Hello. US citizen, living here London about 4-5 years now, also driving although not all that much, only 3-4,000 miles a year, and 2/3 of that probably on the 2 or 3 long road trips we take each year. Never had any need (thank goodness/knock on wood) to use the insurance policy I have.
Two nights ago, kids are in bed, wife and I are putzing around in the living room (*) when we hear a screech of breaks followed by a very loud thudcrash of metal hitting something hard. We look at each other, like, 'that was -close-', look outside our front window - to general mayhem. There's a Benz Kompressor in rather bad shape, half-way in our driveway, passenger side all bent to hell, any spot that used to have glass on it gone, door handle gone, front number plate was found yards away. The two-foot brick wall between our driveway and the sidewalk is...not there, huge chunks of what used to be a brick wall are strewn across our driveway, several chunks managed to hit our car - obviously parked in our driveway - on the fly doing some fairly serious damage. Thank goodness the car was parked well into the driveway; had it just been 'in the driveway', it probably would have been totalled.
First thing I do is check for injuries - thank god, just a few bumps and bruises; pretty amazing given the speeds they had to be going at. Just two young kids in the car (wtf are they doing in a Kompressor, I ask myself). I call emergency, and......yeah, the cops are not coming out because 'the road isn't blocked (no, but only because the car managed to bury itself into my driveway wall) and nobody is injured (well, nobody appears injured, but who knows? What if someone has a concussion? I'm not a doctor). As an aside - I can't tell you how strange it is that an accident of that magnitude, and the police were like, 'yeah, exchange details, you're on your own'. What if the car was stolen? What if he was speeding (like, d'oh, he had to be going waaaay over the speed limit to wipe out like that). How do I know if the guy is giving me his real details? What if he doesn't have insurance? What if he was drinking?
Because yeah, here's where it gets weird: Driver says a) he's not the owner of the vehicle, his cousin is the owner, and b) oh yeah, he doesn't have insurance. Oh and btw, yeah, he just turned 19, uni student (again - driving a Kompressor??), 'I know a place that can fix your car for a hundred quid or so (I can't get the eyes to roll back in my head far enough to show how ridiculous I know this is; I'm thinking it will be £2,000-2,500 at least). Says he got his license a year or so ago (damn, shouldn't he be losing his license for an accident this serious within the first two years? Seriously, the cops aren't coming out? Lucky dude).
I tell him to call his cousin and get his insurance details, which he appears to be doing - well, using the phone and talking in - unfortunately, not English. No idea what he's telling the other party. In the meantime another person shows up, appears to be a friend of the passenger in the car at the time. He starts in with the 'your insurance will go up if you make a claim, we'll fix the wall, we'll get your car fixed good as new, blah blah blah, no need to go to the insurance co, blah blah blah'.
I'm having none of it, am taking tons of pictures. When the new guy that just showed up starts getting really aggressive 'insurance companies and the dealer repair shops rip you off, how come you can't help out a uni student, blah blah blah' my wife starts videoing everything. I tell them to get the owner of the car here pronto, or at least on the phone, or I'm going to report that the car that caused the accident appears to have been stolen. That appears to do something, because about 15 minutes later another young kid shows up, probably only a couple of years older than the driver - and he looks at the car, and goes nuclear.....yeah, he's the owner. Looks like he's about to punch the lights out of the driver - apparently, he got the car like three days ago, and let the cousin take it out to go to the nearby Tesco or something. Sheesh. Anyway - he says he doesn't have fully comprehensive insurance, but he just said that the driver did have his permission to be driving the car. He gives me what he says are his contact details (his mobile, at least, appears to be correct). I left a message with my insurance agent today, but no response yet.
Basically - what does the guy's insurance situation do to things? Even if the driver at the time wasn't a 'named driver' on the policy, the owner should still be liable, no? Since he gave him permission to drive the car? And I've heard horror stories about stories suddenly changing - the guy basically drove himself into the brick wall in front of my house, but what if the story changes and he makes up some **** and bull story about 'the car was pulling out of the driveway all of a sudden' or some other wild-*** claim? How in the world would I even prove that it wasn't the case? I've heard of insurance companies that have apparently rather randomly decided to pin the blame on one party or the other, which would kinda suck.
Does anything change in terms of repairing the car, vs the property damage (the wall)? Do I just get a couple of quotes from builders on what it would take to repair the wall as it was and that goes to his insurance company? Or to the driver (owner?) directly?
