Crash!

[gam1984]

I know I don't say much on here but I just got back from college after an incident this morning I thought I'd tell you all about.

I came off the A38 dual carriageway on the way to my college in Burton and approached a roundabout at the end of the exit slip road. The traffic was heavy so I slowed down and stopped and checked for traffic coming from the right (as you do )

All was clear so I pulled forward only to turn around and see that the traffic in front of me already on the roundabout had come to a sudden stop, so I slammed on the brakes to avoid the guy in front of me and managed to stop in time. A second or two passed and then I heard a massive bang at the back of my car and I looked behind me (with quite a sore neck at this time).

Nothing seemed too unusual there until I got out of the car to see that the car I'd been hit by was a mint M-reg red Super S. I have enough trouble seeing one of them around where I life, let alone having one hit me!

The guy who hit me had his front bumper cracked in half, his front grille pushed in by about 2 inches, a broken light and what looked like enough cross member damage to have the car written off.

What I thought was even more strange was the lack of damage to my car compared to his. My rear bumper is scratched to hell and needs re-painting, but apart from that, it's fine. I'd been hit with enough force to give me some minor whiplash and the only damage to my car was a scratched bumper

He seemed like a really nice bloke though and he admitted liability and we agreed to get my car done off the insurance (I'm assuming he didn't want to claim on his insurance either) so we agreed for him to pay me £30 to get my bumper resprayed and that was it.

Was quite funny watching all the chavs driving past and giggling like schoolgirls at the sight of my Micra (complete with "Micra Power!" rear window sticker) with another super s wedged in my rear bumper tho :laugh:

Picture of damage to follow - apologies for the dirty car. You can see how long its been since it was washed from the finger marks on the bottom of the boot...:suspect:

My neck hurts :down:

 

[Arnold]

You should get yourself checked out about the Neck. Obviously if your not going via insurance, then you wont be going for personal injuries - but best to check your ok anyway!

Glad the car isnt too bad! Has any of the metal behind the bumper been pushed in at all? £30 seems quite cheap for a repair job though!

 

[Ed]

£30 are you NUTS?

It would cost AT LEAST £100 to get it sprayed properly. The boot floor may now have a crease in it, and any number of things could need checking. Dont be fooled by the fact it 'looks' ok.

You should swap contacts at the road and asses before agreeing on anything.

Ed

 

[D4R73N]

Totaly agree with Alan, and Ed's right, £30 is way too cheap!

 

[Andrew]

I think I have seen this happen 3 times now - people say "it's only the bumper" and in reality either the boot pan or side members have folded in the accident, causing the car to be a write off.

 

[babyboom]

thats right, i done the same, it was my bumper that was cracked in my red micra, but it turned out to be the bumper bar and the boot floor was bent too, i admitted it was my fault and went through insurance, turns out the garage charged the insurance almost £900 for fixing and spraying it

 

[NeX]

did you give the guy an MSC flyer? lol

 

[micra_pete]

£30!

 

[Allan]

Same happened to me and the bit where my spare tyre was kept, was completely crushed.

Best to swap details and decide later.

 

[Ems]

Glad your not too badly hurt. 30 pound will prob cover the garage takin the bumper off the car lol!! Hope u got his details. And get your neck checked out asap.

 

[deano123456]

lol will probally just cover them to stand and look at it lol

 

[Pete]

£20 for an estimate round my way.

It's an offence not to give your details at the roadside. If you've got the guys details (VRM at least) go to a police station and REPORT IT, all rtc's even minor ones must be reported. If you report it but he doesn't added to the fact he's not offered you his insurance details, your insurance company would have a field day with him.

 

[gam1984]

Thanks for the replies. Neck is fine now, just a bit stiff, but I'm sure I'll be fine

Ok, to start with, we did exchange contact and vehicle details, so thats not an issue. If he wants to go through his insurance its upto him as far as I'm concerned but we agreed that there was little point in going through the insurance companies as the damage to his vehicle seemed fairly minor at the time (he later stated on the phone that the damage was more severe than he originally thought) and as he admitted liability I figured there was little point in taking it any further since the damage to my car seemed so minor.

As for the bumper, I have gone underneath the car and looked at the frame at the back of the car and the boot floor and everything seems to check out ok. Obviously I am not a mechanic and it will need to be looked at by a garage to be sure (which it will be), but there doesn't seem to be anything nasty behind the bumper itself.

As for the cost of £30 for the re-painting of the bumper, we agreed on that price because the repainting on my car will be done by myself, not a garage. Ok, the paint finish won't be to a professional standard, but the bumper he hit was previously painted by myself and I was very happy with the finish. I have done all my own painting on my car so far, so I don't see why this should be any different.

