit me.

Lucky for me, I have a dashcam which caught it, feel free to have a watch:

http://youtu.be/6YZch6QlHuo

forgotmyname

Time for a better dashcam? The quality is terrible and not clean how far away from the kerb he is when passing your vehicle.

jd87

Looks like you were both going too fast. I'd put it down to bad luck. He didn't actually hit you anyway.

henrygregory

forgotmyname wrote: »

Time for a better dashcam? The quality is terrible and not clean how far away from the kerb he is when passing your vehicle.

The dashcam has served me incredibly well for almost 3 years but unfortunately at almost £350, and with people like this on the roads, there is no more money to get a new one.

Maybe these stills with alterations will help:

forgotmyname

Still not that clear. If that camera cost £350 you wont believe the quality you can get on a £40 one these days.

Its still hard to make out how wide the road is and where it narrows/bends.

The 2nd picture above shows a parked vehicle on your side, So did he start to move out for the bend that you had just come around?

Shows the limitations of a car camera i guess. So they are not 100% proof of who was in the wrong.
Seen reviews of some wide angle ones and they have commented on a near miss being much closer than they look in the video.

He could say there was 2ft between himself and your car and that you didnt need to pull that far into the kerb.

Company name on the van? Maybe a call to them instead?

specialboy

Cant see what the other driver did wrong tbh and how would he know that you have clipped the kerb?

jd87

specialboy wrote: »

how would he know that you have clipped the kerb?

This is the key point here. OP has no case.

keith1950

If you ever think there is not enough room you should stop, he would then be responsible for hitting a stationary vehicle.

If you wanted to avoid him you should at the very least got partially off the road.

You will not get anywhere with this.....he didnt hit you.....you hit the kerb.....simples !!

ruggedtoast

You didnt even slow down yourself according to the video...

Whiner

If anyone is in the wrong here, it is the OP... The van driver did absolutely nothing wrong.

Norman_Castle

Can anyone tell me if it is worth pursuing this?

Its not worth pursuing this. Try slowing down and stopping if necessary.