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Car accident advice - who is to blame?
thepeopleschamp
Posts: 68 Forumite
Hi just needed some advice.
My wife was involved in a minor car accident yesterday. Basically she was in a street with cars parked on either side of road and there was a car coming in opposite direction. She was attempting to give him way when last minute he pulled over to his right (which is her left) to park his car. He parked his car half-way on an entrance to a car park and half outside a house so it looked like he hadn't fully parked yet. She saw a gap of two cars behind this car which pulled over to the right to give way to another vehicle. As she passed him he hit the side of her car from the rear of his left bumper as it looks like he didn't see her and he was wanting to reverse his car to park it correctly.
There is a huge scuff on my wife's car from the rear wheel arch to the centre of the front passenger door. the other driver believes that my wife hit his car rather than him reversing into ours.
At the scene of the incident I was 50 yards away as I had waited for my wife to pick me up from the train station nearby and as I didnt fully see the incident, I couldn't make a judgement but we swapped phone numbers and names and I rang him later that evening.
When I rang him in the evening it appeared he was trying to shift the blame on my wife as he was changing his story mentioning that his car was stationary for a while and he was parked correctly but this isn't the case as my wife clearly saw him pull over to the right suddenly. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures of the incident at the time. Our argument is that if my wife had hit his car then why isn't there any damage on the front wheel arch or from bumper? It's clear that he reversed and he also initially said to my wife that you should indicate if pulling over to give way to an oncoming vehicle but to me it looks like he was reckless in that he didnt see his blind spot and didnt look in his mirrors when carrying out a parking manouvre to park his car.
He also refused to supply his address which is fine but we did manage to get details of his insurer from him. Also he was in a hurry to leave at the time of the incident and we could tell that he knew he was in the wrong as he was making excuses like "you should indicate" or "my car has less damage than yours"and he said he didn't want to go through insurers for this however once I rang him later in the evening its as if his tone had changed and his partner had told him to try and make us feel the blame for this incident and he changed his story to try and confuse us. His partner also said to me that if we told the insurers and made a claim then this would go down bad for us. He was reluctant to even inform the insurers of the incident.
We phoned the insurers today and reported it to them and got a call back from the claims company who are willing to offer a courtesy car and repair our vehicle but im pretty sure the other party will refuse to take blame and we dont want to foot a huge bill for hiring a car.
my question is who do you think is to blame for this accident?
My wife was involved in a minor car accident yesterday. Basically she was in a street with cars parked on either side of road and there was a car coming in opposite direction. She was attempting to give him way when last minute he pulled over to his right (which is her left) to park his car. He parked his car half-way on an entrance to a car park and half outside a house so it looked like he hadn't fully parked yet. She saw a gap of two cars behind this car which pulled over to the right to give way to another vehicle. As she passed him he hit the side of her car from the rear of his left bumper as it looks like he didn't see her and he was wanting to reverse his car to park it correctly.
There is a huge scuff on my wife's car from the rear wheel arch to the centre of the front passenger door. the other driver believes that my wife hit his car rather than him reversing into ours.
At the scene of the incident I was 50 yards away as I had waited for my wife to pick me up from the train station nearby and as I didnt fully see the incident, I couldn't make a judgement but we swapped phone numbers and names and I rang him later that evening.
When I rang him in the evening it appeared he was trying to shift the blame on my wife as he was changing his story mentioning that his car was stationary for a while and he was parked correctly but this isn't the case as my wife clearly saw him pull over to the right suddenly. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures of the incident at the time. Our argument is that if my wife had hit his car then why isn't there any damage on the front wheel arch or from bumper? It's clear that he reversed and he also initially said to my wife that you should indicate if pulling over to give way to an oncoming vehicle but to me it looks like he was reckless in that he didnt see his blind spot and didnt look in his mirrors when carrying out a parking manouvre to park his car.
He also refused to supply his address which is fine but we did manage to get details of his insurer from him. Also he was in a hurry to leave at the time of the incident and we could tell that he knew he was in the wrong as he was making excuses like "you should indicate" or "my car has less damage than yours"and he said he didn't want to go through insurers for this however once I rang him later in the evening its as if his tone had changed and his partner had told him to try and make us feel the blame for this incident and he changed his story to try and confuse us. His partner also said to me that if we told the insurers and made a claim then this would go down bad for us. He was reluctant to even inform the insurers of the incident.
We phoned the insurers today and reported it to them and got a call back from the claims company who are willing to offer a courtesy car and repair our vehicle but im pretty sure the other party will refuse to take blame and we dont want to foot a huge bill for hiring a car.
my question is who do you think is to blame for this accident?
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Comments
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Sorry, wall of text.
Try re-writing with paragraphs and you may get more people willing to read and comment.0 -
I think it is going to be 50/50. The parking seems careless. Your wife didn't establish that a car in a strange place was not going to move again.0
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Often when there's ambiguities, it does go 50/50 I'm afraid.0
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Thanks for the advice. We have TPFT and this doesnt include a courtesy car so the fact that we may not win the insurance claim, could we end up paying for the courtesy car? It seems like the accident management company working on behalf of the insurers are quick to offer us this option for free and repair the car through one of their authorised garages but we fear that we may be faced with a big bill and would rather prefer to go with another garage to carry out the repair should the insurers be willing to cover the cost for us.0
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Sorry I didn't realise I needed to contact his insurance company. When I reported the incident to my insurance company they said they will get in touch with the other parties insurance company,0
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Got a quote today for the repair from a garage I've used previously and its coming to £1200. Ouch. That's about how much the car is worth.0
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thepeopleschamp wrote: »....As she passed him he hit the side of her car from the rear of his left bumper..
If he was stationary then your wife is to blame, if he was reversing whilst your wife passed him, then 50/50 as both should be aware of moving hazards.
(Just my opinion)Originally Posted by shortcrust
"Contact the Ministry of Fairness....If sufficient evidence of unfairness is discovered you’ll get an apology, a permanent contract with backdated benefits, a ‘Let’s Make it Fair!’ tshirt and mug, and those guilty of unfairness will be sent on a Fairness Awareness course."0 -
Thanks. Issue is that once my wife passed the front of his vehicle he began to move so it appears he didn't look in his blind spot. He was stationary at the point of my wife approaching him otherwise she would have let him park the vehicle.0
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In the absence of any independent witness, this will go 50:50.0
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Drivers do not agree/apportion liability, insurance companies do.Feudal Britain needs land reform. 70% of the land is "owned" by 1 % of the population and at least 50% is unregistered (inherited by landed gentry). Thats why your slave box costs so much..0
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