What interests me most about the replies to this thread is what has been said by Pete.

£20 for an estimate round my way.

It's an offence not to give your details at the roadside. If you've got the guys details (VRM at least) go to a police station and REPORT IT, all rtc's even minor ones must be reported. If you report it but he doesn't added to the fact he's not offered you his insurance details, your insurance company would have a field day with him.

Now, my understanding of this was that a road traffic accident should only be reported to the police if there is injury to a person or damage to property. The injury side of things obviously isn't applicable here, but my thought was that since we both made an agreement that we did not wish to claim through the insurance and he admitted liability, I didn't see that there was anything else that needed to be done.

As I know your involved in the police yourself Pete, could you let me know what the best course of action is here now? I'm quite confused as to what the situation is here. I certainly didn't want to end up getting into problems with the police and insurance companies, all I did was happen to get hit by someone at a roundabout

did you give the guy an MSC flyer? lol

Oh and I'm afraid not - would have given him one if I had any with me though. Seemed like a good time

 

[0pen2see]

The front of all cars is designed to crumple for safety reasons. The rear of all cars is strengthened to take high impact. That's the reason why your car didn't recieve much damage.

As for accepting £30 to touch up your bumper. :upside:

Personally I would of gone through my insurance & claimed for whiplash, plus had a new bumper resprayed. They may of even considered writing your car off as beyond economical repair & made you an offer.

This happened to me a while back when someone wasn't paying attension & my car was hardly touched. Even after a huge crunch their car was trashed & mine was perfectly road worthy. I ended up £2,700 better off after my whiplash claim & my insurance even offered me my car back if I accepted £100 less on their offer. I accepted & later sold my car for £750 with a minor scratch on the rear bumper. In total I recieved £3,450 & brought myself a fantastic car.

We pay car insurance for this very reason.

 

[djlee_dj]

claim, buy the car back very cheap off insurance then keep it or sell it on (if you sell it you stand to make few hundred profit)

 

[0pen2see]

There is no way I would spend a whole day repairing the damage to my car for next to nothing after some plonker got away driving with undue care & attension.

I understand you are being a decent genuine person accepting only £30, but if the shoe was on the other foot I bet he wouldn't do the same for you.

Insurance companies make millions in profit. We drive low insurance group cars to save money whilst people drive new petrol guzzling Astin Martins & claim 10 grand for a stone chip.

Stand up for your rights & use the insurance you pay for! fwn

 

[Ed]

open2see, if you actually truly suffered as a result of a neck injury, sorry to hear that. If you didn't thanks for adding to our insurance premium for your own gain.

p.s. I hate seeing people who brag about the gain they get from an 'incident'. ripping off an insurance company only serves to make life harder for the rest of us. IIRC that 9% of everyone's insurance premium goes to 'neck injuries'

 

[Andrew]

£20 for an estimate round my way.

It's an offence not to give your details at the roadside. If you've got the guys details (VRM at least) go to a police station and REPORT IT, all rtc's even minor ones must be reported. If you report it but he doesn't added to the fact he's not offered you his insurance details, your insurance company would have a field day with him.

If both parties stop and exchange details, and there are no injuries or damage to other's property, then it doesn't need to be reported to the police. However, any accident that occurs should be reported to the insurance company. A lot of people don't though, technically this makes most insurance policies invalid.

 

[0pen2see]

p.s. I hate seeing people who brag about the gain they get from an 'incident'. ripping off an insurance company only serves to make life harder for the rest of us. IIRC that 9% of everyone's insurance premium goes to 'neck injuries'

My neck was well & truely whipped. I was in the hospital for 9 hours & in a neck bracer for a week. I agree about people ripping off insurance but from what gam1984 has mentioned I think he is not making use of his insurance.

To pay insurance & to not make a legitamate claim after an accident is beyond comprehension. As for bragging about being better off. In the last 18 years of driving I have paid well over 12 grand in insurance. Whilst insurance companies anounce huge profits year after year.

Insurance would go up even if nobody claimed. I recently downgraded from a V reg 1.4 Almera Ambition to a P reg 1.3 Micra SR & my insurance charged me £78. When I complained they said I could always cancel my insurance.

 

[gam1984]

My neck was well & truely whipped. I was in the hospital for 9 hours & in a neck bracer for a week. I agree about people ripping off insurance but from what gam1984 has mentioned I think he is not making use of his insurance.

To pay insurance & to not make a legitamate claim after an accident is beyond comprehension. As for bragging about being better off. In the last 18 years of driving I have paid well over 12 grand in insurance. Whilst insurance companies anounce huge profits year after year.

