Woman reversed into my wife's car at traffic lights but won't accept liability. Please help

[domelsnake]

Hello all,

My wife had this incident a while ago.

While waiting at the traffic lights as soon as the light has changed from red to green the car in front of her put the reverse gear in and reversed into her.

The lady apologized saying she is a new driver and put the reverse gear in error.

Luckily for us there was no damage on our car and little dent on the other's car bumper. Because the driver of the other car was in fault they have decided to forget about this and come back to work therefore no personal details have been exchange.

I have reported this to my insurance company any way just as a backup.

After few weeks my insurer came back to me no saying the other party is blaming us for the accident and trying to make a claim.

Because no details have been exchanged they have reported this to the Police saying it was a hit & run and asking for the driver details that time which we have provided.

After few months we have received a court documents saying the other party is claiming their car to be fixed as well as £5k injury claim.

I spoke to our lawyer provided by our insurance company and have been told there is no way to win this case without CCTV footage, dashcam footage or witness (unfortunately there is none of those.) and have been asked to sign the from of consent which basically means my wife takes responsibility for the accident which we don't want to do.

Apparently the court bases their decision on statistics saying 9/10 times with this type of collision is the person in the back in fault.

Is there anything we can do to get the decision to be made in our favor?

Evidence covers lot of things but in this case, yes, your wife's verbal evidence.
it would be her evidence versus the other woman's. Your wife's evidence is likely to carry more weight with the judge because it is verbal, and can be 'tested' by the judge, compared to the written statement, which he's likely to dismiss out of hand if there's no good reason for the other party turning up.

Oral testimony is very powerful for that reason.

You have to exhaust the Insurers' internal complaints procedure before you can make an application to the Financial Ombudsman, although it is a good argument to pull out if you need to. Costs firms over £700 for each application, regardless of outcome, and it's hassle for them they can't be bothered with.

Been a while since I dealt with these so prepared to be corrected!

It's just that I've seen in the past that lawyers take the various Ombudsmen very seriously indeed. I take the point about the internal complaints procedure of course.

You sound as if you want to wash your hands of the whole thing, OP?

PS - have all the relevant discussions with your 'lawyer' been oral eg by telephone?

We have exchanged few emails where my solicitor clearly says that from their experience it will be extremely difficult to win this case but the whole discussion was mainly over the phone...

An email is basically putting something in writing - it's a good audit trail. If a solicitor is minded to say something that might be ........professionally questionable, say......... they'll generally do it over the phone or in person, orally, these days.

It's really down to you, I guess, and whether you and your wife have the stomach for this. You may not and it's certainly something to think hard about.

I just know that I would not be accepting a solicitor telling me to admit responsibility for something that I wasn't responsible for. I just couldn't do it. That would be me being instructed to lie?

Interesting view of solicitors. I'm sorry OP but you've been given lots of advice here the most important being tell your solicitor you want to fight and then go to your insurers. Have you done that?

Solicitors are professional and keep attendance notes of phone calls. They are regularly audited by the insurance companies who instruct them. The firm's they instruct for defence work are usually large firms not some small firm with a reputation for trying to rip people off. If you think your solicitors have conducted themselves unprofessionally, go through their compliance department. There are strict rules regarding conduct.

Your solicitor advising you that you are unlikely to win is not likely to be evidence of poor conduct. They are there to advise. They're advising you.

The FOS is where you'd go once you exhaust the insurers complaints process not the solicitors.

And I know lots of people think the 'crash for cash' is really common but that's an allegation of fraud and your insurers and solicitors will want a great deal of evidence to start pleading that sort of thing.

I'm not suggesting small firms have a reputation of ripping people off by the way - the opinion of lawyers on this thread is clearly quite poor and I feel like it should be pointed out that firms that are instructed by insurers are generally large national firms who have to fight for work from insurers and will deal very swiftly with a valid complaint of an insured is unhappy and complains to an insurer.

You might have a paralegal dealing with your case but they will be supervised. The suggestion that they'd not record conversations had to avoid an audit trail is ridiculous.

You sound like the sort of solicitor I'd prefer to deal with, kirinm.

