Young guy crashing into me. AIBU?

[WalfordEast]

I went shopping to my local Tesco express earlier. The parking outside is minimal- basically a long bay that you have to parallel park into. There is on street CCTV that over looks it.

Anyway- I was sat in my car and someone stopped to move into a tiny space in front of me- I honked my horn twice to indicate there wasn't enough room and that they would crash into me- but guess what. They carried on- and you guessed it, ended up crashing into me. Damage is a deep scuff and dent on the front drivers side. Scuff won't budge with T cut- it's gone right through the paint so it will be a spray job.

The young guy (I'd say 18/19) then moved off to the car in front, parked up and walked into Tesco without even stopping to apologise. I waited fifteen minutes and then had to move my car as my parking was running out, so left a note under his windshield wiper to say I had taken his registration number and I'd be contacting my insurance company and I left my number if he wanted to get in contact. I didn't follow him into Tesco as naturally I didn't want to cause a scene.

Anyway, about half an hour ago I got a call of a irate woman asking "what I was playing at leaving notes and my number on her sons windshield". I explained the situation in detail. I explained I was a reasonable person, and if her son at least apologised to me I may of been more inclined to let it go. I even offered to meet them in a mutually agreeable public place so they could access the damage themselves and to try and come to some arrangement for payment of damages so we didn't have to get the insurance involved. I'm only early 20s myself, so I'm perfectly understanding that insurance premiums for people our age can be through the roof. This was met with a barrage of verbal abuse. I then explained if she wasn't prepared to talk it through like reasonable adults, I'd have to contact my insurance and let them deal with it. More verbal abuse, and eventually I ended up having to hang up the phone. They have since rung 3 times but I'm not prepared to answer my phone- she was quite intimidating and as far as I'm concerned, I'm not in the wrong.

Some people may say let it go- but I don't see why I should:

1. I tried to warn this guy that there wasn't room to park, but he ignored said warnings.
2. He walked off without so much as an apology. If this was a serious incident, the police would be on his back.
3. The car is only 4 months old.
4. I'll have to loose half a days wages in order to get my car fixed up.

AIBU to get the insurance involved or should I just suck it up?

Police are NOT interested in minor damage only collisions BUT they ARE interested in ones where they driver leaves the scene without leaving their details. If the OP fails to report the incident she risks the other party reporting it and claiming she hit him. OP report the incident to police and your insurance company.

Did you drive away while the boy was in tesco? If thats the case could he argue that you technically left the scene first?

I'm not saying he would, but he could argue that he was planning on exchanging details on leaving the nearby shop and found youd left.

It all depends on whether they class him popping into tesco as leaving the scene, or you driving away after having left the note.

Go through the insurers. It does not matter if you left the scene first. Let the boy's premiums - or his mother's go up, not yours.

Babytookacupwoo:

Phoning someone and shouting down them at the phone isn't harrasment though. This is a pain and annoying but it's life and probably happened hundreds of times today to different people. Don't let MN make it into something it's not. Call the insurers and get their advice

I was referring to the fact that the OP said that after the initial call when they shouted down the phone, they were repeatedly calling OP - I think can be classed as harassment, can't it?

Calling someone you need to speak to repeatedly over the course of a couple of hours? Hardly.

Oh, ok.

Harassment is a course of conduct that causes harassment alarm or distress. A one off, not harassment. More than that possibly. There could be a communications act offence there but as you have only spoken once and don't know for sure they rang after it is unlikely.

With regard to the collision. The op did not leave the scene as such, she left contact details which is all that is required. It is an offence to leave the scene without that so the police will deal. Depending on which force, the op will need to complete a collision report either on line or at a station. The registered keeper of the other vehicle will be sent a notice of intended prosecution asking them to account for why they failed to stop.

If they ring again I would answer and ask for their name and contact details and insurance details. If they refuse report it. If they give them to you then go through insurance. Because of her attitude don't do it outside of the insurance.

Thanks everyone again, police and insurance have been informed and it's being dealt with.

Phone 101 and get incident number

Call your insurers first thing tomorrow - do not speak to this man or his mother again.

