Accident advice needed

Toby_HDi · Post by **Toby_HDi** » 26 Feb 2010, 20:59

Yes, I've had my first accident in 4 years of driving

I came up to a main roundabout and had read it before the fellow in front of me. Went to pull out and shunted him.

No damage to the Activa at all but his car had a cracked bumper, rear light cluster and a small dent on the corner of the boot hatch.

I am immensely annoyed to say the least.

I just need some advice as to what to do, what the procedure is. We exchanged details as expected. Do I now have to inform my insurance or do I wait until he has and they'll contact me? What is usually the procedure? As I say, first time and I've not a clue.

I did say at the time that I'd be willing to pay for repairs if it wasn't too bad, rather than go through the insurance as I know I will be shafted after this (not that I'm not already) I'm not sure if I should have said this or not though my instinct is that he'll go straight to insurance. If he does decide to settle without insurance how do I go about it? I don't want to pay up and then he decides to go through insurance anyway.

Any advice appreciated. I've had the day from hell and I'm reaching breaking point. Whatever advice you can give will be appreciated.

Thanks

Post by **admiral51** » 26 Feb 2010, 21:35

Hi Toby

Sorry to hear of your mishap

I personally would inform the insurance of the accident giving them all the details you have.They will probably get you to talk them through the incident before they send you out an accident claim form.

If you want to try and sort it out without the insurance then try the following

Estimate yourself how much you think the cost to repair the damage would be and then double it.
You will have to pay for the work and are you sure that they will find nothing else wrong when they remove the bumper etc .

Best bet is to go through the insurance thats what you pay the premium for.And yes you will get shafted come renewal time but thats when you shop around.Glad the Activa has excaped undamaged along with yourself.
Also i believe its an offence not to report an accident,much more expensive than reporting it

Colin

davetherave · Post by **davetherave** » 26 Feb 2010, 22:14

I had an accident a few years back and am still feel pain every time renewal comes up, unfortuanatly you have to report accidents for about 5 years. If its a cheap car you shunted id consider paying for repairs, however if its a newer one then insurance is the only way.
When i had my crash the bas

rds claimed for two courtsey cars which overlapped each other in the length of time they had them. (and they were not cheap courtsey cars either!)

HDI · Post by **HDI** » 26 Feb 2010, 22:15

Bad luck , it happens to most of us at some time though. Admitting liability is a mistake , insurance companies state this should never be done. If no one is injured then the accident does not need to be reported to the Police. Your insurance company will probably have provided information of what to do in the event of an accident in the information you received with the policy.

Toby_HDi · Post by **Toby_HDi** » 26 Feb 2010, 22:15

Thanks Colin.

No one was injured so police were not called, this I believe was correct process.

Thing is, I'm working tomorrow and cannot call my insurance company. This means the soonest I can do it is Sunday. I'd rather do it before then.

It seems my insurance company allows me to 'make a claim' online but I'm not convinced this is what I want to do. I just want to tell them I've had an accident. I do not want to claim for damages to my car as there are none.

The other concerning thing is my excess. Do I have to pay this even if I don't claim for my own car? I've been told that its only if I'm claiming for my own car but this doesn't sound right to me.

Citroenmad · Post by **Citroenmad** » 26 Feb 2010, 22:24

I think you pay your excess if they are required to pay something out, though not 100% sure on that.

If your not going through insurance do you really have to tell them? I assume you do, legally, but will this not increase your premium anyway?

Toby_HDi · Post by **Toby_HDi** » 26 Feb 2010, 22:35

To be honest I think it's going to have to be insurance.

It was a 57 plate Clio Campus. Damage is only superficial but as Colin said, you never know whats underneath.

As I say, its all alien to me being my first accident.

What constitutes admitting liability? Is it something that has to be in writing or can it be as simple as saying 'sorry' at the side of the road?

Toby_HDi · Post by **Toby_HDi** » 26 Feb 2010, 22:57

superloopy1 wrote:
Toby_HDi wrote: .... can it be as simple as saying 'sorry' at the side of the road?
You defo do NOT want to say that

Bugger....

I'll have to get on to them first thing Sunday then.

Citroenmad · Post by **Citroenmad** » 26 Feb 2010, 23:01

Pretty obvious that it wasnt the driver of the car you hit to blame, as they probably were not reversing! So i dont get the not admitting liability thing, though ive not been there myself either.

Best phone them as soon as you can.

andmcit · Post by **andmcit** » 27 Feb 2010, 00:11

I'm afraid I'm going to be Job's comforter here.