I did this sort of work when I first left university and I dreaded having to tell people I didn't think we could defend the claim. Most insurers are flexible ( or were then) so make sufficient objections and they might be persuaded to let you defend. It's not a particularly complicated process but it can take a while to get to court (it was an average of a year back then, don't know how long now) so it'll be hanging over the OP and his wife for a while.

If it does go to court you take the risk that the judge will believe the other driver over your wife but he/she could also decide in your favour. Has the insurance company considered putting forward a split settlement of 50/50 because it's your wife's word against hers?

We had a similar incident differemt in that there was no impactbut other side alleged thete was, but same in that no witnesses).We stuck to our guns, got the insurance company to inspect our car, which was old and battered, but showed no sign of the damage that an impact would have caused ( 6 months after the event).
We refused to settle, and went to court, and won. Got our increased insurance premiums refunded too.
Insurance companies don't like it, they prefer to settle or compromise, but they are in s win/ win situation as they will get increased premiums from you if you lose or settle the claim.
Fight this, the other side care clearly lying.

Unfortunately my insurance company hasn't even considered 50/50.

It just looks like our solicitor want us to sign the form of consent as they keep asking for it so they can settle the claim down in the early stage...

Have you said no?!

Who are your solicitors? Have you asked to speak to a supervisor? You have to be proactive.

My sister's case wasn't like yours. She went into the back of someone - she alleged that they started to do a 3 point turn and therefore it wasn't her fault. She was totally at fault as she went into the back of him. Even if someone does something stupid if you drive into them from behind then you're pretty much found at fault. This went all the way to court as she wrangled over 50-50 and the other side said it would consider 75-25 but she rejected. Which was pretty stupid because no matter how much fault you accept its still a claim on your insurance so it affects your no claims bonus. Anyway, she lost in court and the other side were awarded 100%. This affected her in the same way it would have had she accepted fault in the first place, or had accepted 75-25 or whatever - it's a claim.

If you go down the 50-50 route you may as well just accept 100% of the blame in terms of the effect on your NCB and future premiums. If you're bothered then fighting it won't make it any worse than it will be if you roll over now and sign the forms.

In your position I'd fight, but if you want a quiet life then don't hassle for a percentage of the blame as it makes no difference whether you're 1% or 100% responsible - it's still a claim against you and impacts your insurance.

If it goes 50/50 will that affect their insurance too or it's only ours as they are making claim against us?

If it goes 50-50 then yes it will affect their insurance too, but that doesn't lessen the impact on yours (aside from it costing your insurer a bit less). But her insurance company paying a bit out and her premiums being affected will have no impact on your life, surely?

haven't had this exact situation, but have been on the receiving end of two accidents where the other (at-fault) driver lied through their teeth UNTIL it got to caught. At this point they realise they have to commit perjury and the story miraculously changes.

your wife cannot commit perjury by signing a form that says something that didn't happen. Your insurers don't want the expense of going to court. Escalate with them.

I had a situation recently where I reversed into someone's car , known to me . I admitted liability and my insurance company settled the claim.

However ... A few months later I also received notification that she was also coming after me with a personal injury claim. As I was only going at walking pace I knew this was bollocks. I refuted the claim and luckily, because she was known to me I also was able to provide proof. She was a very sporty person and had taken part in a sporting event not long after the prang, in which she'd done very well,

So the solicitors on behalf of my insurance company contested her claim successfully despite telling me to start with that I didn't really stand a chance.

It might be worth googling the other party just in case .....

DairyingLass that is interesting as I have managed to find 3rd party on well known social media website after we have received her details and can see she is a very active person...

Will my solicitor consider it at all?

I should think so.

If the other party is claiming she can't do certain things because of her injuries due to the accident, and the things she's doing on Facebook show otherwise, that's absolutely relevant.

PirateSmile this is exactly what happened here.

The accident was in June. Injury claim was made in November.

Party is claiming she could not go to work etc while on Facebook I have found at least 20-30 photos showing something completely different (multiple holidays trips, exercising, motorbike riding with "ride or die" title)...

How shall I convince my solicitor to help me on this one?

Screenshot and print as much evidence of the third party's social media etc as you can. Send a couple of examples to your solicitor and ask them if they still want your wife to admit liability.