Victim of road rage, damage to car?

Mercdriver

interstellaflyer wrote: »

I think seatbeltnoob has been watching too much Traffic Cops and Police Intercepters, IIRC in one episode they did pull some one for giving the middle finger to another driver, turned out to be an unmarked police car and the officer did threaten a Section 5 Public Order charge, but we all know much of what goes on in those programs is staged.

Care to enlighten us with evidence or is this supposition?

Edited to add: D'oh! This is a forum, of course it is supposition!

Obscenities are a public order offence and you CAN be arrested for them. Finger signals count. You also have to very careful indeed when making signals like this abroad. When in Greece, my brother in law spent the night in a cell for using the middle finger.

You would be in a minority if you were arrested for it in the UK, but it is possible.

Fat_Walt

Mercdriver wrote: »

Care to enlighten us with evidence or is this supposition?

Edited to add: D'oh! This is a forum, of course it is supposition!

Obscenities are a public order offence and you CAN be arrested for them. Finger signals count. You also have to very careful indeed when making signals like this abroad. When in Greece, my brother in law spent the night in a cell for using the middle finger.

You would be in a minority if you were arrested for it in the UK, but it is possible.

You need to be warned first.

Fat_Walt

interstellaflyer wrote: »

Are there reliable witnesses to the initial altercation that have made or are willingly to make statements though? In the case of my friend, they couldn't prove the intitial altercation was anything other than six of one, half a dozen of the other but could prove the Criminal Damage.

Why would he need evidence of the initial altercation?

It's the damage that's his issue.

interstellaflyer

Fat_Walt wrote: »

Why would he need evidence of the initial altercation?

It's the damage that's his issue.

I was responding to someone else who mentioned threatening behaviour.

missile

Quote:

Of course not. Violence is never justified. However, I find it very hard to believe that even a BMW driver would do the things OP alleges without provocation. Provocation could also be an offence.

bartelbe wrote: »

Utter nonsense. Near misses and stupid manoeuvres happen all the time, but that never justifies this kind of response.

The OP was right to get away, maybe the guy was all bark and no bite, but what if he wasn't? Potentially having your head kicked in by some psycho in a carpark is something no-one deserves, whatever daft thing they did.

Read my post again.
I said violence is NEVER justified.
However, you are very naïve to believe OP is an innocent victim :A

Strider590

Provocation is not always necessary, I was coming off M6 J7 the other day heading to Walsall via A34, never been there before, following sat-nav, I exit via the RH lane of the exit lane which I didn't know merges down to one lane.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.5524303,-1.9368589,3a,78.8y,63.86h,95.27t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sPB-whXsTXtz5ul86RPChsA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656


Some dipsh!t in a Corsa exits in the LH lane and is trying to undertake me JUST as the road merges, queue horn blasting, middle finger waving and tailgating, idiot even cuts up somebody else trying to get past me by driving over the grass verge.
I think in this example, it was one of these people just out looking for a fight, undertake a car as they're about to merge and then pretend like it was all their fault.

There are nutcases out there and people in these German "luxury" cars (ie Mr BMW) tend to take it very personally when somebody points out that they screwed up.

TBagpuss

Mercdriver wrote: »

Get the witness details from the witnesses and take them along to the police when they take your statement. Tell them that you'd like it dealt with as a threatening behaviour offence not a driving incident and use the witnesses to back you up on it. You shouldn't have to do the legwork for the police, but take some of the work out of it and they can't blame lack of resources.

This. Explain to them that you would like it dealt with as threatening behaviour and criminal damage not (just) a 'driving incident'. Explain that you have details of several witnesss and that the supermarket and car wash both have CCTV although of course they are only able to disclose it to the police, not to you as an individual.

Ask for a crime reference number.

Once you have the crime reference number, pass that on to your insurers and tell them, also, that there are witnesss and CCTV. If you were given a reg. number give that to your insurers and explain that you are happy for thwem to liaise with the police if necessary.

missile

Strider590 wrote: »

There are nutcases out there and people in these German "luxury" cars (ie Mr BMW) tend to take it very personally when somebody points out that they screwed up.

100% agree. No doubt this is what OP did? I am not perfect and have learned not to make a bad situation worse by provoking other drivers when I feel they have done something wrong.

dannyrst

missile wrote: »

100% agree. No doubt this is what OP did? I am not perfect and have learned not to make a bad situation worse by provoking other drivers when I feel they have done something wrong.

Saw a video of a guy the other day in an Audi cutting up a lorry from the inside, pulling infront of him and brake checking the lorry. Problem being the lorry went into the back of him and when he saw the size of the lorry driver, he was much less aggressive.

Road ragers are the new keyboard warriors. Happy to give it the big man whilst behind the wheel but scared when they have to get out and face up to their actions.

spira9

The staff said I could have a copy of the footage, maybe I'll get that next week. They haven't even started working on the case yet and I'm annoyed because the lady on the phone just said she would 'make a note of it'. The cameras at the car wash only last for 3 days and the guy said he would save it but I don't really trust him. He saw the whole thing but when I asked him if he saw what happened he acted like he didn't see it. Kind of like he doesn't want to 'snitch' to the police. Also he went round to look at my car to see the dent so he obviously did see it.

I'm thinking about trying to get the psycho's address through his plate number. And then sending him a letter to pay for the damage and in return I won't press charges. I would highlight that we have the footage and witnesses. Maybe this is a better route than waiting for the police.

However I'm not sure how I'm going to get the money if I haven't had the repairs done yet and the police haven't seen the damage yet. Also I don't want him having my contact details, so I don't know how I will go about getting him to pay for it without finding out all my personal details. He was a tattooed up thug looking bloke and may have been on drugs.