Get the CCTV ASAP if possible - be prepared or man/mother to say you're speaking a load of blocks as you didn't say anything to him at the time. So you really need the CCTV. For future reference, you don't have to have a huge barney in the car park. All you have to say to the other driver is "excuse me, but you have reversed into my car". Write down their number plate before you do. If they shout or otherwise behave unreasonably, get straight into your car and drive off. It is rather odd/unusual to say absolutely nothing to the other person and it puts your insurers on the back foot and frankly in a very difficult position if they can't get clear cctv.

any phone calls after you tell them not to call are considered harassment and can be acted upon by the police

I work in motor claims

I think it's wasting police time reporting this incident - but obviously up to you if you want to do so. It won't make any difference to the insurance claim. Would the police seriously prosecute someone for leaving the scene of a very minor bump between two cars? Surely that law is really only used in cases where someone's seriously injuries people and runs off?

It's not relevant that you failed to get out and confront that man at the scene. It happens all the time - I can see why you didn't want to- the type of person who would hit your car and walk away is probably not going to be a nice person to deal with.

I would ignore all calls from the other drivers mum and let your insurance company look after it. They can do a mid check and tell you who insures the other vehicle so you can look to claim off them direct if you want - this would generally be the preferred option in a case like this to claiming on your comp and then trying to recover back of his insurance.

If the man disputes liability then the insurances companies can assess both vehicles to determine if the incident occurred.

And CCTV too of course would be great

@ShatnersBassoon Why should she have shouted at the guy? For all she knew, he could have been a violent nutjob and she would have been putting herself in danger. If it was a woman who'd crashed into her I could understand shouting her over. I think she did exactly the right thing considering the other driver was a man and she was on her own.

you can check if he is insured

ownvehicle.askmid.com/

pages - I don't work in motor claims but am a lawyer who apoears in court/tribunal

If there's no CCTV (hopefully there will be) and the other driver denies hitting the OP, I can imagine the fact that she didn't say anything at the time being brought up in cross-examination. Presumably a report can show that she was hit but unless there is paint or similar from the other car on her car, it's could be hard to show it was by that other driver, particularly as it was a fairly low speed shunt?

I absolutely agree that the OP should not have confronted the other driver, but it was day-time, she was in a busy car-park and the other driver had shown no sign of aggression. I can see a judge being persuaded that the reason she didn't say anything (which is quite unusual) was because it didn't happen. I really hope there is CCTV.

Gobbolino I absolutely agree that the OP should not have confronted the other driver, but it was day-time, she was in a busy car-park and the other driver had shown no sign of aggression. I can see a judge being persuaded that the reason she didn't say anything (which is quite unusual) was because it didn't happen. I really hope there is CCTV.

I agree; I can imagine this being a problem of evidence. The OP has to prove that the other party caused the damage, but I can imagine the defence making a point of her sitting in her car in a parking bay doing, as it seems, very little other than waiting for someone to crash into her. Then she doesn't speak to the driver there and then. No doubt the CCTV will be unavailable. The OP had plenty of time (as she waited a further 15 minutes and put a note on the other car's windscreen) to photograph any damage to the other car, but she didn't. And it doesn't really seem to equate that the OP is happy to leave her own personal number on the windscreen of driver's cars that she thinks too potentially dangerous to speak to in broad daylight outside a supermarket, rather than putting it all through insurance. The OP is now claiming she is being harassed as a result of this. Plus she already knows that it will take half a day to fix and that she will be unable to use a holiday from work to do that, but will lose wages.

People do make false claims and the defence will make a meal out of this one.

In reality this incident is highly unlikely to go to court and end up with before a judge. No insurance company would go to court as it would not be worth their while. The OP is unlikely to go to the expense of going to court herself.

The two insurance companies will decide between themselves and come to an agreement. Assessors have a look at both cars and can generally tell if the marks on one car correspond with the damage on the other car - even if it was just a minor incident.

I suspect any damage to the other car will be fixed by now. There are no close up photos so that automatically makes any report unreliable as an assessor cannot say with 100% surety that the damage was caused by the other driver.

I agree that it is unlikely to go to court but when the insurance companies are negotiating, they're going to take into account what would happen if it did, because ultimately that is what would happen if it didn't settle - ie the OP's insurer can't approach the other driver's insurer with contemporaneous photos and the other driver wasn't approached at the time. So there is doubt. Even if there's CCTV, there's still a big argument over the extent of the damage because it won't show in close up what happened and there aren't any photos.

I think it will be settled on a knock for knock basis.