To think this was a waste of police time?

[FlowersBlown]

At 10pm last night I answered the door to a police officer. He asked about my car, and whether I and it had been at a particular gym earlier in the week. We had. While there I committed an offence.

I made a mistake parking and scraped the plastic bumper of the car next to me. I did not report this. The policeman was off duty in the carpark and witnessed the offence. He took our number plates and went to visit the owner of the other car. She was unaware of the damage, but upon inspection there is indeed scuffing to the bumper.

This in now in the hands of our insurance companies. Was it really worth the police persuing this? No charges are being brought. I did something wrong, but we live in a congested city. My own car is covered in scuffs that have not (all) been caused by me. Should a scuffed bumper be seen more as part of the give and take of city living rather than a potentially criminal matter?

Posting notes isn't an 'MN' thing. Dad hit a car when I was a child and left a note.

Don't make excuses.

If you damage my car I expect you or your insurance company to pay - why should I pay. If the police can help when someone doesn't leave a note, then good on the police !

I've had 3 cars written off by other drivers, when I've not been in them. All 3 of them stopped and tried to find me / left a note.

I doubt very much if any of them were MNers (all older men, 1 was before MN started).
Most recently (I do live on crash corner) the last person who drove into our car was a lot more shifty / unwilling to give information, and was kept there really by 2 witnesses who stopped. There wasn't a lot of damage this time - had he been open and honest, I'd have taken it to my local garage who I suspect would have put things right for about £60 -80. Because he wasn't keen to stop, didn't report the incident to his insurance, etc., it's now cost him over £1000 through the fact he left it for the insurance to get involved rather than just paying for the damage. Daft.

A car written off in a collision on a road is hardly the same as a tiny scrape on a bumper in a car park. I'm sorry, I just don't believe all these people saying they write notes and pay out for a tiny bumper scrape, every single car for the last 20 years I've had has had a scrape or two on the bumper from someone else and no-one has ever left me a note.

I have left a note- for a significant dent that would cost £100's to repair but a tiny bumper scrape doesn't usually cost anything is is just annoying (and citing one case the rain went in one is a red herring, none of my bumper scrapes have ever cost anything except a slightly less pristine looking bumper).

They were on my drive.
However, the point being, this latest one was scraped paintwork, just as the OP is talking about.

If you had left a note for the other car I doubt you would have wasted police time - so to a avoid wasting police time do the right thing going forward.

So YABU for wasting police time.

YANBU if you only scratched the plastic and not the paintwork! That's what bumpers are for, isn't it - hence their name. The policeman sounds like the kind of smug, power-crazed little Hitler who gives nice coppers an image problem.

How often on MN does a MNetter complain about how the cops ignore stuff because they think that its too minor and not worth the bother in pursuing it?

Holla - unless the op is a mechanic, she is unlikely to be able to tell if there is more damage, that can't be seen on a casual examination (like damage to the bumper brackets). Nor can she know for sure that the scuff isn't going to cause more cosmetic problems in the future.

Something that hasn't been mentioned is resale value - a car that is well-cared-for and in good cosmetic condition will have a higher resale value than one that is all dinged-up - and that is a consideration for a lot of people.

I also don't see why the people think it is acceptable to damage an expensive piece of someone else's property and just leave them to pick up the bill for repairs.

YABU. Even damage that seems superficial can be extremely expensive to fix. You can't polish out damage to a plastic bumper, so if the owner of the other car wants it fixed it will likely involve fitting a new bumper.

I've had my cars damaged twice by people who thought they could leave the scene without leaving a note. It's really upsetting that I had to pay for something some other selfish person did. I would have been really happy if a policeman had followed up like in your case. You broke the law and deserve to be pulled up on it.

A few weeks ago, I bumped into a stationary car. Both myself and the owner had a look and we both thought it was very superficial. My friend, who's a mechanic, popped over to have a look at the car I had bumped. The 'minor' damage was actually not that minor and cost me £400 to repair.

Ah, one of those AIBUs.

"AIBU?"
"Yes."
"Waaah, no I'm not, you're all bastards, etc"