Insurance would go up even if nobody claimed. I recently downgraded from a V reg 1.4 Almera Ambition to a P reg 1.3 Micra SR & my insurance charged me £78. When I complained they said I could always cancel my insurance.

Sorry to hear about your neck. The thing is though, I don't think I have whiplash severe enough to want to make a claim for it. I hate this idea where we live in a society where we claim for a broken fingernail these days. If you genuinly have a neck injury and you have to miss work, etc then by all means claim for it, but I wasn't going to bother about a bit of neck ache that a few pain killers and a day's rest would slove.

About not making a claim, I honestly don't see what the point would be for something like that.

I agree with what some people have said that the damage to my car could have been more severe and I should have checked it thoroughly before accepting any settlement, but I just didn't think like that at the time. As it happened I was lucky, on closer inspection the car does seem ok. But its a lesson learned.

Its easy for people to say what they would do when they are sat at home on the internet compared to their recations when they have just been involved in a car accident. All my thoughts were at the time was that I just wanted to exchange details and get to college as quickly as possible.

My insurance costs me £450 a year - tpft. I have a £250 excess and one year of NCB. No convictions. Now, although I wasn't at fault for the accident, if I wanted to claim off my insurance obviously I'd loose my NCB and go through the hassle of having to re-claim my excess off him. I would also have the tell my insurance company about the accident for the next few years. What honestly is the point in going through all that if the accident is minor, nobody is hurt and both parties agree not to go through the insurance company?

Aside from that, I don't see why people seem so amazed about this £30 we agreed upon. I painted the bumper myself previously, for £30. Therefore, I can't see why it should cost more than £30 to do it again. I can't understand why people seem so surprised that I don't want to take this guy to the cleaners by going through his insurance or paying for an expensive body shop paint job that I never had in the first place

It was a genuine accident involving 2 cars worth less than £600. The guy who hit me made a genuine mistake, I could have done the same to the car in front of me but only just missed him.

I think in this day of age most of us just live in a society where we want to squeeze every penny out of everyone we can. Thats not a personal critisism of you open2see as I think many people would have done what you have and I'm certainly in the minority on this one, but I just don't believe in paying for things (or making other people pay for things) that aren't necessary.

 

[Gemma85]

aww gam sorry to hear about your accident glad everything's ok... I hate people who claim whiplash when there is nowt wrong with them my mate done it and got 2500 pretty gutting when there is an outstanding claim of 4 on my insurance for my crash

 

[tommo]

sorry to hear it graham, u got me number if you need owt.

 

[gam1984]

Thanks for the kind words Gemma and Tom.

aww gam sorry to hear about your accident glad everything's ok... I hate people who claim whiplash when there is nowt wrong with them my mate done it and got 2500 pretty gutting when there is an outstanding claim of 4 on my insurance for my crash

Yeah I hate it as much as you do. Everyone seems to make a claim for whiplash these days whether they are actually injured or not. We all end up paying for it in the end in higher premiums.

I guess its the same for any system where you claim money - insurance, the benefits system, compensation schemes, etc. Its all open to abuse and in the end it just means that the people who really do need the money to help them end up suffering because of it. I hate the way that people like to milk everything that they can now.

sorry to hear it graham, u got me number if you need owt.

Thanks for that mate. Will try and get in touch in the next week or two, its been a while since I've seen ya. Besides I've got to see the Almera sometime - looks nice and tidy

 

[whipit]

Slightly confused as to where we are right now!

Ive once before made the mistake of having someone accepting liability then denying it later on. My advice is regardless of whose fought it is is to always swap insurance details (regardless whether you want to go through or not) and tell your insurance company whats happened (dont have to claim just inform).

Also try and get pictures and whitnesses of the accident, the damage may be far than worse than it appears on the outside so dont agree on anything until your certain of repair costs. If you repair it your self for cash then make sure you get paid for it!

 

[gam1984]

Well I've just had a call from my insurance company about the incident that happened so obviously he has gone through his insurance company to repair his car in the end anyway.

Basically my company just told me that they had been informed about the accident from his company and they have been told I wasn't at fault and that I didn't wish to make a claim. However, if I do wish to make a claim I can still do so and they have given me a reference number.

As my insurance company have still allowed me to make a claim if I want to, and the £30 we agreed upon was only for the cost of the re-painting, if there is any hidden structural damage to the car that I haven't detected which means I need to make a claim myself, it shouldn't effect anything.

I'll have a think about my options over the next few days. I'll probably get the car thoroughly inspected by a garage just to be 100% sure there isn't anything else in need of repair other than the paint work and if all checks out ok I'll just take the money and paint it myself. Either way I won't be repairing anything until I get the money first.