How to find a car reg no for a 3rd party who ran into the back of my stationary car

DB1904

Sandtree said:

DB1904 said:

Sandtree said:

DB1904 said:

Sandtree said:

Car_54 said:

DB1904 said:

fournarios said:

I'm trying to find the reg no of a van that ran into the back of mine while I was stationary at a junction with the hand brake on. He gave me his phone no (subsequently found to be false) and name, but I was in such a state of shock that I didn't get his reg no. I was able to track him down because his company name was written on the side of his van. He offered to settle off insurance but turned nasty when I took the trouble to provide 3 separate repair quotes. At which point I handed it over to my insurance company. Now they  are saying that without the reg no it will have to be treated as a claim rather than a no fault claim - no doubt with an impact on my premium and no claims.

Has anyone used a private detective or other means to get a reg no? I have his home address but it's on the other side of the country. 

Report the matter to the police, pay for a copy of the collision report and you'll get the registration and insurance details. Whether you can find any interest for them to do that is another matter. 

What collision report? All the police will have to go on is the OP’s evidence. How will they find the registration number?

Presumably the hope is that the police send a producer to the address the OP has so that the owner has to go to the police with his V5, license and insurance 

Which vehicle is he required to produce documents for?

The company van he was driving on 2nd Jan on Southwark Street, London (or whatever the details are).

As I said previously, the one I received had my name and address spelt very badly, I was surprised it even got to me so either the hire car company had recorded it so poorly (you'd hope that wasnt the case) or its how the woman "remembered it" when reporting it to the police. I never heard anything from the hire car company or garage which is another reason why you'd imagine it didnt go via them

Exactly what's the registration number?

If the letter has to be redirected to the fleet manager then its certainly a reasonable question, given the business however is registered to a residential address its likely they dont operate a large fleet of vehicles and as such I'd have thought the police would expect the business to be able to identify the vehicle and driver in question on the date given the details provided.

Is there a requirement in law for a company to identify the vehicle involved?

Ganga

Will the van driver not have got rid of the said vehicle by now? bought another one and say " what van ? mine is a red/black any choice you like " with a different registration ,even if they do not know the original reg.

Sandtree

Ganga said:

Will the van driver not have got rid of the said vehicle by now? bought another one and say " what van ? mine is a red/black any choice you like " with a different registration ,even if they do not know the original reg.

Maybe but a bit extreme to do given it had sign writing etc (though some are magnetic these days)... its not like he killed the OP 

ontheroad1970

If there are a fleet of vehicles and the company keeps a good record of who was driving what vehicle when, then there os a chance of tracing the vehicle.  If the driver is in good form with the person running the company, then it could easily be a case of, "sorry have no record of what van he was driving that day, or admin error.  

fournarios

Manxman_in_exile said:

Your best hope is to report it to the police as a failure to exchange insurance details.  Report it to the constabulary where it happened first, but I'd also ask them if you should be reporting to his local force.  (I can see that if you tell he's not a local they may lose interest - not that they're likely to show much anyway... )

Too long ago now. There was no CCTV in the area. He is a one man band.

fournarios

8871Jlw said:

Without the registration, I’d do the following

Pay for the repairs.  Keep images and invoices.  Send him the bill

Should they fail to pay you, issue court proceedings against the company.  

Given he offered to repair it but then changed his mind, I believe you have enough evidence in order to do that and pursue it all the way, it’s whether or not you’re inclined to go to all that trouble.

And once you issue that summons against the company, trust me when I say they’ll quickly go crawling to their insurance company to deal with it

He's a one-man band. Pursuing through the courts is likely to cost me more money, I fear.