Child probably written off car

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Just looking for a bit of a handhold. My poor kid bought their first car a few months ago and last night she misjudged a corner and collided with a fence. Thankfully she is ok but the car isn't and as it was quite low cost I think it will be written off. Just realised she won't get a premium refund either. It's more than she's ever spent on anything and she was so upset. Can anybody say anything to help? I'm sitting here feeling so anxious about it. Beyond thankful she is ok of course but she loved that car and now her heart is a bit broken.

My DD wrote off her car earlier this autumn. Well, to be fair the accident was entirely not her fault. She got refunded her insurance and then paid again when she got her replacement car.

OP. Be just thankful your DC is OK. My DD's accident retriggered a back injury and she is currently unable to work...

Aw so sorry OP, it's a sick, horrid feeling to have a prang, and stressful to sort afterwards.

Main thing to remember as others have said, any accident you walk away from is a good one.

And we've all been there. It's part of the motorist life cycle. She's almost guaranteed to have an accident at some point - at least this is relatively minor and she's come out unhurt. She'll 💯 be a better driver for it.

Hope you're able to replace the car and can transfer the premium painlessly. Sounds like that's not going to be big deal!🤞

Thank goodness your DD is ok. Cars are replaceable.

My DS and I have been sharing a car, one that I brought brand new a few years back, one of the first things he said to me when he passed his test, what if I make a mistake mum and have an accident and damage your car, I said I wouldn’t careless about the car, as long as you are ok, so don’t worry about it, the car is not precious to me but you are.

Your DD will be ok, it’s a horrible shock, but she will be fine.

Thank goodness she wasn't hurt, this is one of those lessons that will hopefully stick with her.

She must have been going pretty fast or not concentrating to misjudge a corner badly enough that she went into a fence and wrote off the car.

It was a fence and metal - not human flesh or a child, both the former money can fix.

hard lesson to learn but best it happens now and shell be ultra cautious in future, which is a great thing for you

Someone hit my car in a car park 6 months after I passed my test and got my car. I was given the market value for a similar car of that age and mileage. There weren’t many on the market at the time so I got given more than I paid for the car. But because there weren’t many on the road I couldn’t find another one for that budget and ended up with something else I didn’t like very much. My insurance policy carried on I just had to update them with the new car.

@FatGirlShrinking not necessarily- depends on what the damage is

@Twinkie01 that is such a good way of putting it

Agree with Velvian, I had a cat written off once and the insurance paid out more than I'd have expected to get selling it privately (which I had been about to do!). You may be surprised.

A car not a cat obviously 🙄

@FatGirlShrinking

Thank goodness she wasn't hurt, this is one of those lessons that will hopefully stick with her.

She must have been going pretty fast or not concentrating to misjudge a corner badly enough that she went into a fence and wrote off the car.

Not necessarily. It depends on the value of the car and the cost of the damage.

I sold my last car for scrap for £200. It wasn't even worth paying for a service and MOT. Nevermind any repairs it needed.

@FatGirlShrinking

Thank goodness she wasn't hurt, this is one of those lessons that will hopefully stick with her.

She must have been going pretty fast or not concentrating to misjudge a corner badly enough that she went into a fence and wrote off the car.

My dd lost control due to slippy debris on the road on a corner and hit a wall and wrote off her car. The police estimated her speed at 35mph which they said was perfectly reasonable for the corner, and they reassured me she wasn’t going faster than reasonable for the corner. There was no way for my dd to know the debris was there until she came onto it.

So not necessarily that the op’s dd was going too fast.

Oh bless her

I had a crash back in August - someone pulled out of a junction and straight into the side of my car (basically, they didn't stop on the white line to give way and just kept going).

I'm insured fully comp and got the market value of my car in my bank account the day the car was declared a write-off. I was super impressed! I had a new car four days later.

I was really shaken up at first and I'm sure your DD will be too, but she'll be fine soon enough! It is scary but it's surprising how quickly you become "okay" again.

@FatGirlShrinking

Thank goodness she wasn't hurt, this is one of those lessons that will hopefully stick with her.

She must have been going pretty fast or not concentrating to misjudge a corner badly enough that she went into a fence and wrote off the car.

Not necessarily.

Sometimes you just skid. Your brakes fail or there's oil or debris in the road and there's nothing you can do about it. Not all accidents are because someone was driving dangerously.

I think many first cars are written off by their young inexperienced owners, which is why a cheap one is best. It probably won’t be worth claiming on the insurance as it will sky rocket even more,. It’s a lesson learned and she will drive with more care next time. Meanwhile a cuddle and a cuppa will make her feel better.

"I think this is a rite of passage for all young drivers to go through. I vividly remember my first crash"

Well that's bollocks.

I have had 2 cars written off, one my fault, one not. In both cases I got what I thought was a very fair price from the insurance co. (Aviva).

And my policy did not go up either.

It did once after another claim (not my fault) and I canned them and discussed it and they reduced it.

Also it might not be written off.

@Shouldbeworkingnotreadingtalk

Depends how much the car is worth? Maybe worth not even claiming as it will triple her premium next year. . .

It won't necessarily triple. She's already paying a high price as an inexperienced young driver, so while her premium is likely to go up, probably not by that amount.

But whether or not she decides to claim, she does need to tell her insurance company and even if she doesn't they could find out anyway if the car is written off because they have access to all knowing databases which will make this information available.

@goldenharvest

I think many first cars are written off by their young inexperienced owners, which is why a cheap one is best. It probably won’t be worth claiming on the insurance as it will sky rocket even more,. It’s a lesson learned and she will drive with more care next time. Meanwhile a cuddle and a cuppa will make her feel better.

She hit a fence. That will have to be repaired. She will have to inform insurance and she has to anyway.

I am absolutely convinced that events like this can help us avoid worse things in the future. Not in some weird super spiritual way, just in that it gives us a shock, makes us realise stuff like this can happen and it makes us respond better in the future. So I would encourage her by saying that I think she’ll avoid something worse down the line.

@MeanMrMustardSeed. I totally agree with this. My brother (then 19 and having driving lessons) was being given a lift by my mother when a lorry pulled across their path and they hit it head on. My brother has always been pretty full on aka reckless (think yellow sports car) but has always said that accident was so horrific he never wants a repeat and tends to drive very sedately!

Be thankful she's alive and didn't kill anyone. She must have been driving at quite a speed to misjudge a corner and write off the car.

I certainly wouldn't be in any rush to help her back on the road. She way not be so lucky next time.

Would she consider a one-off refresher lesson focussing on negotiating round corners ?

My SIL hadn't driven for some years, didn't have to as city life was well catered for with public transport. She scared herself a little when she finally got behind the wheel again after moving and booked a course of 3 refresher lessons to brush up her driving skills and give her more confidence.

I’d be more concerned about upgrading her driving skills to keep her safe.

I’d suggest she does a weekend residential course or just take some extra lessons.

@Twinkie01

Cars are big boxes of metal designed to get us from A to B and protect us when things go wrong. Never attach too much import to that box of metal, it's the contents that are precious.

Good reminder!

I can get a little precious about my car (I anthropomorphise too much) but a metal box with wheels is a good way to think about it.

These things can happen to anyone, I wrote my first car off when I was 19 and the brakes failed and I hit the back of another car. My dad has just written off his car after taking the wrong country lane and going straight on through a corner into a van, and he's a member of the Advanced Motorists Association!