He hit my DD’s car

[Staggeredatthisadmission]

Long post alert but the details are important to avoid a drip feed.

Around 5 years ago, I found my neighbour swaying drunkenly on his doorstep with his car keys in his hand, preparing to drive to his office to pick up some stuff. I took his keys off him and drove him myself.

He was then 53 and the father of a two year old. His partner had involved social services and denied him access. She was mentally unstable. He was absolutely devastated, began to drink heavily and considered suicide. I supported him massively for months and would sit with him many nights whilst he cried and drank. This was despite serious financial issues of my own after losing our business.

Fast forward a few months, case was dropped and he was seeing his DC. I was still in the midst of our own troubles.

One morning I accidentally reversed into his Land cruiser. He’d only had it a few months. It made a very slight small dent. I knocked his door and he came out, took a look and said it would cost me around £500 and he’d have to report to his boss as it’s a company vehicle. He said that he could say it happened in a car park but was going to say I’d done it as best to be honest. I was really upset as we could not afford this but obviously it was my fault.

He never came back to me and it was never mentioned again, so I assumed he’d decided to leave it as it was only noticeable if pointed out. Obviously I was relieved.

Fast forward to last week, when my DD messaged me at work to say someone had hit her car in the street. Not new but she’d only had it one month. No one came forward from the FB post and we had no witnesses. The damage to the paintwork is quite bad, will need a new bumper and door handle. The only possible hope was ring doorbell footage from my neighbour, so DD called round several times but no answer.

Last night, just as I was going out I bumped into him, very drunk and slurring his words. I mentioned DD’s car and he told me he did it (hence not answering the door) and went on to say it was parked badly (it absolutely wasn’t) and that he couldn’t swing out of the drive. I asked why he didn’t knock the door and he said he was late for work and in a hurry. I’m sure he’d have been over the limit from drink and also smokes cannabis. He then said that his last new car was damaged by me and now this new car is us again. He was quite annoyed and just walked off.

What do we do?

I understand but I really would be reporting. All you have to do is ring 101 give the reg ect when you know he will be over the limit /pissed as a fart which sounds frequent so sounds like hes permenantly over the limit. I know it sounds harsh but if it saves someones life even his through stopping an accident then its well worth it. It sounds likely that he was over the limit and why he didn't knock then due to the effects of alcohol he told you it was him. Has your daughter had a price for the cost of damage? X

From what you’ve posted, there were no independent witness to either car accident. Depending on the amount of damage incurred, I’d be inclined to pay for DD’s car to be repaired at a local garage and leave it at that.

The police won’t be able to do anything about the neighbours drunk driving if they don’t catch him in the act, so I’d wait until next time you see him drive off if you suspect he’s intoxicated and call them at that point.

OP you're being silly, if you have an incident you report it to your insurance and they sort it. You don't just wait for the other party to admit to their insurance 🙄

I’m concerned that he will deny it as weirdly his vehicle has no signs of damage, whilst DD’s is quite badly damaged. He might say he never told me he’d hit it and then that will be worse from her.

Well, if there's no proof that he's done it (like dashcam footage or witnesses) the insurance company won't be able to pursue him for it. Your DD will just have to pay her excess and they'll repair the damage.

Or, she can just report it as damaged and fix it herself - it might be cheaper. If it's just cosmetic damage, there's no need to repair it at all if she doesn't want to. Lots of people don't bother fixing dings and scrapes.

@Staggeredatthisadmission your daughter MUST legally tell her insurance company ASAP about the damage anyway. Your earlier problem with your neighbour is not her problem in any way.

I'm assuming you didn't tell your insurance company when you hit the neighbours car, hence your anxiety now? But that is still not your daughter's problem.

ANY accident, even a no-fault one must be declared ASAP to your insurer.

Why didn't you pay for the damage you caused when you hit his car?

You're being a bit of a hypocrite really. The fact that you helped him out when he was depressed has no bearing on this at all.

How much is the damage to your daughters car going to cost to fix? If it's under £500 I'd call that karma and you should pay for her to fix it. If she contacts her insurance it's going to raise her premium next time and with no evidence I wouldn't risk doing that

As he admitted it and it’s actually a crime to have not reported it should I contact the police or his company?

So now pay for the repairs to your daughter’s car instead and call it quits.

What proof do you have that he admitted it? If you don't have anything in writing and no evidence, nobody is going to do anything.