Stating the obvious I know, but basically, you're sitting there watching
the fella in front (even if they're a timid ditherer) and your job is to avoid
hitting them, even if they pull forward and then decide to stop. The fact
you've caught the end of a car ahead of you at a road junction stacks the
odds against you and is a 'classic' minor prang; all insurance companies
will automatically see this scenario as your fault unfortunately.

All your insurance company will do initially is send you an accident report
form to fill in.

As far as the other party and "settling" out of insurance goes, I doubt it
- the first thing they probably thought was "kerching" = whiplash so loads of
money even before considering boot floor damage. The times we live in
with the litigation 'no win no fee culture' definitely hasn't helped.

Years ago before things got as bad as them seem today, I was involved
in an accident which was described by another party to their Insurer in an
ENTIRELY DIFFERENT scenario to what I witnessed with a totally different
car AND DRIVER!! Basically, I wouldn't trust anything on face value and
even whilst I told my insurer there was a major con going on they were
content to pay out and make another transaction close rather than draw
things out and fight. Basically I would be the one paying.

Glad the Activa is still OK though.

Andrew

andmcit · Post by **andmcit** » 27 Feb 2010, 00:21

My local Council bless them

, has hit on a brilliant idea to stop such
eventualities; yep that's right - deliberately severely restrict vision at a very
big busy roundabout!!

http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/news/ ... ticle.html

You couldn't make this stuff up! I cringe at the comments by the drivers
and residents commenting in the local rag too - it frightens me to think
I share the roads with these people...

Andrew

Citroenmad · Post by **Citroenmad** » 27 Feb 2010, 10:02

There are roundabouts around here like that, they deliberately put signage, frences of untames hedges on the approach to roundabouts. So you have to slow down and look at traffic on the roundabout at the last second, then start to pull away again.

I saw a similar scenario to yours a few weeks back, one car had stopped at the rounabout, on a very busy 70mph road, and the car follwoing had read the roundabout early, though the first car (a Scenic) didnt move away, the Ford Galaxy slammed straight into the back of it, sending it into the traffic. There was considerably damage to both cars, especially the scenic.

So i guess had there been fencing in place this would have prevented this situation.

Compensation seems a common thing these days, everyong is out for what they can get.

A few months aqo i saw a ford ka bump into the back of a fiesta at a set of traffic lights, right in the middle of a village. After a while both cars were still there, no mark on the rear of the fiesta to be seen but the Ka had a smashed light. The ambulance turned up and were faffing around with the woman in the already battered and ancient fiesta for ages, neck braces on etc. The girl in the Ka was fine, she was on the phone crying, no doubt worried what she had done to the woman in the fiesta. Very minor bump and unless the woman already had back issues, i very much doubt there would have been any trauma. She was most likely just milking it, building up a big compensation claim no doubt. Though thats the world we live in.

wheeler · Post by **wheeler** » 27 Feb 2010, 15:53

The personal injury vultures will already have been in contact with the other party asking how his neck is

Somone hit me from behind 2 years ago not that bad, the vultures were on the phone to me within 1 hour of the accident asking how my neck was. when i said i was fine they said it can take a few days to show up & they would call back after the weekend, they were basically coaching me what to say. the phoned back about another 4 times .

addo · Post by **addo** » 27 Feb 2010, 21:43

I suffered real whiplash in a 40MPH rear-ender early in 2007. It required over a year of treatment, and to this day I will run a red if I am not 100% certain of what is behind me - or if it can stop.

My point? Some injuries are bona-fide. All I claimed was the actual cost of treatments; the only dispute we had was when they lost a $52 receipt I had sent in. If you didn't have the money to go and pay upfront for the treatments like this, you'd be at a great disadvantage - yet another example of low income people getting the raw deal.

pug_owner2002 · Post by **pug_owner2002** » 27 Feb 2010, 22:14

Having now had to deal with 5 insurance claims for RTA's 3 for myself and 2 for my wife (4 none fault and 1 still on going), I hope I can give some advice on this subject.
By offering to pay for the damage to the other car, you have in fact admitted that you were at fault. To be honest though from what you have said I don't think your insurance would see it any other way as it's one of those "cut and dry" cases.
Re your excess, you will only have to pay this if you claim for repairs to your own vehicle.
I wouldn't worry to much about getting shafted at renewal time, from past claims you only loose 2 years no claims (they suspended this from my no claims for the duration of the claim). As I had 2 years no claims suspended for the duration of my claim and had to renew I was less than impressed that the premium went up. I went onto money supermarket and actually managed to get a policy (with the same level of cover and excess) for cheaper than the previous year. So it's not always bad.
Don't beat yourself up over this as these things happen and your only human.
From what you have said it was a small knock and no one was injured, which is all that really matters.
Hope it all gets sorted out Ok.

Simon