Car crash

[Sleepdeprivedmumma]

Hi all - I'm after some advice. When leaving the car park at work a few weeks ago someone reversed out of a space and hit my car as I was passing. They hit the last 3rd of my car - passenger door toward the end of my car, so the majority of my car had passed them before the contact.

We have gone through insurance but he is saying that he is not at fault as I was speeding.

There is cctv footage which I have seen and which the insurance company has a copy of. My car is heading towards the camera and it does indeed appear as though I am going fast but I know that I was travelling at no more than 6mph.

I've had a look at the internet and many articles confirm that objects coming towards you do appear to be going faster than they actually are.

Since the incident I have checked and the car park has a speed limit of 5pmh - only indicated by a very washed out sign at the entrance. Not clear at all.

Where do I stand on this as the insurance company are saying that if they think I was speeding I will be half responsible for the repairs / have to pay my excess which is £850!

Thanks for your help.

I take it no dash cam?

Does anyone know if speed limits in car parks are enforceable?

Speed limits in car parks are not legally enforceable. However, for insurance purposes what matters is whether your speed contributed to or caused the collision.

They will not assess speed based on what it "appears" to be. With cars being of known dimensions they will be able to work out how fast you were driving, probably with an accuracy of +/- 5%. However as others have said the speed itself is not the issue, what would be the issue is whether the speed you were driving was unsafe.

Isn't the general rule that if one party was reversing the default position is that they are at fault?

I thought so too, isn't it automatically at fault?

I'm pretty sure whoever is reversing is at fault. I've been in the same situation myself except I was the one reversing. It didn't matter that the person I reversed into flew out of nowhere I was at fault

money says :

Reversing car is : responsible for ensuring you emerge safely onto the "main carriageway" and give way to other vehicles.

As both cars are moving, they could both be held responsible. Normally the car reversing is held to be responsible as the other car has right of way. However, if the car in the main lane is travelling at excessive speed, the driver may be held to be wholly or partly responsible for the accident.

Thanks all for your replies. Even if I was going over the speed limit I definitely wasn't travelling at an excessive speed. Feeling much more able to defend my position now and I won't be accepting 50/50

Is this just a case of them presenting their side of the story, not actual fact. They can't just say you were speeding, how can they prove it? Your insurance company should counter and say you weren't speeding and leave it up to them to prove. Regardless of speeding they should have observed the speed of the traffic and took this into account when reversing