Crashed into :(

D

DaveH

So, about two weeks ago, some **** in a Clio went into a 4x4, which went into the back of another car which went into the back of me :( We were all stationary, and he failed to stop. We had two different stories from him, one was "I was distracted and didn't see the stopped traffic", the other was "My brakes weren't working when I was pressing them..."

http://www.idylla.co.uk/photos/gallery2/v/pileup/ is the full gallery;

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Thats the clio and the giant 4x4 that he went into;

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The 4x4 then went into the back of this Mitsubishi

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Which then went into me! My car left the red car in the state you can see above, I'm damn impressed that the damage to my car was:

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My car only seems to have suffered cosmetic damage luckily - I got it back from the repairers yesterday and I am happy with the job they did to fix it. I'm still really impressed given the damage to the red car that I got off as lightly as I did!

Luckily no-one was injured, but until liability is sorted I have to pay my excess (?ú300) and lose all no claims - this means that my renewal (which is due in January) is now much higher than it would have been. I hope they sort it in time!!!

Be glad this guy wasn't in the wet, trying to stop for a pedestrian crossing, at least two of his tyres looked like this:

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First of all, pleased to hear there were no injuries. Guess most of the energy from the impact was absorbed by the red car, I bet he was on his mobile at the time :incazzato:
I know you get rattled when this sort of thing happens and you can`t always think on your feet, pity you hadn`t said to him to pay for the damage or else we can call the law out to check those tyres.
I know how bad you must have felt at the time, someone let their Volvo roll down a car park into the back of mine a couple of years ago, he forgot to put on his handbrake, his insurance bought me a new back bumper and resprayed the tailgate.
 
Yep, I didn't want to say anything to him, just incase he then gave out fake details - after the last fiasco when someone reversed into me, I offered to let him sort it himself without the insurance company being involved - never again!

I had a new shape mondeo 2.0TDCI automatic as my hire car, and I can happily say that I was SOOOOOOOOOOO pleased to get my cougar back. The diesel engine is rubbish, and as an automatic its even more useless than usual.



REMEMBER! THIS IS NOT "Over 18's" :nono:
 
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I feel really sorry for the owner of the red Mitsubishi in particular.

The Cougar got superficial damage, the M-class and Clio are valuable enough to get major repairs on insurance. The Mitsi owner will get a cheque for about ?ú400 less his excess to buy a new car with.

You have a civic duty to report the Clio driver to the Police IMHO for those tyres, not for your own vengeance but for everyone elses' safety.


P.S. - Mods need to remove the F-word in the post above ;)
 
Thats bad Dave, and i'm sure your not the first, but can you remember that the swear filter is not turned on and that members children do actually read these posts.

If members feel the need to use bad/foul language, there is the "over 18's " section :yesnod:
 
jamie_duff said:
I feel really sorry for the owner of the red Mitsubishi in particular.

The Cougar got superficial damage, the M-class and Clio are valuable enough to get major repairs on insurance. The Mitsi owner will get a cheque for about ?ú400 less his excess to buy a new car with.

You have a civic duty to report the Clio driver to the Police IMHO for those tyres, not for your own vengeance but for everyone elses' safety.


P.S. - Mods need to remove the F-word in the post above ;)
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I went to the police station and they weren't very interested. They said before they would investigate they would get everyone to produce their documents and finally after this had all been completed an investigation would take place. By the time they saw the car its highly likely the tyres will have been replaced.

They also told me that photos were not valid for evidence of an offence being committed. However the car is actually very local to me, I may get a friend to drive round and check the car's tyres - if they are still like that on the road after a garage has repaired the main car, then I will tip the police off and they can get the car whilst its on the road.

PS. We phoned them at the accident scene and they wouldn't attend unless someone had been injured.

**

It was a lady driving the red Mitsubishi, and given the amount of damage its clearly a write off, since the actual value as you say is so tiny. Finding a replacement will be very hard and she'll still need to wait to claim the excess off the guy behind that caused the accident!
 
Thats just typical of the police, bet if you were having a pee in the street they would jump on you, or like in my case tell someone to eff off and I get a criminal record. :mad2: perhaps you should have told them someone was speeding. :mad5:
 
Glad nobody was injuryed. The police what are they there for if they could'nt attend a pile up in a residentual area. I again fell sorry for the lady in the mitsi as she is the one who has really lost out. Lets hope that it was a second car to the family in these hard times.
 
DaveH said:
I went to the police station and they weren't very interested. They said before they would investigate they would get everyone to produce their documents and finally after this had all been completed an investigation would take place. By the time they saw the car its highly likely the tyres will have been replaced.

They also told me that photos were not valid for evidence of an offence being committed. However the car is actually very local to me, I may get a friend to drive round and check the car's tyres - if they are still like that on the road after a garage has repaired the main car, then I will tip the police off and they can get the car whilst its on the road.

PS. We phoned them at the accident scene and they wouldn't attend unless someone had been injured.

**

It was a lady driving the red Mitsubishi, and given the amount of damage its clearly a write off, since the actual value as you say is so tiny. Finding a replacement will be very hard and she'll still need to wait to claim the excess off the guy behind that caused the accident!
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It's definately worth a go mate (y) Last thing you want is this pillock skidding into a loved one in the wet!
 
Driving without valid insurance is likely to be an ongoing thing, any reputable garage on the other hand should tell him his tyres are illegal and force him to replace them.

