I am a truck driver but on my way to work last night, I was sat in traffic handbrake on when a van went into the back of me 15mph ish. I got out and asked him to pull round the corner, as I approached him he was messing with his phone. He followed me round the corner where he said “Im sorry pal I was playing with my phone”. There was no damage to his van, held together with rust too. However my car scuffed the rear bumper slightly loose. We swapped details but then was telling me how his phones battery was dead so he wasnt actually on the phone it was an accident. He gave me his number reg and name and drove off quickly. I reported this to the police and as I was tought to report accidents within 24hrs, they have confirmed he has insurance, but have no real use from there, they claim that the phone is not an issue.
So I have more or less sorted my bumper to a goodish level, I used to work with cars, cant see any undercarriage damage and all the electrics work, there is a small chip in a light cluster which is small. So my question is do I report it to the insurance and get it mint and make a fuss (risk my premium all be it I have protected NCD) or chin up and carry on ?
As far as I understand you only have to report an accident to the Police if there is an injury or a fail to stop anything else and it’s down to insurance or forget it.
They also won’t be interested in the mobile phone as it will be your word against his, so unlikely to ever get a prosecution.
My personal feeling would be not to report to your insurance company if you and your car are okay, I’ve heard to many stories of peoples insurance going up after an accident even when they haven’t claimed off their insurer.
As you know the van driver has insurance and he probably doesn’t want an increase in his premium either, plus all the paperwork, I’d say you won’t go through insurance if he willing to pay for the light lens.
Hi,
Just my opinion but based on what you have stated its best to leave the insurance bottom feeders out of it. Lets face it every insurance companies remit is to pay out as little as possible but cause as much grief as they can if a payout is unavoidable.
The phone issue is heresay in a civil matter without any time stamps to crossreference.
So fingers crossed this is just one of them things and the other party is to unsure as to what to do for the best and deceides to leave it as well, especially as it was their fault.
Also you have reported the matter to the police and unless you want to make a big deal out of it, whiplash etc (trust me some would claim a near death experience for this), then I would reccomend to not report it to insurers for now, but make a note of everything you can whilst its fresh in your memory, save any pictures and also revisit the area to see if theres any cctv coverage.
kev909_2000:
What about the risk of him placing anyform of claim in the future ?
Yep there are those that get told by some bunch of low life lawyers they can make a claim. Get him to sign something to the affect of he’s paying for a rear light cluster damaged when he drove into your car and keep the receipt.
But like Dipper Dave I’m all for keeping insurance companies and low life lawyers and any people that will record information and put them on a database out of as it, unless I really have no choice.
A few weeks back I was in wife’s Yaris, ran into from behind at about 10 mph, no visible damage but the guy offered to pay for any repairs (and genuinely did so, decent bloke!).
Took it to my mates bodyshop, removing the apparently undamaged bumper off showed the rear crumplezone cross member was somewhat bent, so had it replaced. If you were hit by a van at 15 mph some sort of distortion might have happened, I’d think.
Buckstones:
A few weeks back I was in wife’s Yaris, ran into from behind at about 10 mph, no visible damage but the guy offered to pay for any repairs (and genuinely did so, decent bloke!).
Took it to my mates bodyshop, removing the apparently undamaged bumper off showed the rear crumplezone cross member was somewhat bent, so had it replaced. If you were hit by a van at 15 mph some sort of distortion might have happened, I’d think.
This is correct, modern cars are designed to spread the force of the impact through the car so there’s a good chance there’s damage behind the bumper.
I also suggest you lift the carpet in the boot of your car to check if there are any ripples caused by the impact to the metal under the carpet
In not keen on reporting accidents ,I had a primera gt le ( can you remember the green,purple ,brown chroma fair ones ) ,well I got back from tip ,took trailer of ( little erde thing ) and took it up drive to garage ( drive was on hell of a slope ) ,put tow hitch down ,went to open door to hear a noise ,turned round to see tri flying down drive and embedding itself into my front wing ( car was mint ,my pride and joy ) ,trying to tell insurance you trailer had hit you front wing was hard work ,but they finally got it .
We then moved and about a year later I popped down tip again with some rubbish in the trailer , got back ,reversed back and bang ,wtf was that ,looked in n/s mirror nothing ,■■■■ the trailer,looked in other mirror and my trailer was jackknifed into back of ,I rang insurance and told them Mrs had hit house wall whilst reversing off drive .
I sold it soon after ,it was jinxed ,we actually bought it for camping ,went to west bay ,on way back we came down road ,met some car s,I’ll do the decent thing ,I’ll reverse back ,NO ,at least it was only a bog standard fiesta .
Just couldn’t believe one of those little erde camping trailer could reek so much havoc
I had a similar thing happen to me a couple of years ago. I was waiting to pull out of a petrol station when the guy reversed away from the cash machine straight into me. It broke the back light lens and scuffed the bumper. He asked if I would get a repair quote and give it to him. I agreed for the reasons already posted, I.e the insurance company bumping my insurance up even though it was his fault [emoji35] i told him it would cost £150 which he was happy with (wished I’d said £250 afterwards[emoji1]) and gave me the cash. Being pretty handy with the tools I bought a light lens for £45 and pocketed the rest. Win win [emoji5]️
,■■■■ the trailer,looked in other mirror and my trailer was jackknifed into back of 