Who is liable?

Cornucopia

That's not an allegation with a lack of evidence.

I imagine it being something like this:-

OP: I checked the road behind me for a distance of around 50m one way, and 75m the other, which is as far as I could see given the road layout and position of buildings. I then began my reversing maneouvre, and the other party and I collided less than 3 seconds later. Since the other party covered a distance of 50m in 3 seconds, I conclude that their speed must have been approximately 37mph or more, far in excess of the speed limit and far in excess of a safe speed for the circumstances.

Insurer: Yes, your account is consistent with the known facts, and the statement of the other party. We intend to share fault 50/50 between the two parties.

matttye

If the car was driving that fast you would've heard it surely?

Not sure if anyone has made this point already, I'm not going to read the whole thread.

Cornucopia

matttye wrote: »

If the car was driving that fast you would've heard it surely?

Depends on other noise, I would have thought.

Also not sure that a BMW travelling at 37mph (for example) would make that much noise, depending on the road surface.

I'm not going to read the whole thread.

It's been great. My favourite comment was from the person who thought it was okay to crash your car into someone else's as long as you have right of way.

RS2000.

Cornucopia wrote: »

That's not an allegation with a lack of evidence.

I imagine it being something like this:-

OP: I checked the road behind me for a distance of around 50m one way, and 75m the other, which is as far as I could see given the road layout and position of buildings. I then began my reversing maneouvre, and the other party and I collided less than 3 seconds later. Since the other party covered a distance of 50m in 3 seconds, I conclude that their speed must have been approximately 37mph or more, far in excess of the speed limit and far in excess of a safe speed for the circumstances.

Insurer: Yes, your account is consistent with the known facts, and the statement of the other party. We intend to share fault 50/50 between the two parties.

Your only problem with that arguement is the op didn't see the third party.

Cornucopia

RS2000. wrote: »

Your only problem with that arguement is the op didn't see the third party.

Retrogamer

Cornucopia wrote: »

In the lack of solid evidence where it's one person's word against the other, they will refer to what's more probable given the circumstances.

So what's more probable?

The OP didn't see the car, because they weren't looking in the direction the car was coming from. They drove into the side of it after all and didn't pull out in front of it or there would be damage near the front of the other car.

Or

The car was traveling so fast it was invisible and teleported in front of the OP making it impossible for them to have prevented the accident.

Combined with traffic on the road has right of way and if joining the road and hitting someone is evidence by definition of not giving right of way then i can't see on what grounds the OP's insurance could dispute it on.

If they tried and the third party has legal cover as most policies do, then they would go to court to sue the OP for negligence. The OP's insurance are responsible for their negligence financially so they would make a decision to either defend in the case with a civil claims court or to pay out.

Given the circumstances i described above, combined with lack of evidence a decision would then be made to apportion liability in terms of who was more negligent.

So where the car on the road might be found 10% for not taking action to avoid the accident, the OP would be found majority to blame.

Combined with the risk of all that, the costs involved dragging it out with admin / man hours and then having to pay out 90% or so of the costs anyway it's much cheaper for the insurance company to just pay out and not dispute it.

OnanTheBarbarian

As per post #58

Strider590

Retrogamer wrote: »

Combined with the risk of all that, the costs involved dragging it out with admin / man hours and then having to pay out 90% or so of the costs anyway it's much cheaper for the insurance company to just pay out and not dispute it.

Call me cynical, but I reckon they'll freeze both parties NCB, drag it (the claim) out past both their renewals so they can double/triple the premium, then they'll try to push for a 50:50 settlement so that both parties lose NCB and the insurance company recoups their costs from the customer over the next 5 years or so.

It's light damage to both vehicles, probably less than £300 each in the real world. So this is a prime opportunity to squeeze as much money as possible from both parties. All in all, regardless of which side is at fault, it'll cost both parties A LOT more than it would have done to just gotten both cars fixed and shared the cost.

Retrogamer

Strider590 wrote: »

Call me cynical, but I reckon they'll freeze both parties NCB, drag it (the claim) out past both their renewals so they can double/triple the premium, then they'll try to push for a 50:50 settlement so that both parties lose NCB and the insurance company recoups their costs from the customer over the next 5 years or so.

It's light damage to both vehicles, probably less than £300 each in the real world. So this is a prime opportunity to squeeze as much money as possible from both parties. All in all, regardless of which side is at fault, it'll cost both parties A LOT more than it would have done to just gotten both cars fixed and shared the cost.

I highly doubt this will get settled at 50/50. To do so drags it out longer and the costs of dragging it out longer from the admin side will outweigh the money brought in by inflated premiums.

It's a bit like when you drive into the back of someone and it's almost always your fault if you do so.
You could claim that the other party reversed into you but the probability is that's not likely to be the case.

In the lack of any evidence insurance companies generally hold the person coming out a give way or reversing to be the ones liable. This is a combination of both.

Strider590

I know this ^^ is how it should work, but I don't think insurance companies are behaving correctly or properly any more these days, times have changed and greed/money/corruption are rife.

Also, what admin costs are associated with putting the file on a shelf for 6 months? Which is exactly what they seem to do.

I can see things like hire car costs spiralling, there is a maximum time period for how long you can have one, but the latest trend seems to be blaming the customer for damage to said hire car and taking large sums of money off them for that, as well as both ins companies refusing to foot the bill for the hire car itself and the costs being passed on to the customer at probably £100+ per day.

Now I know they're struggling with insurance fraud and "crash for cash" gangs/etc, but I think in the main, it's all just a smoke screen for what they're really up to.