hit a parked car but it’s not road taxed, how to proceed?

[Renataz]

a mercedes car was badly parked, a good foot away from the kerb, and my sister hit it and scraped the side when trying to squeeze her car up the road.

I googled if it was mot and taxed. it’s got a mot since december but is on a sorn. so it should not be on a public road. no idea if it was parked by its owner or is a stolen car.

the lack of road taxed presumably means it’s insurance is null and void so if she reports this to her insurer does that mean they don’t have to pay out so her premium may not rise after all? no idea how this works.

It really doesn’t matter if it’s taxed, mot’d or insured, this was all your sisters fault so her insurance will need to pay for it to be repaired, it won’t touch the parked cars insurance at all.

Your sister hit the car. So her insurance will have to pay out. Good try to get out of it!

The other driver might get hassle from DVLA, your sister will still have to pay for the damage. Source: Google a while ago when considering declaring my car SORN.

Your sister is fully liable for the repairs to the car. They wouldn't be liable for a hire car though.

The parked car won't have insurance.

A) you don’t know that, it’s MOT’d and has a SORN so could very well be insured
B) It doesn’t matter if it does or doesn’t. It was sat still on the side of the road with no one in it, the OPs sister drove into it, she is fully to blame and her insurance will be the one paying for it. Even if it was badly parked (1 foot from the curb) she had the ability to decide if it was safe to proceed forwards or not, she decided it was and she hit their car, wrong decision.

@user1464187087 The SORN car may have insurance although it should not be on a public road. My neighbour had insurance when his car was SORN and parked on his drive in case there was some kind of accident or it was stolen (latter unlikely in this area but a runaway van hit a car parked on a drive further up the street).

OP as your sister hit a stationery vehicle she is at fault and will need to claim on her insurance or just suck up the repair costs.

‘how to proceed?’

What a weird question, she calls her insurer and gives the details and they deal with it. That’s what she pays them for.

Can’t say I’d report it. Shouldn’t be in the road so their fault for putting it there

Your (your sister’s) premium is based on risk. She caused an accident. It matters not whether there are any repairs due on the other vehicle.

don’t know why you/her are trying to wriggle your way out of this one…

thanks everyone. she left her phone number on the car earlier and hopefully the owner will call soon and they can sort it out.

How is her car?

If the car is SORN and can’t be on the road any insurance is invalid. I doubt it even has any. She could report it to the dvla

But doesn't your insurer ask you where your car is parked overnight, with dire warnings about invalidating it if you lie?

If it's SORN'd then you can only declare that you're parking it off road surely?

A car on a public road with no MOT is not insured. Ask an insurance company.

Sorry, if it's sorn then it doesnt have insurance to be parked on a public road is what i meant to say.

Such a weird thing to do. All she needed to do was call her insurance company with the details.

Surely if she was trying to wriggle her way out they’d have just driven off…(unless her sister’s car is damaged too and that’s what she wants the insurance to pay for?)

Not weird at all. Any decent person would leave/swap contact details with the other driver in an accident. That’s the normal thing to do.

Bet the owner is pissed off they’ve been exposed driving without proper authority. If they get in touch expect them to want to settle without insurers getting involved. She should refuse that. FAFO.

The correct thing to do is notify your insurer and give the details of the car you hit. They trace the owner from there.

’waiting’ for them to contact the sister is the sisters way of hoping she never gets a call.

Legally, is obliged to report the incident to her insurer, her own insurance could be invalidated if she doesn’t.

nothing to do with decency, just acting like a responsible adult will suffice.

Which is irrelevant in this case, yes they may get in trouble for it but it’s got nothing to do with the OPs sister. It was there, it was visible, she could have reasonably anticipated she was driving too close to it, she didn’t anticipate that, she drove into it, the damage was all her fault so her insurance will need to pay for it.

so here’s the drip feed.

her car is totally unscathed. not a scratch.

so im wondering if the other car had previously been in an accident and abandoned there temporarily and shes not done all that damage at all. Hence the poor parking.

Maybe the noise she heard was a neighbour putting a wheelie bin out or a lorry on the road behind the junction this is at. Who knows. She was exhausted at the time on her way home from a long nursing shift at the hospital). The mind plays tricks. She didn’t feel anything but heard something.

shes honest so shes left her details.

im wondering if the merc’s owner will tell her it’s fine it was in a crash you did nothing. hence not reporting it further as yet. However it’s unlikely someone would say that. But if he phones soon we will know one way or the other.

Plus it’s a big older car. 2014. So it might even get written off. It could be £1-£3k worth of damage for all we know. So the owner may prefer to not go through his insurance. Or then again pethaps he will try and claim for damage in the other side of the car and rip the arse out of it (ive had that done to me doing things cash so left it to the insurers to sort instead). Plus his insurance may not pay out as it should not be on a public road untaxed. And he will get a fine.

Hence haven’t told the police yet. To help him but also to make sure there really was an accident caused by her.

Hopefully he will be honest too and contact her today and we can see what he says.

I’d do what the sister did in the hope I didn’t get a call. It’s better than just driving off (which, especially in a situation where the car was badly parked and the accident wouldn’t have happened otherwise) is what I can bet a lot of people on here would do, not that they’d ever admit it!! All these virtue signalers on here telling people off for not sticking to the exact letter of the law and criticising them for not being the perfect citizen is tiresome. Give her a break, she did a decent thing by giving the driver her contact details

It’s irrelevant whether it has insurance - they’d be looking to claim off the sister (who is insured), not their own insurance.

Same as if you hit a push bike or wall - you’re liable for the damage you cause even if the thing you’ve damaged isn’t insured.

The car could be insured third party only - so it’s not insured for any damage it receives. That doesn’t stop it claiming off the other person (who must as a minimum have third party insurance) for the cost of damages.