So angry. AIBU the driver who is now disputing he caused crash

[Eastie77Returns]

I was sitting stationery in my car when another driver drove into the side of my car causing substantial damage. He was an elderly man who emerged from the car looking quite confused and buffudled. He was extremely apologetic and we exchanged details. My claim was initially a no-fault claim but the other driver has now claimed that I drove into his car (impossible, I was not moving) and damaged HIS car. This despite the photos showing my doors are caved in and his car barely has a scratch. The incident happened outside a local business but the owners will not release the CCTV footage due to GDPR etc.

This will obviously impact my premiums going forward and NCB. I have been driving since the age of 17 and have never had an accident.

I have this person's number and am tempted to send him angry text message. I know this will not acheive anything. WWYD in this situation?

Your insurers have experts who can confirm which car was moving. I hate insurance fraud, which is what this is.

Happened to me. My solicitors didn't get the engineers in, court decided it was my fault. My barrister and I could not believe it. I think it was cos I was in a BMW and she said she was a teacher - I never declared my profession, but I'm a Co director NED at a top uni and a lecturer, which I think trumps being a teacher 🤯

I had this, a car hit DH when he was at a standstill waiting to go onto a roundabout. They tried to claim it was his fault, and the insurers ( my insurance) wanted to settle 50:50. I said no, I'm not agreeing that, let it go through the courts. It did, and we won.
The first we knew of the claim at all was when bastard insurers increased my premium, I rang to ask why, and they said, "Oh, there's a claim against you, we were going to notify you." As soon as it was sorted I changed insurers, they weren't interested in fault or proof, it was just easier for them to settle, and for us to pay.
So you have to be clear with the insurers that as you were stationary, you are not accepting any liability at all.

Just read another post, the bastard claiming against DH was a hospital consultant with big expensive car, ours was a 20 year old Escort and DH in a non-managerial job.

My friend had 2 years of back and forth with her insurer when she was hit, they kept saying 50/50 and she kept rejecting and saying absolutely not the other driver had hit her. It was settled eventually in my friend's favour and then the other driver tried to claim for whiplash! Some people are just fucking unbelievable!

Keep pushing back, OP.

Insurance companies do this all the time. It’s not worth it to them to fight it in court despite this being what we pay them for. So they agree 50/50 with the other company and we suffer.

As i said in my previous post, my insurers did take my case to court and it went in my favour. I went to court as a witness.

It was a pretty straightforward process and I will say that the judge was excellent in cutting through the other driver's BS.

It did take a long time to get to court.

My case was a less 'open and shut' case than yours.

Urggh, sorry to read so many of you have faced similar situations.

As expected, the gym refused to allow me to put a note up (either inside or outside the premises) asking for witnesses. They have an official Facebook page but user posts are disabled. However I then stumbled across and joined another FB page called “Complaints about <gym name>” which has 20,000 members(!) and includes multiple threads from members nationwide whose cars were damaged in carpark incidents and the gym has refused to release CCTV footage. In some cases the gym even delayed the release to insurance companies and then said the footage no longer existed. I have posted on the page asking for witnesses as I can see there are contributors who attend my branch so fingers crossed.

I do think this will be resolved though as the photographic evidence alone proves the other driver is lying and I am more than happy to go to court.

Do you have a Facebook group for your town as well where you could ask for witnesses or dash cam footage? That happens quite regularly in my local group.

The ICO website can help you if they drag their feet over the SAR.

You can SAR for cctv footage. And if they dont release it then you can report to ICO.
Remind them of their data protection responsibilities https://www.gov.uk/data-protection-your-business/using-cctv

I’d be interested to see the location of both cars before the collision took place. This must have taken place on the gym car park - you say you were stationary, so were you parked up?
There may be a possibility that he will claim that you were pulling out of a parking space without looking properly, causing him to crash into you. That would explain how you ended up with damage to your doors and his with damage to the front of his car. That’s the most likely explanation that the insurers will consider. I’m guessing CCTV will disprove this so it’s up to the insurers to request it from the gym.

Yes I’ve had similar. I had to insist pretty hard that the insurance company fight it so I could get my excess back. They wanted to go 50/50

even if you pull out, the person would be expected to have a reasonable stopping distance. Unless your front corner is bashed, you can't pull out of a space at 50 mph so that someone driving across you only hits your side with no time themselves to brake.

If this is a damage only collision it is highly unlikely that the police will make any enquiries as it is a non recordable collision. Their job is not to get you cctv for your insurance company.

Request the Police get the CCTV as evidence of him hitting you. I'm not sure but the Insurance company may be able to request it if they feel a crime has been committed but you'd have to check with them.

If the Gym wont hand over the CCTV footage refer them to the Information Commissioner and get as many other people as possible to complain as well

Thank for replying

The amount for my car was settled ages ago. Waiting for the money.

Well, I (foolishly) went through one of these accident claim agencies.

They were the first hit when I searched my insurance on google.

