I just reversed into a car which has no insurance, tax or MOT. What happens now?

[notthisnowaswell]

driving home, residential streets with lots of parked cars obstructing views...edged out of a t-junction to turn left. there was a car coming down the road, so I reversed back....into the car which had followed me out of the junction.

his car is scuffed over the passenger wheel arch (mostly paint transfer from my car) and I have quite a crunch to the right back corner

he was really cross and wanted me to bank transfer him money to repair his car. which I declined and said I want to go through insurance (as I'm skint), gave him my name, number and registration. I have his registration and phone number.

I have checked online and the vehicle tax expired in march 2024, MOT expired march this year. so he has no insurance. what will happen now?? I am not planning on telling my insurance company unless he makes a claim because I am financially really really struggling and don't want my premium to increase

Is he still in prison?

Driving without a licence with his son in the car 😡

If be reporting him anonymously for driving without tax not and most likely no licence or insurance
Crime stoppers is really useful for this sort of thing.

I'm not sure if there's a DVLA grass line for non taxed vehicles too

Otherwise he can contact your insurance via his insurance (we had this when we weren't even in the crash but that's a different story).
It's also an offence to fail to exchange details at a crash but I'm not 100% on what constitutes details and perhaps giving a phone number is ok.

Options I see are

1. Pay him - I'd probably offer half what he's asking and negotiate to 75%.
2. Don't pay him but let him have your insurance details
3. Do nothing and block his calls
4. Contact the police and ask them what you should do, risk here is they might frown on you for reversing whilst not looking ...due care...

Probably other variations but they all have a bit of a downside.

crikey, calm down Monkey Magic

Just this. The other cars status doesn't make any odds as you were at fault

I'd bluff and say to him you've contacted your insurance, who've advised you to contact police first and also to obtain other persons insurance details. Stick to it that you're going through insurance. DONT let on that you know he doesnt have any. This should put him off as obvs he doesnt have insurance and he wont want the fines etc that will proceed for not being legal. If he persists for your insurance details, hes an idiot, but then I'd just give him them and suck it up that when you renew your insurance it probs will increase a bit. Probs not that much given damage and payout to other driver is small. You dont want to be getting involved with Bams these days. Just phone Ins if thats what you have to do

Just watching Rip Off Britain about accident scammers who engineer a crash, then demand cash at the scene.

exactly, status of his vehicle is irrelevant. What if he had it up for sale?? would you expect him to take the loss due to the damage you caused? You're at fault, stop acting dodgy and fix it.

It must be amazing for them when people engineer the crash for them by reversing into them.

Get a bloody grip!
The OP caused minor damage to a car that was making an illegal manoeuvre by trying to get past her instead of staying behind until his view / exit was clear. The correct thing to do in this situation is to exchange details where possible, which the OP did by giving him her phone number - he already had the make and model of car. She was willing to go through her insurance, he wanted cash. It’s not a coincidence that his car has no tax, no MOT and no insurance.
The people on here calling the OP awful names are bonkers!
OP, you can sleep well in the knowledge that once the police have the information, they will check their databases and likely pop round to his to drop off a summons or two, or maybe even confiscate the untaxed, uninsured, un MOTd vehicle. Karma!

He was carrying out an illegal manoeuvre by trying to overtake someone at a junction though.

She reversed into him is the only fact we have. We don’t know what he was actually doing. Probably moving out of her way. She didn’t look before reversing or she would have seen him.

You dont know this and the OP doesnt know this. She moved away from the junction into a narrow street with a car coming- would take some effort to be trying to overtake her. Looking at her diagram of the cars positions it looks more like he was going right and she was going left.

thank you for your reassurance

They absolutely do communicate and also have a national database

OP literally crashed her car and you’re talking about the other person being a huge risk? Car insurance is a scam anyway

Deviating from the subject slightly, most insurance could be described as a scam when you consider the number of get-out clauses they include in every policy.

Drive around with no insurance, deal with the consequences.
It’s the risk he chose to take.
Tough shit

Legally the OP had 2 choices - give her name and address OR give her details to the police. The police will not be seeking prosecution, but they do hold them for cases where the 3rd partys legal services or insurance requested the details. The law is clear on it - if she didn't want to give the other driver her details, she could give them to the police. I'm not talking calling 999 or "handing herself in" I'm talking about fulfilling her legal duty.

The OP also had a legal a duty to report the uninsured driver to the police. However that is completely separate from the 1st legal duty.

Its completely unnecessary in minor scrapes. Insurance companies can easily find the other driver without their address and then liaise with their insurer. It means nothing to give an address to someone as there is no way of proving it's the correct address you have been given. The number plate holds the necessary information for insurance companies. If it's a bigger accident and the police are involved then absolutely you have to give the police what they ask for.

In this type of minor scrape I can just imagine what the police would be doing the minute you left the station after handing in your details.

Someone reversed into me and tried to blame me, doing exactly what the OP said she was doing. I had a witness and the highway code in my favour. My car was written off to what looked like minor damage.

Some people on here are clueless when they say it's always the person behind at fault. And have no fucking clue, no wonder so many cars get damaged and the driver drives off without leaving a note ("oh its only a scratch").

Hopefully it went down as a no fault claim in the end yeah? Did they tell a pack of lies on their report?

If I damaged someone's car and they werent around to speak with I would absolutely leave my phone number for them to contact me. But yes there are lots of chancers about who would just drive off.

I agree, but holiday, health insurance etc are not essential like car insurance is which makes it a scam to me

hit someone’s car deal with the consequences!!

If you don't have holiday, health insurance, then you deal with the consequences if something goes wrong. It doesn't affect anyone else.

What happens if you cause a car accident and you break someone's leg, write off someone else's car? The bills could be thousands/hundreds of thousands, how do you pay for that?

If you don't want to pay car insurance, don't drive.

I still don’t get why “but you reversed in to his car!!!” is being parroted over and over.

The car should have been on his drive. Declared SORN. Not even ON the road for OP to hit it. If he’d been following the law, he wouldn’t have been hit.

No license, don’t drive, stay home. I’m not going to start flying a plane with no license just because I have one and fancy it.