Advice pls, husband in car accident

louisehj

Hi,

My husband was involved in a collision yesterday morning and neither of us have had any dealings of this sort before so any advice would be much appreciated!

My husband was on his way to work at 5.40am friday morning. He was stopped at some lights on the entrance to a roundabout. There were 2 lanes, DH was in left lane marked on the road as left and straight on, right lane is marked right and straight on. My husband was going straight on over the roundabout, taking the second exit. Lights go green, DH pulls off and as he does notices a car coming up in the right lane. DH bends to the left to follow the road round and just as he is coming up to the middle of the first exit, the car in the right hand lane drives into DH's lane and hits DH. The force was enough to shunt DH's car up the road into the first exit.
Both cars pulled over. The man driving the other car got out, shouting at DH saying the lane DH was in is left only and DH should have taken first exit. DH replied it is left or straight on. The other driver was saying it was DH's fault. They exchanged details and left.

I rang insurance company and DH's car is booked to go to a garage on monday morning for an estimate of repair. What is worrying DH is that our car is an R reg escort. He feels the repairs will be too much for the insurance company and they will want to write the car off which we dont want.
DH spoke to the liability dept last night, they said if the other driver denies liability they will look to settle 50/50, which means we have £150 excess and lose 2 yrs no claims. DH not happy. We have legal cover on the policy so DH said can we dispute this if he denies liabilty, they said we would have to cover the cost of it ourselves.
Our excess is £250 compulsary as we are 24 and £50 voluntary. Dh is really upset about this, he has never had an accident before and we cant really afford to buy another car.

The damage to DH's car is damaged door strip, right side wing mirrror, right side bumper badly damaged and right light smashed out. The other car had some scratches.

Any advice would be much apprieciated!

Thanks
Louise

mattymoo

Go and get photos of the road markings and signs on the roundabout approach as these will support your claim that hubby was in the correct lane.

Google Earth can also zoom in close on a junction - ideal for making a plan showing routes of vehicles etc.

Roundabout accidents are a tricky one to deal with just because of misunderstandings as to who was where and where they were going. The clearer your explanation to your insurers, the better chance they have of succeeding against the other driver.

Justicia

Agree totally with mattymoo :beer:

At present, I suspect that your insurers are dealing with the claim as another bash on a roundabout, hence the 50/50.

Go and get them some clear photographic evidence for them to submit to the other party - hopefully this will get them some required ammunition and your company can start the arm-twisting in their negotiations with the other company.

Keep us updated!

madmoneysaver

Yes it sounds to me as though as this driver was in the wrong anyway, why the need to come into your hubby's lane when he could have just followed his lane anyway and both cars would have taken their exit properly??
Again it looks like some div that thought he knew best and is trying to put the blame where it shouldn't be. I sound a bit bitter cause I too had a RTA last year at a roundabout with another driver doing exactly this, coming into my lane where he shouldn't have been doing it.

So as Mattymoo says, I would support with photographic evidence and definitely stand my ground against him...
Hope you get this sorted, best of luck to you and hubby and let us know how you get on!!