Apparently, they can only contact insurance companies once a week to chase claims, yet they regularly email me to tell me NOT to communicate with them directly.
Well , I have had enough now (6 hour journey in courtesy car with broken AC)

Financial ombudsman won't touch it yet as not been long enough time. I am keeping a trail of emails as proof.

I am going to phone the guy's insurance directly now

I had this years ago and the elderly lady then went on to lie and say she had someone in the car with her and they backed up her story. I had legal cover and tried to fight it but at the end of the day it was 2 against one. It still annoys me 20 years later

So since making my police report I’ve been contacted by a ‘Roads Policing Investigations Officer’ from the local Police CRASH investigating team (never heard of them before!) requesting more details which I have supplied.

The gym replied to my SAR request by sending me a snotty message stating that they have no footage of me whatsoever. I don’t understand how that can be the case since I was in the gym twice that day (in the morning when the collision occurred and later when I returned to take DS for a swimming lesson. How was I not captured at all by any of the CCTV cameras in the car park?)

After posting on the FB page I was contacted by someone who said that unfortunately they only witnessed the aftermath of the crash and not the incident itself so I still don’t have an actual witness. However I’m hoping the investigation and or the threat of court might ‘encourage’ the lying toad other driver to admit he was fully at fault, as he initially did. Haven’t heard back from my insurers so will need to call them to chase next steps if we do need to go to court. DP doesn’t understand why I’m making all this fuss since my car has now been fixed but I’m not walking away from two decades of no claims because of something that was not my fault. I also genuinely think the driver might seriously harm himself or someone else. He should not be driving.

I'd be fuming OP and would also keep on plugging away.
I'd also report the gym to the ICO!

i am in a similar situation but luckily i was in a work vehicle she came out of a side street and onto my side of the road but after a long time she contested it stupid as the vehicle has many many cameras that my work place sent to the insurers keep pushing with you insurance and definitely take it court if you have to you shouldn’t have to accept any liability

That’s a good shout regarding the ICO.

On the FB page there are dozens of messages from angry gym members around the country stating their cars have been damaged in the car park and the gym has responded with “we have no footage”. I mean maybe they don’t and the CCTV cameras are all fake but that’s then another serious issue if so!

Totally understand your frustration @Eastie77Returns.I bet the gym do have CCTV they just don’t want to get involved. My car was driven into outside my gym whilst it was parked up. An employee left a note on my car to speak to him about it. He’d seen it on the CCTV and gave me the reg of the car. I reported it to the Police especially as when I googled the car it had been involved in other similar incident in the locality. A few weeks later the Police came back to say there was nothing thrr et y could do as the gym said they had no CCTV of the incident despite that being how they’d seen it in the first place!!

Also Police really need to speak to the driver if there are concerns about his ability to drive. It is a very sore subject for me as I don’t believe my 91 year old father should be driving and have had to report him to the DVLA who, 5 months later, are ‘still looking in to it!!! Two weeks ago he had an operation on his eyes and despite telling me and my sister he was in great pain and had blurry vision continued to drive. Unfortunately we were abroad at the time and couldn’t take his keys off him and apparently carers aren’t allowed to hide keys if the driver has capacity. When told he mustn’t drive instead the Dr hadn’t told him he couldn’t and he was fine. His long distance was perfect so not a problem.

Thankfully I managed to get hold of the ophthalmologists office prior to a follow up appointment and tell them they need to include very specific instructions about him driving and write it on the discharge sheet as he would ignore it otherwise. Thankfully they did so hopefully the problem has been abated and now we are home have been able to hide his keys so he doesn’t ‘forget’ he can’t drive.

said not instead

That’s outrageous and I wouldn’t let it drop either! You know you’re in the right, so I’d go as far as was necessary.

I've had this before. Guy was like yeah I'm fine.. I'm off to college and I have a mate with a garage who will check out my car.

Next thing I know he has severe whiplash and all sorts.

I didn't accept responsibility and had my car checked over and photos taken by my own garage.

The insurance sorted it and it ended up going 50/50.

Oh and he also went out and hired a brand new BMW to drive around in and tried to charge for it. His was a beat up old bmw with bumps and scrapes and patches.

Not a chance. I was a single mum at the time on my way to my full time job to keep a roof over our heads.

Don't contact this guy again directly. Let your insurance do it.

It might take months but that's what you're paying them for.

When I was younger I also had a guy drive me off the road. Like the police and ambulance so happened to he on this back country road some distance behind so caught up with it all. He drove head first into a couple after trying to blind over take me.

It was so obviously a case of dangerous and careless driving and he was taken to the police station straight away. The couple had to get cut out but were fine physically.

The guy went to court and it took over 2 years to sort out as he still pled not guilty.

I was pregnant at the time and almost due to give birth when it came to court. It then took over a year after that for the insurance to pay me out.

I did thankfully get a temporary car to drive in for 6 weeks or so until mine was checked.

I was shook up for a long time after though.

Moral of the story is that It can take the insurance companies months or years to sort things but that's why you pay them.