Minor Collision - AIBU to think not my fault?

[Chickoletta]

I was driving through country lanes yesterday and met another car coming in the other direction. He stopped and allowed me to pull into a passing place just ahead of us.

It was very tight indeed. As he edged past me, I shook my head and said ‘No, I’ll reverse’. He ignored this, folded in his wing mirrors and continued to edge forwards. I could not have been more tightly into the hedge of the passing place. I had a friend of a friend in the passenger seat who will confirm all of this - I was giving her a lift home.

As we got almost past each other, there was a slight crunch and we had scraped the back wheel arch areas of each other’s cars.

His car has a very slight dent and scratches. Mine has only minor scratches that I probably wouldn’t bother getting fixed. We got out and it was perfectly civil, exchanged phone numbers and took photos.

He texted in the evening to say that he will get estimates for the repair and be in touch.

How would you want to proceed? I want to suggest ‘knock for knock’. He was the one who was determined to squeeze through.

AIBU to suggest ‘knock for knock’ rather than going through insurers?

You should have pulled into the passing place and remained stationary. The car can see where you are and can work around you, you moving makes it more difficult

I think it’s always better to completely stop in these situations

If you were stationary then it was 100% his fault. Go through insurers but inform them rightnow as insurers often have small print with a time limit for reporting which can be as short as 24hrs.but if you are lucky it may not be cutoff yet.

They were both moving.

its 50:50 as you were both moving. You should have rolled your window down and told him to back off and then you’d reverse.

I would tell him to contact his insurance. You will have to declare this at renewal now anyway so may aswell avoid the aggro.

No it doesn’t! One car pulls in as far as they can whilst the other one edges forward. If both cars are moving there’s more chance that they will collide. I live on a narrow lane so do this kind of thing daily.

It depends on the passing place - sometimes I can pull in enough, but if my arse is poking out a bit, once their nose is past the front of my car (ie. we definitely fit) I might edge forward too - but I would have been watching in my wing mirrors and known that our rear arches were going to scrape - it's the front that's the dodgy bit, once you can see how close the cars are in your wing mirrors it's silly that you hit TBH.

But yes, 50/50 seems sensible here.

His fault if you were stationary.

50 50 in that case.

She wasn’t stationary.