Just had an accident :/

Hxc

Hxc

Hxc

Soldato
Joined
29 Oct 2004
Posts
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Location
London
Hi all

Just had a mare of a day.

Was popping into cabot circus to buy some things... on the way out I drive out in the right hand most lane to go back up to clifton area, and stop at the traffic lights, waiting for them to go green. This is at a T junction onto a fairly busy 4 lane road but it is signal controlled

The lights go green so I pull away and a van comes flying accross and I strike the side of him. My light was green, and his must've been red, thus I believe him to be in the wrong.

He gets out starts shouting, I don't admit fault but am pretty shaken up, we swap details and in about 10 mins we are on our way, both vehicles drivable.

He calls up later to get a few more details and adds in that after he drove off a witness had stopped/pulled him over a little bit down the road and said I pulled out on him... that's irrelevant if the lights were clearly green for me, and red for him... of course the witness could say about the lights, I do not know. What makes me wonder is who this witness is.... no cars stopped at the scene and there were no pedestrians around; why would someone drive/walk off and wait for 15 mins to inform someone about an accident? They wouldn't even know which way either of us was going to drive. It makes zero sense and I'm inclined to believe it is made up. I refused to admit fault nonetheless.

The area is covered by CCTV and I can get the registration of vehicals that were behind me, or next to me at the lights through the car park CCTV, but both of these require written requests by the police or an insurance company.

As I do not want to persue this through my own insurance company due to loss of NCB and an excess, I called Europa as a claims management team... but they can't get the CCTV records, so I'm in a bit of a stuck situation.

I'm waiting to see whether Europa take the claim but I'm really unsure of what to do and how to get around his seemingly made up witness...

Cheers.
 
Do everything in your power to find out who he is, where he lives and what he does. With this information, do everything possible to dismantle his life and ruin him.

I am sick to the core of people lying and working their filthy, worthless, pathetic way out of situations for which they are responsible. Really angers me to read threads like this where people think it's an acceptable way to behave.
 
Are the lights themselves covered by CCTV? If so, it'd be fairly easy to prove that you pulled away when the lights were green and that he ran a red (if that happened?)
 
I've explained all of this to the insurance company and europa. They both agree with me that the wittness situation sounds mighty suspicious, and the fact that the guy has never even mentioned the colour of his light (surely he'd say 'IT WAS GREEN' if it was green?) implies that it's complete trash.

They are covered by CCTV but only police or insurance companies can request copies. My insurer (Elephant) will not do that lest I go through them for the claim and pay a £475 excess and lose my NCB for the duration of the claim. The numberplate of the car behind me and beside me is also on a different CCTV camer and could be contacted as a witness, but again, insurer/police only.

On a side note, my back and neck really kill but I'm gonna avoid being another whippy compo man :p
 
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Tbh I think the Insurance company will side with you, but hopefully there's CCTV.

There are some scum in Britain, I wish we could have some form of natural selection, some of the "people" (I use that term losely, they have less than a brain cell) do not deserve to be here.
 
There IS cctv and there IS a way of contacting the chav in the rover 25 next to me or the lady in the merc behind me but a management company cannot do that; only an insurer can, and Elephant want me to pay a huge excess (as agreed in my policy, of course, i'm just trying to avoid that if possible; it will be the route I take if worst comes to worst)
 
Why wouldn't you go through insurance, you're only going to lose your NCB if you lose. And the fact that you went on green and he went through on red would show he is in the wrong, and you're not.

You'd only pay an excess if you're found to be partly at fault. i.e. they can't prove who was in the wrong.

So, irrespective of this suspicious 'witness', he's up the creek without a paddle?
 
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Hxc said:
With what evidence?
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Well I'd outline your story and offer that as your evidence as a witness statement, the police can then follow it up and see if you are right or wrong, if you are right and he's lying he's trying to defraud your insurance company.

I'm sure it wont be that simple in reality.
 
I have a £475 third party excess if I claim through my insurance company. That's the reason why not.
 
Hxc said:
I have a £475 third party excess if I claim through my insurance company. That's the reason why not.
Click to expand...

Call his insurance and claim through them or claim on yours. You will get your excess back if you win which that sounds most likely.

Also given the location of the accident I would have been inclined to call the police from the scene.
 
Hxc said:
With what evidence?
Click to expand...

The CCTV footage? :)

Also if you ring your insurers to start the process surely you'll only pay any excess if they actually start fixing stuff, just tell them not to do anything to the car yet but progress the investigation?
 
If you are non-fault claim you don't pay the excess!!

The other insurance company (aka his) will take care of all costs.

This is assuming the scumbag doesn't win or it goes 50/50.
 
Report the incident to the police and let them know there is a fault dispute. They *might* be interested in pursuing it if there is a possible charge (driving without due care probably).

I don't understand your logic of not going through the insurance company, you can bet your bottom dollar he'll be claiming off of your insurance, so you'll lose out. Put the claim in against his insurance, stating everything you know / availability of CCTV/witnesses etc.

If you really, really want to protect your excess see if one of the management companies will take it on (Help Hire etc) but obviously don't do the whiplash thing with them.
 
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