I have said in my post that I hit his car and told him. I need not have told him as you could barely see the dent but I did. He told me it was going to be £500 but he obviously decided against taking it further. If this happened to you, would you insist on giving someone £500 if you were already in an horrendous financial situation? I don’t think anyone would. It was a company vehicle with the tiniest dent. This is DD’s own car and is badly damaged. He didn’t even tell us he’d done it.

I would tell them to fix it and give me a receipt so I could rightfully pay for the damage I'd caused. Or do the right thing and go through insurance.

Your daughter must report the damage to her insurers. However, I'm staggered that you became so invested in some alcoholic bloke with no regard for human life (drink/drug driving) whose own life and that of his family's is already a fucking car crash. He told you his partner was mentally unstable - I bet he did. She involved social services and quite rightly denied him access. I expect she'd been to hell and back with his addiction. As the wife of an alcoholic I can assure you that your amateur meddling did way more harm than good.

Surely you know now that he was feeling sorry for himself because his ex had seen the light and dumped his alcoholic, drink driving arsenal?

He doesn't give a shot about you, never did - next will be him claiming you owe him money.

The right thing for him to do is to take responsibility and pay to fix your DD's car but he doesn't seem to be a nice or honourable person. You could try talking to him again, ideally when he's sober, but there's probably no point. Get a couple of quotes for the repair and see how they compare to your DD's insurance excess. If she makes a claim they might try to get costs back from his insurers but he might deny everything and her premiums will probably go up anyway.

Keep well away from this neighbour, particularly if he is in charge of a vehicle, and report him any time you think he's under the influence.

Don’t do that unless you want them increasing the premium by more than the cost of the repair. My ds had an accident that was 100% the fault of a distracted driver. On video, no arguments. Both insurers agreed other party’s fault. That didn’t stop them loading my DS’s premium to over £2000. For something he didn’t do. Small car, insurance group 1. You’d think he’d been joyriding in a Lamborghini based on what the insurers did to him.

He admitted to the prang with your DD's car. He also drove off after the accident without knocking on your door or leaving any details. I believe that is an offence and you should report it to the police (via 101).

Nothing else is relevant here at all.

Your DD should also notify her insurer of the incident, even if she intends to get the bodywork repaired herself.

As an aside, I think you are probably now seeing his true colours, and the reason for the limited contact with his child. He is a drunk and a drug user. That's almost certainly why.

I would be willing to bet that HE is the mentally unstable one, not his former partner, who is probably just trying to protect the child.

He admitted to the prang with your DD's car. He also drove off after the accident without knocking on your door or leaving any details. I believe that is an offence and you should report it to the police (via 101).

The police won't do anything without evidence. They can't.

Unless OP has it on dashcam, or has a witness, or has the confession in writing, the police won't be remotely interested. Neither will the insurance company.

Yes, contact them and tell them about what he has said. They may tell you that there isn't sufficient evidence if there's no actual footage of the incident or of the confession (and you can't just go round and record him without his permission), but at least you will have tried. They can give you a crime number at least, which the insurers might well ask for anyway. They might go round and speak to him, or they might not.

Insurers can and do ask for a crime number. My DD's did when this happened to her.

Only the police can issue that, whether they do anything else or not.

Oh, I know, but all a crime number means is that something has been reported - they can't actually do anything without a witness or some kind of evidence, otherwise anyone could go to the police, say "John did this to my car" and have them arrested.

I mean, they'll go to his house, say "Did you hit X's car on X date" - he'll say "No" and well, that would be the end of it, especially as there's no damage to his car to prove he did it.

I’m not quite sure why you are blasting me when you don’t know the situation at all regarding his ex. Yes she was mentally ill and made false allegations which were eventually dropped. She has been in and out of hospital for years. I did not meddle in anything. I took a set of car keys off someone about to drink drive. I supported someone who wanted to end their life due to the allegations and loss of his toddler DS whom he had solely cared for from three weeks of age after his ex left her DS with him and went abroad for 5 months.

I know women on mumsnet love to hate men but this is what happened and it’s facts that I know to be 100% true because I know his ex.

Yes he had problems, lots of people do. Why hate on me when all I tried to do was help him. I had no idea he was drinking again until I saw him last night. He travels Europe with his job and is rarely here.

I didn’t want him to give a shit about me. I am very happily married. There was absolutely nothing in it other than me caring.

I did acknowledge that they might not do anything other than issue the crime number if one is required.

usually I’ve found company car damage costs more than damage to your own car so I fail to see the difference in your neighbour having a company car that you damaged and your daughter owning a car that your neighbour damaged and why you seem more bothered?