Had a car accident on the way to school

A 30 second google came up with this from an insurer https://www.rias.co.uk/news-and-guides/what-should-i-do-if-i-have-a-car-accident/
“Do not apologise or admit you were at fault” plus it’s bloody obvious, especially in the uk where we seem to apologise for things that are not our fault, but can get us in to hot water.

I agree that if you got into the detail a spur of the moment statement might be defeated after the event, but why start from a disadvantaged position of having to do so?

I didn’t say not to report it. Normally on these types of threads you get the over the top nutcases posting this type of thing.

Yes and that's completely unfair. But, you've done all you can for now. Let the insurance company deal with it.

He prob "acted weirdly" because you were in a bit of a state and asking nonsensical questions. "Why did you do that?" I mean, it's highly unlikely he meant to do it...
In a similar situation, I was very lucky to have the calmest chap as the party at fault. I was very shaken - but not verbally aggressive like you seemed to be - and he made sure we swapped all the details etc.
You phone your insurer with the number plate and they take care of it.

Try not to worry, report to insurance. The exact thing happened to me and i was told that even if you were indicating, the person pulling out is always at fault.
Hope you and the kids are ok x

I'm fairly cetain this is not true any more. You saying, on the spot, in a panic, "it's my fault" is NOT accepting liability in any meaningful way, although might add a tiny bit to the process of sorting it out I imagine. For example, if you are driving and something runs into the road and you slam on breaks and the guy behind you drives into you as a resullt, you might, in the moment, say, "I'm so sorry, a dog ran into the raod and I instincitvely slammed on breaks" But the rules are clear - the driver behind is responsible for ensuring there is sufficient space between them and the car in front that in the case of an emergency stop, they will not hit the car in front. So you can feel guilty all you like, ultimately, the person behind who has liability.

At the end of the day, it's usually fairly clear cut in that person x has right of way and person y doesn't. Most accidents are caused because people make mistakes, and that mistake is not mitigated for by the other driver.

It’s almost impossible to prove, and it doesn’t change liability. You can’t just be pulling out on cars - speeding or otherwise - and putting in insurance claims.

You've got his reg, that's enough for your insurance company, they can do the rest. I regularly pull out on a road where people don't cancel their indicators after a roundabout, and I'm very used to this, but yes make sure your indicator was cancelled in future.

It doesn't even matter if it was left on, if you weren't slowing and turning then he shouldn't have pulled out.

The advice from insurers @Zaina89 is always to say as little as possible at the scene to avoid unitnetionally accepting liability, so him saying nothing isn’t by itself suspicious. Also shouting at him doesn’t help, and you saying you weren’t being aggressive doesn’t get you anywhere as shouting is aggressive.

He should have given his details and that is an offence so report to the police, but frankly I would want to misnimise my contact with someone shouting at me especially if I was shaken up by a near miss accident. Especially stuff like why did you do that and what have you done as that’s pushing me to defend myself and take responsibility, which as above the advice is not to do. I would not have given you my phone number- someone hit me once, it was very frightening and a police and ambulance were called, when I tried to get her number the officer told me I was not entitled to have it.

Report and insurance , try to let it go

I absolutely understand that. But he wouldn’t have known you weren’t going to harass him as, unfortunately, so many do in these situations so might have been the reason why, as it’s a company car and he therefore had no interest with potentially having to engage with you directly about it.

But that wasn’t the right thing for him to do either way, he shouldve just passed his info over, and you’re the one who’s undoubtedly been wronged here.

You’ve reported to the police, and to your insurance, now you wait. I’m not sure what you are looking for?

He was probably under the influence so wanted out of there.

Doesn’t matter if OP was travelling 30/40/60.

It absolutely does matter if OP was breaking the law and speeding, and that WILL change the outcome of liability for insurance purposes if it can be proved she was speeding at the time of the accident, not only can she be party liability she could also be charged with a crime.

if your driving falls below the minimum standard expected of a competent and careful driver, you can be charged with careless driving

As it happens she wasn't, so it doesn't matter in this case.

Apologies.
thought at some point she said she didn’t
clearly she does
my mistake !

A company car can be driven by someone who is self employed. It doesn’t need to be a high status individual within a big corporate. Although I guess, Mr should have looked where he was going might have been more upset if he would be bearing the increased insurance costs.

They take a chance you haven’t got dashcam, no witnesses. Come back later having totally rewritten the narrative. Claim they left the scene because you were aggressive etc. it’s a minor collision and no one hurt so insurance companies don’t bother investigating. Fighting it often causes more agro than people want to deal with so they get away with it. I knew someone who managed to find a house that caught the accident on ring doorbell and you could see they were sitting waiting for someone to pull into the road.

Also I think your response was tame, OP. If someone hit my car with my kids in it I would struggle to manage such a controlled reaction. I would have wanted to shout and scream at him for putting my babies at risk and I would have wanted to make him apologise to them directly for scaring them.

Yes absolutely claim . If he isn't insured it will be dealt with by the Motor Insurance Bureau. I was hit by an uninsured driver and it was swiftly dealt with by my insurer and the MIB.

It doesn't matter.

This sounds so scary OP, I'm glad no one was hurt.

He's in the wrong for pulling out on you, even if your indicator was on. So his smarmy little comment about it being on camera is irrelevant. Insurance companies say that indicating is a signal of intent, not a guarantee, and the person who pulls out is at fault.

I never, ever pull out at a junction even if the car is indicating and appears to be slowing down to turn for this very reason. I only go when they have actually started to make the turn. This is because a few weeks after passing my driving test someone pulled out on me because my indicator was on (I'd just come off a mini roundabout and there was a side street almost immediately afterwards, my indicator hadn't had chance to turn off automatically and I hadn't turned it off manually myself). Luckily I was going slowly enough to avoid hitting them, but it was still a good lesson learned early on in my driving career!

He's pulled out of a give way onto the major road, without giving way to you, causing you to brake sharply - even if there had been no collision, he is at fault.

Indicators and minor speed quibbles are irrelevant here (so whether you were doing 5 miles under or even 5 miles over the speed limit) the cause of the collision was him not giving way. (Yeah I watch Big Jobber!)

Your insurance co. should deal with it but I would not be surprised to find his behaviour is due to him being an uninsured or possibly even banned driver, rather than it being a company vehicle, because if it is a company vehicle, why not just hand over the details? I also wonder if his reluctance to step away from his vehicle is because he was trying to avoid appearing on your dash cam.