GF just drove away from a fender bender

regulus · 17 Oct 2008 at 20:18

So she just got home quite shaken up. Apparently what happened is she drove into the back of a Chinese woman and the car seemed to be quite badly damaged. The woman could not speak English at all nor took her details down due to the fact that neither of them had a pen. The missus had no idea what to do and just proceeded to drive away.

Can she get in any trouble for it? What's the worse that can happen?

Peter Diffey · 17 Oct 2008 at 20:20

Chinese woman probably had no insurance

xen_ · 17 Oct 2008 at 20:21

regulus said:
Can she get in any trouble for it?

Hopefully.

regulus said:
What's the worse that can happen?

Don't know, sorry.

Pilky01 · 17 Oct 2008 at 20:21

She could probably get in trouble for it.

Its beyond me why we let people who cant speak English live in this country.

ste_bla · 17 Oct 2008 at 20:22

Peter Diffey said:
Chinese woman probably had no insurance

Doesnt matter, the GF caused the accident therefore its only her insurance that has to get involved. IIRC you have 24 hours to report to police.

regulus · 17 Oct 2008 at 20:22

xen_ said:
Hopefully.

?

xen_ · 17 Oct 2008 at 20:23

regulus said:
?

It's pretty bad to drive away from that after "badly" damaging somones car.

regulus · 17 Oct 2008 at 20:23

ste_bla said:
Doesnt matter, the GF caused the accident therefore its only her insurance that has to get involved. IIRC you have 24 hours to report to police.

I will ring up then and report it.

ste_bla · 17 Oct 2008 at 20:24

regulus said:
?

Driving away froman accident she caused with the other driver not being able to claim as no detail means well "insert a lot of bad words". No different to a person driving into you at a carpark and just ****ing off leaving no details. Unless your okay with that?

regulus · 17 Oct 2008 at 20:25

xen_ said:
It's pretty bad to drive away from that after "badly" damaging somones car.

The car apparently was quite old. I bet £100 it had dents already and the woman just pointed at it. I just had a look at GF's car and there is not a mark on it.

Jokester · 17 Oct 2008 at 20:26

Maximum Penalty
6 months imprisonment and/or fine not exceeding £5000
Endorsement with 5-10 penalty points
Discretionary disqualification

Scottland · 17 Oct 2008 at 20:26

Yes she can get in trouble for this, however Peter has a point when he says she probably had no insurance. I wouldn't want to generalise

, but it wouldn't surprise me if she either had no insurance or wasn't supposed to be driving etc.

Did she just drive off in a huff then, or did the Chinese lady drive off as well?

rG-tom · 17 Oct 2008 at 20:28

but she did stop, it's not her fault surely that the stupid **** living in an english country couldnt speak english well enough to take her details now is it?

Pilky01 · 17 Oct 2008 at 20:29

ste_bla said:
Driving away froman accident she caused with the other driver not being able to claim as no detail means well "insert a lot of bad words". No different to a person driving into you at a carpark and just ****ing off leaving no details. Unless your okay with that?

By the sounds of it she did try but the other woman did not speak english? what would you have done?

regulus · 17 Oct 2008 at 20:30

I'm going to report it anyway. I'm just trying to find a number. Calling 999 is a bit extreme.

ste_bla · 17 Oct 2008 at 20:31

Pilky01 said:
By the sounds of it she did try but the other woman did not speak english? what would you have done?

Honestly I don't know however its still not right. Say your on holiday and you get rear ended by some local, you don't really understand enough of the language to get details, back at the airport you get screwed for £500 excess (for example). Not that different to what happened in the OP.

regulus · 17 Oct 2008 at 20:32

Scottland said:
Did she just drive off in a huff then, or did the Chinese lady drive off as well?

She tried explaining to the Chinese woman that she should use her mobile phone to take a picture of my GF's number plate for insurance purposes. She did not have one.

She gave up after 5min and slowly drove away. What else can she do?

EddScott · 17 Oct 2008 at 20:32

ste_bla said:
Driving away froman accident she caused with the other driver not being able to claim as no detail means well "insert a lot of bad words". No different to a person driving into you at a carpark and just ****ing off leaving no details. Unless your okay with that?

So do what 99.9% of people in this position will do - nothing.

Very easy to prepare the keyboard soap box isn't it. Its not right but its whats people do.

As no details were swapped over and the language issue the OPs GF will probably get away with it. If the other driver was the mother of the local triad squad, I'd move.

Pilky01 · 17 Oct 2008 at 20:33

ste_bla said:
Honestly I don't know however its still not right. Say your on holiday and you get rear ended by some local, you don't really understand enough of the language to get details, back at the airport you get screwed for £500 excess (for example). Not that different to what happened in the OP.

I agree but standing around for hours trying to act out your details to someone wont really help.

Jokester · 17 Oct 2008 at 20:33

regulus said:
I'm going to report it anyway. I'm just trying to find a number. Calling 999 is a bit extreme.

I think that's the only reasonable thing to do. If the chinese woman got home then say spoke to her husband about it who then reported it to the police, your girlfriend would well be in a spot of bother if she hadn't done like wise.