In call queue now...

...to wrong department. Argh. Take two...

Hey. So in a few weeks this will just be a thing you've experienced, so remember that nobody was hurt (well, you were a bit but it sounds like not too badly), and these things do happen. It's fairly fortunate that everything remained civil throughout. And what Xen said about nice people. How nice! Plus, didn't you say you were feeling like your car was starting to get a bit wonky now? Well that one's solved at least, because yes it sounds very unlikely to be worth repairing now.

From what you said it does sound like their fault - you shouldn't overtake people turning left anyway unless there's a whole overtaking lane to allow it. Here's something, you've already written it down here but get ready to write it all out slightly more formally for your insurance. As much detail as possible, but removing doubt over things like indicating. You did indicate! Basically it's now your insurance company's job to look after it, and their insurance company to try and weasel out of it most likely. If it comes to them admitting fault then their insurance ought to cover all your costs and courtesy car type things. And you'd not have to worry about no claims bonuses and so on (is yours protected, anyway? That's often a thing). Their insurance may try to push for a 50/50 split of the blame but I can't really see it - they drove into you from the back, pretty much.

> The first settlement offer for your car will probably be low - research what it's worth, with as much detail on model and year as you can. If they say £2000 and you can point to the same thing available for sale at £4000 at a dealer somewhere then you have the ammo to make them do better. It unfortunately is a negotiation thing from the start, they won't volunteer lots of money easily.

> Their insurance will potentially persuade them to not admit fault throughout unless they absolutely have to

> Independent witnesses would be useful for the above point but it sounds as though that's not happening here. So you may find it's a bit of a battle for the fault thing but it's your insurance company's job to fight that, you just have to stick to your story and be clear. The damage ought to show where the impact was and lead most of this anyway. 

> I don't think the police need to get involved in things like this so don't worry about that, it would probably only have complicated things.

 

I strongly recommend chamomile tea. Seems to work for some people but not others (gives me a 30 minute window where I can fall asleep quite easily, which is *extremely unusual* for me).

And/or whiskey.

What pizza did you have?

Thanks.

I was feeling a lot better after simply talking to the insurance person.

They mentioned it might be split responsibility because I couldn't confirm I had checked my blindspot (I don't remember; I usually do so probably did, but couldn't say for sure).

However, I just had a call from the person representing the other party, and they've accepted liability. Also, they are going to be organising a courtesy car within the next 4-5 working hours, and someone's going to call to check health-wise. (I think I'm ok, but better to be safe.)

Just cleared my stuff from the car and waiting on the call from the company that'll be taking it away.

That's some more good luck that they've admitted liability. The correct response again was "yes of course I checked my blind spot"! The thing is, nobody actually specifically remembers all of these things every time they do them really do they? Don't actually lie if you know you didn't do something, but at the same time give yourself a bit of a positive outlook.

I'm not convinced I do a blind spot check for every right turn actually, I'm more likely to trust my mirror observations that I'll have been doing from a while before the turn. Hmm, might have to fix that!

edit - the thing about the value of your car is still going to apply by the way - get yourself armed with some prices on the same car in year, mileage and condition (yours was of course A1 before it got driven into) and you'll be OK.

That is good news, sounds like it will be far less hassle than it could have been.

When I started driving I checked the blind spot pretty much all the time, I think it was because I rode a moped for a while before hand where it was essential - the "life saver".

Lately I've been doing it more again because there's been a few moments when getting on a certain motorway I've missed seeing cars already on the motorway. It's an odd one where my car has shit mirrors and the motorway is higher than the slip road.

This.

And any improvements you made on the vehicle recently should be accounted for. They don't usually pay much, but they are going to bang you (YJ) for Unrelated Prior Damage anyway so you might as well get some back.

Also, here if the insurance company makes what an owner feels is an exceedingly low settlement, they can be forced to provide a "like kind and quality" replacement at their cost. That can be a bit of work and research to them so sometimes they just ask for a number that works for you. Make it a thousand pounds higher than what you feel is fair. I hope your head is OK and the young lady also suffered no ill will. She made a driving error, but it was still an accident rather than an "intentional".  ;-)

How can a driver check their blind spot if it is blind?? That is like saying to the blind man, "Now, see here!"

I do do it on motorways every time for merging and overtaking and the like, way too easy for someone to sneak in there. I'm just not sure I would always for a right turn on a residential type road - I've been indicating ahead of time, I'm in the middle of the road so anyone passing that side would have to be in the oncoming traffic's lane and as I say I'll usually have a pretty good awareness anyway. But that probably doesn't account enough for any suicidal bikers/moped riders in the vicinity so I will have to consciously think about it next time and see what I do.

Did a quick search and value seems to be £3k some similar age/mileage.

There are some really low price ones with high mileages, so will probably have to be firm there.

Will be a couple of days before the insurance people collect it, so I'll investigate more later.

(hugs) Whats worse, a car crash or a hard drive crash?

Only people get hurt in a car crash. In the other you lose your game saves.

Speak to insurance asap and report to police - you have 24 hours to report it or you've committed an offence.

Not necessarily - this is from the CAB website:

The driver may also have to report the accident to a police officer or at a police station, in person, as soon as practicable and in any case within 24 hours. This duty arises whenever the driver has not given their name and address at the scene of the accident, whether or not they were asked to do so.

If any personal injury is caused to another person, the driver must also produce a valid insurance certificate if asked to do so by a police officer, injured person, or anyone else directly or indirectly involved in the accident. If the insurance certificate is asked for, but not produced at the time, the accident must be reported to a police station as soon as practicable, or in any case within 24 hours, and the insurance certificate must be taken to a police station within seven days of the accident. However if the driver is asked at the time of the accident to produce insurance details and does so, there is no further obligation to report the accident to the police, as long as they have complied with the duties described above.

Here you don't have to report accidents where nobody is hurt and total damage is < $2000 (up from $1000 recently). I blew the driver's side mirror off a rental on a pylon a few years back, and when I called the cops they were annoyed I'd wasted their time. They also said I may as well continue on my vacation sans side-view mirror (which was hairy as hell coming back on the 401 -- the world's busiest highway). In the end the rental company didn't bother to submit an insurance claim, they ate the ~$300 replacement cost.

Ah. My brother was summoned to court for not notifying police of an accident (very minor bump, no damage, conversation had with other driver (politely) and they decided not to bother with anything else (no details exchanged).

The sherif through it out as soon as he saw the details of the 'case', but still a pain in the arse.

How did they find out?