Claiming against a Third Party

cwhaley1

Adrian - see prior posts. My "own car" is fitted with dashcams; I was driving my "partner's car". The point I was trying to make is that I am a careful driver but I think you missed that - never mind.

Thanks to earlier posters on helpful and useful knowledge on working with third party and/or insurer. I will use it to progress the claim.

AdrianC

cwhaley1 wrote: »

A split liability would be reasonable as I know these things are hard to prove in full - I just needed advice on working with the third party.

It's very simple. Forget chasing his insurer. They won't pay for your damage.

Lane 2 (his lane) merges into lane 1 (my lane). He was behind me until presumably deciding to floor it and then cut in without warning. I know his lane ends as I take this route every day, but I can't mind read and I did not know he was going to cut in as he did. He had been behind me for the last mile or so, in various single and dual carriageways.

As I said I am a patient driver and I frequently drop back to let the MGIF (must get in front) drivers overtake. I can't do that when they decide last minute to floor it past me.

It was a 30 limit. You were, I presume, doing 30mph - so just under 14 metres per second.

He was driving a van. Let's assume it was five metres long, and your car is four metres long. How much warning did you have of the fact he was accelerating and closing the gap on you (let's assume ten metres), alongside you, mostly ahead of you... with the lanes merging imminently?

He closed nineteen metres between sitting behind you and being almost entirely in front of you. That didn't happen instantly. Even ignoring your mirrors, from the moment his front bumper appeared in your peripheral vision until the impact, he gained roughly six metres on you. Are you seriously telling me that his van accelerated to warp speed almost instantly, and just appeared in front of you without any warning?

If he was averaged 40 throughout the acceleration-closing-passing, then he was gaining on you at the rate of 4.5m - roughly a car length - per second. Four seconds warning.

Sorry, but even ignoring the laws of physics, the rest of your posts strongly suggest that you were thinking - subconsciously, perhaps - "You shouldn't be doing that, I won't help you out one bit.".

You knew he was behind you. Unless you're remarkably unobservant, then you knew he was going for it.

All it would have taken was for you to just ease off the accelerator a tidge. By all means, then grumble at him, flick a V, even flash your lights. But you could VERY easily have avoided that impact.

You're right, I did miss that the dashcams were in the other car. But I think you get my point. They would have been conclusive, but not in the way you want them to be.

Retrogamer

cwhaley1 wrote: »

A split liability would be reasonable as I know these things are hard to prove in full - I just needed advice on working with the third party.

Essentially you would contact them at first point, tell them your story and see what they do / say.
If it's not admit liability, then you'd need to sue the driver (not his insurance) via the small claims court, but given your story i wouldn't fancy your chances at it.

cwhaley1 wrote: »

Lane 2 (his lane) merges into lane 1 (my lane). He was behind me until presumably deciding to floor it and then cut in without warning. I know his lane ends as I take this route every day, but I can't mind read and I did not know he was going to cut in as he did. He had been behind me for the last mile or so, in various single and dual carriageways.

Is it possible to have a google link to the area please so we can see the street layout?

You said you can't mind read but you don't need to be able to mind read to assume that when someone's lane runs out they're going to attempt to join yours if they're going too quickly to stop and have no where else to go.
That's just common sense

Are you seriously telling us, he managed drive up beside you, on your side of the car and start to move over into your lane when almost all of his car was ahead of you and during all of this it was impossible for you to reduce your speed slightly either by easing off the accelerator or by braking gentle?

cwhaley1 wrote: »

As I said I am a patient driver and I frequently drop back to let the MGIF (must get in front) drivers overtake. I can't do that when they decide last minute to floor it past me.

Can you upload the dash cam footage and like it? It would make things a lot clearer on how much time (if any?) there was to react.

Car_54

EdGasket wrote: »

OK but that is just being 'nice' on your part; legally your claim is from the TP themselves and you might get a quicker and more favourable outcome following that route.

But the TP's policy almost certainly requires him to pass all correspondence (unanswered) to the insurer.

So dealing with the TP will simply add a few days at every stage. Or ami I missing something?

Retrogamer

Car_54 wrote: »

But the TP's policy almost certainly requires him to pass all correspondence (unanswered) to the insurer.

So dealing with the TP will simply add a few days at every stage. Or ami I missing something?

The TP might not want to involve insurance, might admit liability there and then and settle with cash to avoid the hassle.

cwhaley1

I really appreciate the time taken to respond, but there's quite a lot of speculative presumptions flying about regarding road layout, what I was thinking, etc.

As I said, he was behind me for over a mile and I was regularly conscious of his and the other road users' presence/position as you should be. I did not expect him to overtake or cut in when he did. "Easing off the accelerator" was not an option. The way it's been described here suggests that he gradually crept up beside me, we had a mini road-battle and I wouldn't let him pass before he ends up hitting me. He overtook, swung in and hit me.

Thanks again for all of your advice. I have informed the insurers that I will get some estimates this weekend and they have asked that I send the estimates into them. Claim handler is to call me today at some point too.

EdGasket

Car_54 wrote: »

But the TP's policy almost certainly requires him to pass all correspondence (unanswered) to the insurer.

So dealing with the TP will simply add a few days at every stage. Or ami I missing something?

Yes, if the TP decides to ignore everything, his insurer won't do anything. If the TP disputes liability his insurer won't pay without overwhelming evidence.

In contrast a court summons to the TP gets things moving and for civil cases they are decided by the balance of evidence which is usually a lot less than required to convince a 'slippery' insurance company of blame.

AdrianC

Not speculative. Simply taking what you've said and applying some logic and reality to it.

But, sure. You were there, we weren't. So what speed would you estimate he was doing when he hit you? 80? 90? Higher?

Assuming the 19m gain on you took only a second, giving you little chance to see him, that'd be an average speed for him - from starting to accelerate to impact - of 73mph. Assuming that his acceleration was linear, then that's going to be roughly 30mph to just over 100mph in one second. In a van. Wow.

I'm surprised the blast from the jet exhaust didn't do more damage.

Retrogamer

cwhaley1 wrote: »

I really appreciate the time taken to respond, but there's quite a lot of speculative presumptions flying about regarding road layout, what I was thinking, etc.

We only have your story to go on, so there will be a lot of assumptions if we're left to imagine what the dash cam video you have looks like or the street you were driving down looks like with it's' layout ect. Hence the request for either of them to try and make things more clear.

cwhaley1 wrote: »

As I said, he was behind me for over a mile and I was regularly conscious of his and the other road users' presence/position as you should be. I did not expect him to overtake or cut in when he did. "Easing off the accelerator" was not an option.

Presumable it takes less time to lift your foot off the pedal than for the other gentleman to accelerate alongside you, almost overtake (car positioned ahead of yours) then drive into the side of you

If i seen a car trying to overtake me and i knew their lane was about to run out and they might suddenly steer into me, i'd have slowed down.

cwhaley1 wrote: »

The way it's been described here suggests that he gradually crept up beside me, we had a mini road-battle and I wouldn't let him pass before he ends up hitting me. He overtook, swung in and hit me.

Not at all. Only that from you're own story it sounds unlikely that you didn't have enough time to react.

AdrianC

Retrogamer wrote: »

...if we're left to imagine what the dash cam video you have looks like...

Would have looked like. The dashcams were in the other car. How (in)convenient.