Thanks in advance for any advice!
DA
*not a euphemism
Two nights ago, kids are in bed, wife and I are putzing around in the living room (*) when we hear a screech of breaks followed by a very loud thudcrash of metal hitting something hard. We look at each other, like, 'that was -close-', look outside our front window - to general mayhem. There's a Benz Kompressor in rather bad shape, half-way in our driveway, passenger side all bent to hell, any spot that used to have glass on it gone, door handle gone, front number plate was found yards away. The two-foot brick wall between our driveway and the sidewalk is...not there, huge chunks of what used to be a brick wall are strewn across our driveway, several chunks managed to hit our car - obviously parked in our driveway - on the fly doing some fairly serious damage. Thank goodness the car was parked well into the driveway; had it just been 'in the driveway', it probably would have been totalled.
First thing I do is check for injuries - thank god, just a few bumps and bruises; pretty amazing given the speeds they had to be going at. Just two young kids in the car (wtf are they doing in a Kompressor, I ask myself). I call emergency, and......yeah, the cops are not coming out because 'the road isn't blocked (no, but only because the car managed to bury itself into my driveway wall) and nobody is injured (well, nobody appears injured, but who knows? What if someone has a concussion? I'm not a doctor). As an aside - I can't tell you how strange it is that an accident of that magnitude, and the police were like, 'yeah, exchange details, you're on your own'. What if the car was stolen? What if he was speeding (like, d'oh, he had to be going waaaay over the speed limit to wipe out like that). How do I know if the guy is giving me his real details? What if he doesn't have insurance? What if he was drinking?
Because yeah, here's where it gets weird: Driver says a) he's not the owner of the vehicle, his cousin is the owner, and b) oh yeah, he doesn't have insurance. Oh and btw, yeah, he just turned 19, uni student (again - driving a Kompressor??), 'I know a place that can fix your car for a hundred quid or so (I can't get the eyes to roll back in my head far enough to show how ridiculous I know this is; I'm thinking it will be £2,000-2,500 at least). Says he got his license a year or so ago (damn, shouldn't he be losing his license for an accident this serious within the first two years? Seriously, the cops aren't coming out? Lucky dude).
I tell him to call his cousin and get his insurance details, which he appears to be doing - well, using the phone and talking in - unfortunately, not English. No idea what he's telling the other party. In the meantime another person shows up, appears to be a friend of the passenger in the car at the time. He starts in with the 'your insurance will go up if you make a claim, we'll fix the wall, we'll get your car fixed good as new, blah blah blah, no need to go to the insurance co, blah blah blah'.
I'm having none of it, am taking tons of pictures. When the new guy that just showed up starts getting really aggressive 'insurance companies and the dealer repair shops rip you off, how come you can't help out a uni student, blah blah blah' my wife starts videoing everything. I tell them to get the owner of the car here pronto, or at least on the phone, or I'm going to report that the car that caused the accident appears to have been stolen. That appears to do something, because about 15 minutes later another young kid shows up, probably only a couple of years older than the driver - and he looks at the car, and goes nuclear.....yeah, he's the owner. Looks like he's about to punch the lights out of the driver - apparently, he got the car like three days ago, and let the cousin take it out to go to the nearby Tesco or something. Sheesh. Anyway - he says he doesn't have fully comprehensive insurance, but he just said that the driver did have his permission to be driving the car. He gives me what he says are his contact details (his mobile, at least, appears to be correct). I left a message with my insurance agent today, but no response yet.
Basically - what does the guy's insurance situation do to things? Even if the driver at the time wasn't a 'named driver' on the policy, the owner should still be liable, no? Since he gave him permission to drive the car? And I've heard horror stories about stories suddenly changing - the guy basically drove himself into the brick wall in front of my house, but what if the story changes and he makes up some **** and bull story about 'the car was pulling out of the driveway all of a sudden' or some other wild-*** claim? How in the world would I even prove that it wasn't the case? I've heard of insurance companies that have apparently rather randomly decided to pin the blame on one party or the other, which would kinda suck.
Does anything change in terms of repairing the car, vs the property damage (the wall)? Do I just get a couple of quotes from builders on what it would take to repair the wall as it was and that goes to his insurance company? Or to the driver (owner?) directly?
Thanks in advance for any advice!
DA
*not a euphemism