I'll get my brother to check.
 
just noted one thing...
how come the driver of the mitsubishi loses the excess? surely its on the clio drivers insurance and not the driver of the mitsubishi's?
 
Joey said:
just noted one thing...
how come the driver of the mitsubishi loses the excess? surely its on the clio drivers insurance and not the driver of the mitsubishi's?
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In the event of your car being written off, you get a cheque for the market value of your car minus your excess.

When they send out the settlement cheque, they also take back any hire car you had through your insurance policy, as they have settled the claim.

You are always liable for your own insurance excess if claiming damages to your insured vehicle, but if someone else accepts liability for the damage then your insurer's legal department can recover it as an uninsured loss for you at a later date.

When the liability has finally been agreed by all insurance companies involved (and it's not you at fault), your insurance will send you another cheque to the value of your excess to make up the total market value of the car written off.

In the time between your car being declared a 'total loss' and the cheque for your excess arriving however, you have to transport yourself with the money equal to the settlement less the excess.


This is precisely what happened to me when my other half hit a 6 month old Impreza at a junction in my old R-reg Rover 620. The Impreza had failed to give way at a T-junction, but was valuable enough to be picked up, repaired at an approved Subaru bodyshop, valeted and returned to it's owner like new, with them having no excess on their policy (age) and protected no-claims. No personal consequences basically.

My Rover was valued at ?ú1300 and because Gill was 19 at the time, she had a ?ú650 excess. We got a cheque for the difference*, and they collected the hire car the next day. It was months before we got our excess back. Incidently the collision it also cracked a couple of vertibrae in Gill's back.

*Actually our damage was fairly minor, limited to a broken bumper, smashed headlight, bent o/s front wing, bonnet slam panel and bonnet. I bought the car back for ?ú60 which mean I actually got a cheque for ?ú590 which I used to buy an older Rover 620 to run around in while I fixed the crashed one.

Make no mistake - if you own a low-value car such as a Cougar you will always be the real loser in an insurance claim. High value car owners get the Royal treatment - repaired and valeted. Low value car owners get a cheque for 20p and kicked out onto the street. That's just the way it works unfortunately.
 
Jamie's post is absoloutely spot on.

Luckily I phoned up the claims department yesterday, and the third party insurer had already accepted liability - therefore they are sending me a cheque in the post today for the excess.

I must say - I did get a nice valeted cougar out of it! Glad there wasn't any further damage.
 
To be expected really... they do what they do to make money.

It's also possibly worth confirming for the younger members (or just those who haven't had insurance claims involvement yet) that whilst all this liability agreeing is happening, everyone involved loses their no-claims, and those found not-at-fault get it back when liability is agreed - rather than the responsible party losing their's at the end.

That's why Dave here is so keen for all this to be settled before his renewal is due or he'll be paying a premium that reflects the fact that he might be found at fault. No-one wants to insure someone with a pending claim hanging over them.... and the renewal premiums reflect this.


I suppose all this is partly why I'm a bit harsh on people who post threads which basically amount to d*cking around on the roads. Whether it's boy racers causing this to someone else or just someone thinking he's clever jabbing the brakes to teach a tail-gater a lesson. There's just no way to appreciate what a complete ball ache an insurance claim can be - regardless who appears to be at fault at the time of the crash.

Even one like Dave's here looks to be a simple open & shut case - but if the Clio's insurer is cash strapped they could try to buy time by faffing around for as long as possible (i.e. months). My best mate's sister was involved in an almost identical crash albeit 3 cars, and she was the one who got spit roasted in the middle.
To help their cash flow, the car who porked her's insurers claimed she'd already ran into the back of the car in front before their client hit her...... you can probably imagine how many months of letters going back and forth it took to put this one to bed. Fortunately that shouldn't affect Dave here because he was the car at the front, but they may pull that one on the Mitsubishi or M-class driver.

We had another in 2006 whilst stationary in a carpark waiting for someone to leave a space further up. Some wifey gets into a car beside us and reversed straight back into the side of our car. She was very apologetic and admitted straight away it was her fault. Easy right? Nope. In the end (9 months later) my renewal was due and I had no no-claims because her insurer was still claiming we'd somehow skidded sideways into her bumper. Eventually they offered 50/50 so I dropped the claim to get my no-claims back just before the renewal. I still needed a new front wing though, which I had to pay for myself. It was cheaper than re-insuring with zero no-claims and still having no resolution in sight. We had been advised to wait until they admitted liability before getting an insurance repair or we'd have had the same ?ú650 excess to pay for ?ú700 of damage - and to win we'd have to go to court, which means more stress/hassle/time off work etc.

Insurance claims really are just a whole world of pain. Anyone who has an incident inflicted upon them has my full sympathies, and anyone who causes one by genuine accident I also feel sorry for. It's easily done. It's certainly something folk should think about when getting wound up by some male-chicken jockey and being tempted to do something 'road-rage-y' though.... it just isn't worth it.
 
Jamie has a point. I was driving this back when it was still a Ford Escort (I like Ford, this small car saved my life!).

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The artic behind didn't stop when the one in front did. He initially claimed I had aleady hit the lorry in front. That is from a large transport company (Wincanton Logistics) and their insurer. As it happens I had enough space to break, and had in fact eased off when the car in front of me decided he wasn't able to stop and ducked into a pub car park, giving me plenty of space!
 
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