To think this police officer was completely sexist and ageist ?

[Ladybird2019x]

I was involved in car accident a while ago and it’s finally been sorted with the insurers. The third party insurer has paid out and it’s all dealt with (accident was not my fault) however, I’m still quite annoyed with how the attending police officer dealt with it. It was me (early 20s, female) and a van driver in his late 40s. He cut me up whilst going onto a drive way and turned into my path.

The van driver went up the drive way (long one leading to garages) turned his van round so it was facing other way to look like he wasn’t at fault. As soon as the police officer got there he was blaming the accident on me, being all friendly with the van driver, automatically think I’d hit the van driver without knowing what had happened. He even told me not to report it to my insurers and to try and have my car repaired myself. Which I think was terrible advice as I know you’re supposed to report accidents to your insurance. He even commented I looked young and checked my records.

My car was badly damaged but still driveable and I wasn’t far from home so he followed me slowly back. He said ‘this accident has probably happened as you’re so relaxed when you’re nearly home and that I must have had an error or judgement’. I was so annoyed. Explained what happened but he just sort of smirked and thought there’s no way it wasn’t my fault.

AIBU to think this is completely sexist and ageist ??

All depends what was actually said and what the other peoples recollections are as recollections may vary.

Do you have all this recorded on dashcam? if so act upon it.

The Internet is brilliant for giving one sided accounts and asking for opinions.

Yes the officer was unprofessional and not there to give his uninformed opinion, whether sexist / ageist or otherwise. No harm in reporting.

Is there any chance he knew the van driver? Did the police just turn up or did you call them?

My experience of police has been that they've become more sexist over the last 10 years or so, not less as you might expect. There seems to have been a draught of misogynistic bully boys incapable of weighing up a situation using common sense or discernment. Maybe they're all disciples of Andrew Tate.

It's too late now because this happened a while ago, but you should have checked whether the owners of the driveway had CCTV. The copper certainly sounds patronising and unprofessional.