Reversed into a car and didn't know

jammiejimmy

a.turner wrote: »

Well you'll be covered if they come after you with a personal injury claim and it goes to court. Probably won't cover a criminal defence witch has nothing to do with the third party claim.

I see- so I'd be covered if the owner of the car I damaged wanted to sue me. I did get some advice from a solicitor on another site who said that he has represented people during trials on the basis of LEI but I'll just have to check it out on Tuesday.

Car_54

a.turner wrote: »

Well you'll be covered if they come after you with a personal injury claim and it goes to court.

The OP's normal motor insurance will cover that.

stormbreaker

Personally, I would plead not guilty to all three charges. What kind of vehicle were you driving? Could you 'reasonably' not have known that you had bumped the other vehicle? Did it have a tow bar? What parts of the vehicles connected? Is there anyone speaking to there being any damage on your vehicle? What exactly are the witnesses saying?

Did they see your vehicle collide with the other? Are they independant? Was it their car? If so, did they just see your vehicle leaving a parking space, then notice the damage, then assume it was your vehicle that caused it?

I am really surprised you were not visited by the police. I would have expected them to have examined both vehicles for damage.

In the forms you completed for the police all I expect you were doing was identifying who the driver of the vehicle was at the material time.

As much as failing to stop and failing to report will not show as convictions they can be treated as serious by the courts. It is considered that there must have been good reason for you not to have done so. If your driving license and insurance are in order it may be considered that the reason you didn't was you were under the influence of drink or drugs. This can come with disqualification and a heavy fine.

That said if there was any evidence to suggest that you were under the influence even more reason the police should have followed it up immediately.

Police do not normally charge folk with driving without due care and attention unless there is injury or substantial damage, that's just been put there as an add on. Police rarely take reports of minor bumps, never mind attend at the locus (most if not all, have been caused by someone not driving with due care and attention) leaving it to insurance to fight it out.

jk0

I wonder if it was a policeman's car though.

TooManyPoints

Isn’t leaving the scene of an accident a potentially imprisonable offence...the penalty would be a fine but it’s still a potentially indictable offence.

Your terminology is confused. An imprisonable offence and an indictable offence are not one and the same. The first is self-explanatory. Indictable offences are those that may be heard in the Crown Court (either as "indictable only" or "either way"). None of the offences the OP faces are indictable. The most serious of the three are failing to stop/report (which carry as a maximum a six month prison sentence).

An enhanced DBS check is supposed to reveal all convictions held on bar those that have been "filtered". Those supposedly qualifying for filtering include "most" motoring offences. Quite what that means is anybody's guess.

TooManyPoints

Police do not normally charge folk with driving without due care and attention unless there is injury or substantial damage, that's just been put there as an add on. Police rarely take reports of minor bumps, never mind attend at the locus (most if not all, have been caused by someone not driving with due care and attention) leaving it to insurance to fight it out.

That's certainly true. The usual form is for the police to ensure the two parties (or at least their insurers) are in contact and leave it at that, That's clearly not what's happened here.

a.turner

TooManyPoints wrote: »

Your terminology is confused. An imprisonable offence and an indictable offence are not one and the same. The first is self-explanatory. Indictable offences are those that may be heard in the Crown Court (either as "indictable only" or "either way"). None of the offences the OP faces are indictable. The most serious of the three are failing to stop/report (which carry as a maximum a six month prison sentence).

An enhanced DBS check is supposed to reveal all convictions held on bar those that have been "filtered". Those supposedly qualifying for filtering include "most" motoring offences. Quite what that means is anybody's guess.

Indictable offences can only be heard in crown court.

stormbreaker

jk0 wrote: »

I wonder if it was a policeman's car though.

Not quite sure what you are getting at here. If the car 'apparently' damaged by the op, was that of a police officers, the matter would have to be investigated by another officer.

a.turner

TooManyPoints wrote: »

That's certainly true. The usual form is for the police to ensure the two parties (or at least their insurers) are in contact and leave it at that, That's clearly not what's happened here.

It's quite common to charge all three offences.

billy2shots

I was cycling through the New Forest, long straight road with lights on even though it was daytime with great visibility.
A car was coming the other way and at just as we were level he turned right hitting me head on. Accident was at a combined speed of circa 30mph

This caused my head to smash through his windscreen, break 2 bones in my wrist and my finger and thumb on the other hand and cuts and bruises pretty much everywhere.
13 weeks on and I’m still in plaster.

The driver admitted full liability during a police interview.
He did not get done for driving without due care.

If that driver escaped with a driver awareness course I think you would be very unlucky to cop for undue care.