Bus took wing mirror off car...what to do?

vikingaero

Wait 24 hours before reporting it. Then the driver can be done for failure to stop after an accident.

Car_54

Aretnap wrote: »

They are obliged to inform their insurers of the accident, and to declare the accident to future insurers for the next 3-5 years, even if they don't want to make a claim through their own policy. Obviously many people who do have minor accidents do choose to sort them out privately do choose not to inform insurers - but this comes with the risk of having your policy voided if your insurer does find out in future. The risk of there being a record of the accident which could come back to bite them one day is probably greater if they're trying to claim from a large organisation, like a bus company, than if they were to accept a handful of banknotes from a neighbour who bumped their car.

Whether that's a risk they're willing to take is up to them - personally I wouldn't take it. If they claim directly from the bus company then informing their insurers won't affect their no claims bonus, and while it might have a small effect on next year's premium, it is unlikely to be anything too dramatic. Last time I had a play on a comparison site out of curiosity I found that a recent £1000 no fault claim would add just under a fiver to my cheapest quote - hardly worth risking a voided policy for.

I agree with Aretnap, it's not worth the risk of not telling them.

Also, if the insurers decide they're a higher risk because they park on a bus route, would they be wrong?

Quiet_Spark

vikingaero wrote: »

Wait 24 hours before reporting it. Then the driver can be done for failure to stop after an accident.

Highly unlikely the driver even knew he or she had caught a car door mirror given the size of the vehicle.

gilbert_and_sullivan

Quiet_Spark wrote: »

Highly unlikely the driver even knew he or she had caught a car door mirror given the size of the vehicle.

He or she shouldn't be on the road then, been driving artics for nearly 40 years and i know exactly where i am on the road (when i don't i'll hand my licence in), even at 44 tons in howling winds and rain you feel and hear the sounds of the slightest touch, even going over a cats eye you feel it.

If you're that close to a car that you can take the mirror off you should be checking it in the mirrors as you pass by.

arcon5

gilbert_and_sullivan wrote: »

He or she shouldn't be on the road then, been driving artics for nearly 40 years and i know exactly where i am on the road (when i don't i'll hand my licence in), even at 44 tons in howling winds and rain you feel and hear the sounds of the slightest touch, even going over a cats eye you feel it.

If you're that close to a car that you can take the mirror off you should be checking it in the mirrors as you pass by.

Climbing off your high horse, many incidents involving HGVs go unnoticed, so it's not that unrealistic that the driver could have clipped it without realising. He certainly has a lot more noise behind him than you would on a HGV.

Miss_Ratty

Thanks everyone for your responses. I think I will have a play around with some insurance quotes and see if it is even worth reporting formally to the bus company given the cost of a new wing mirror...we shall see! My concern is that the bus company will probably inform the insurers and then we're in a dodgy position.

They should still have stopped though, I agree. My uncle is a bus driver and has accidentally knocked off a couple of wing mirrors in his time and says you can quite clearly hear it. It would be unfair to base a rise on the premise of parking on a bus route though...it's our house and they don't live near here so it would be like penalising anyone who ever had to park on a bus route for any period of time...don't tell the insurance companies that, they'll probably include it in their algorithms from now on!

X

gilbert_and_sullivan

arcon5 wrote: »

Climbing off your high horse, many incidents involving HGVs go unnoticed, so it's not that unrealistic that the driver could have clipped it without realising. He certainly has a lot more noise behind him than you would on a HGV.

Or to put it correctly, some incidents involving HGV's and ALL other vehicles go unreported and denied.

If an HGV/PSVdriver has hit something, the driver knows it, if he/she doesn't they are not drivers they are steering wheel operatives, of which there are many, or liars.

Tilt

You should inform the police and give them the details that were on the note.

alastairq

Somewhere will be a link to a Court that agreed that a driver of a large PCV or LGV may well sustain a minor contact without realising. The back end of a big bus or lorry is a lot further away from the driver's eyes & ears than that of a car.

So...'failure-to-report' in this type of circumstance won't get very far.

Contact the bus company with details of the incident.

The bus company will know if one of their vehicles was in the vicinity at that time...and who was driving it.

Yes....sh#t happens, as a bus or lorry driver.

Especially when that driver only has one or two years of driving under their belts. As the years pass, so the degree of awareness of the potential for problems rises.

And before any lay drivers [the vast majority of you]...get dug into vilifying these PCV/LGV drivers, consider how much time they spend actually out on the roads...whether clocking trillions of miles on motorways, or trillion of hours threading through urban traffic jams?

Close quarters situations will arise, for an urban bus driver, many hundreds of times a day..

For a car driver, it might just be twice a week?

So, for the bus driver to 'get-it-wrong' once in a while is to be expected.

However, if the employer [or their insurer] detects a pattern arising, with a particular driver, then further steps are taken.

Which..for the better companies, might involve remedial training.

Certainly, for every broken mirror reported, the driver has to answer for their actions.

But, be aware, for every genuine claim against that bus company for damage, there will be one which is spurious.

That is the nature of the society we live in.

So the company will want to be sure a claim really is genuine...before dealing with it.

Sooler

Wing mirrors are expendable.

Buy 1 (or 2 if they have to match) off eBay and fit.