Elderly driver damaged car and drove off

Cuilean

Hubby parks his car in the private office car park outside his office. They have 6 allocated spaces, parallel to the kerb. There are a couple of other businesses further down the complex. Their parking areas are separate, but they have to drive down the access road, past his company's bays, to get to them.


When he came out of the office on Friday, he saw a note on his windscreen from a builder and his mate who said he'd seen an elderly couple (Presumably leaving after visiting another business in the complex) reverse into hubby's car, drive forwards to straighten up, scrape up against hubbys' car, get out and look at the damage, then drive off. The builder had taken a photo of the elderly wife returning to their car after checking hubby's car over, before they drove off around the corner. They then pulled over, checking their own car over for damage, and drove away. They obviously know they've hit hubby's car. It's a good photo - you can clearly see the driver and his wife, their car and its reg plate. We've not had chance to check it yet, but the car park also has CCTV, so there's a chance the whole thing is on film, depending on where the cameras were pointing.


Aviva weren't interested unless we reported it to the police, which we did. The police and Aviva have both contacted the builder to get his statement, and I assume the police will decide whether to contact the elderly couple. Aviva are sending an assessor round to look at the car, and we'll make a decision on whether to make a claim on our insurance after that.


The damage to our car is around the wheel arch, bumper and door, and is mostly heavy scratching and scraping. It's going to require much more than just a bit of T Cut to sort that. There doesn't appear to be any denting. My father, the would-be mechanic, says that the damage is mostly to the fibreglass and only slightly to the metal.


With our excess being £350, it's probably not going to be worth us making a claim if it is just cosmetic. Aviva are also being quite vague with us because we didn't take out legal cover. If I could add that now and silence them, I would!


In an ideal world, I think the elderly couple or their insurers should be paying for our repairs, but I'm not sure how the whole thing might play out, or what we can expect from Aviva, the police, or the elderly couple/their insurers, or indeed if we're just entirely stuffed and will end up paying for it ourselves. Opinions and ideas, anyone?

marlot

First off, I'd buy the builder a pint or two. Getting photos is brilliant. I wish we'd had some when someone caused a load of damage to our car in a car park.

The easiest thing is to get Aviva to fix your car, and them to claim it from the couple. They already have the incident on record, so it will affect your premium anyway.

Quentin

You can get this all paid for by the third party's insurers. Cancel your Aviva claim now before they spend anything sending the engineer around.


Use askmid to find out who the insurer is then contact them and ask for their innocent third party claims department.


They will help you out, let you use your own choice of garage (Aviva charge you extra excess for this) and arrange a replacement whilst your car is being repaired/unroadworthy

Strider590

I had the same happen to me in a Tesco car park, the old boy hit my car and drove off, someone left their details on my screen. Even though I knew it'd put my premiums up and the damage was minor at best, I took the guy through the insurance just because he'd driven off.

A lot of them have a terrible attitude and this "i've been driving 40 years and never had an accident, so I must be always right", they've never had an accident because either they drove off OR they left a wake of destruction in their path.
In their own mind they never make mistakes, everything is somebody elses fault and being old excuses them any and all responsibility.

The Americans have zero tolerance to dangerous OAP drivers, but for us it's a taboo subject.

A friend works near to one of the places that do driver training and speed awareness courses, he said you see them going around the car park making notes of the car number plates, so they can cheat the eyesight test later on. They're not stupid, they know what they've done, they're just old.

Dan-Dan

There is an old boy , late70`s , near us , he drives along with cardboard cut outs of old warships , on his windscreen and his side mirrors , with various other a4 sized notices blocking his view all round the car , the police arent interested , even though the car is on full view as i describe , the guy also climbs up the hill near the house on his hands and knees and is obviously mentally disturbed , he is a danger to himself and others

You have to kill someone to get the interest of the dvla or police it seems

maninthestreet

Dan-Dan wrote: »

There is an old boy , late70`s , near us , he drives along with cardboard cut outs of old warships , on his windscreen and his side mirrors , with various other a4 sized notices blocking his view all round the car , the police arent interested , even though the car is on full view as i describe , the guy also climbs up the hill near the house on his hands and knees and is obviously mentally disturbed , he is a danger to himself and others

You have to kill someone to get the interest of the dvla or police it seems

Can you get a picture of this car and upload it to this thead?

The_Loan_Stranger

Dan-Dan wrote: »

There is an old boy , late70`s , near us , he drives along with cardboard cut outs of old warships , on his windscreen and his side mirrors , with various other a4 sized notices blocking his view all round the car , the police arent interested , even though the car is on full view as i describe , the guy also climbs up the hill near the house on his hands and knees and is obviously mentally disturbed , he is a danger to himself and others

You have to kill someone to get the interest of the dvla or police it seems

Phone the police and tell them you saw him doing 32 in a 30 mph limit, they'll probably send out an armed response vehicle and helicopter back up just to be safe!

Dan-Dan

They wont , honestly , everywhere round here with children dreads it when he comes stumbling out of his house for a drive

Dan-Dan

maninthestreet wrote: »

Can you get a picture of this car and upload it to this thead?

Yes , i have nothing to hide , 101`s been rung so many times its beyond funny

Cuilean

Quentin wrote: »

You can get this all paid for by the third party's insurers. Cancel your Aviva claim now before they spend anything sending the engineer around.


Use askmid to find out who the insurer is then contact them and ask for their innocent third party claims department.


They will help you out, let you use your own choice of garage (Aviva charge you extra excess for this) and arrange a replacement whilst your car is being repaired/unroadworthy

Thanks, this is really interesting. I'd never heard of "Innocent Third Party" claims before. Time to do some investigating. I do know their insurers are Acromas Group, which means it's either The AA or Saga, but not because of MID - I have a friend who works in the insurance trade and is able to look up the vehicle's insurance details (But not the driver name). Probably not the most legit way of getting the info, and I expect I need to prove that I've discovered their insurers' without my friend's help

Quentin

No need to prove how you got the info.

That's the least of their concerns.

They will want to help you to prevent you going to an ( expensive for them) claim handler