I know there’s nothing I can really do about this, it seems all the decisions have been made, I just want to rant.
In the early hours of a day in late September 2014, I was driving along the M3 towards Fleet services. The sun was barely near the horizon, conditions were good and traffic was light.
All of a sudden, I felt a massive bump as though I’d driven over something and immediately following that, there was a scraping, dragging noise from the front of the car.
As I was only half a mile or so from the services, I pulled in to see what had happened. I got out of the car, started looking at the front when I noticed around ten other cars parked with the owners doing the same thing.
It turns out a lorry had shed a tyre and it was bouncing around the M3, all the other cars had hit it as well to varying degrees of damage.
The front bumper of my car was trashed, the undertray was destroyed and there was various other damaged areas as well. I was lucky, my car was still driveable once I’d pulled the undertray off. Other cars had much more damage, broken radiators, fluids leaking and at least two looked as though they’d never move again. Other cars came in while I was parked there who also had damage.
We called the police and waited for them to arrive. All our details were taken, we were told that a lorry had been found further up the road with a stripped tyre and those of us who were able to move went on our way.
My car was repaired under my insurance, the total cost was just under £1000 and I had to pay £200 excess to get it back. Because I have legal cover, I was told this excess would be recovered.
Fast forward to this weekend just gone.
I had a letter from my ‘legal cover’ telling me they won’t be able to recover the excess because the lorry which lost the tyre had a full and up to date maintenance record.
So I’m down £200.
To top it all, no matter how much I’ve argued the case with the insurance company, they insist that it’s my fault. In their words “you should have seen the tyre and avoided it”. When I discussed this afterwards by telephone with the police officer who came to the scene, he laughed and said that was stupid. The tyre was bouncing around the M3, it was dark and at least a dozen cars were damaged by it. According to Axa, this was all our fault. Bonkers.
So I also have to declare a ‘my fault’ accident when I apply for insurance now even though it clearly wasn’t my fault and it appears that there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.
Grrrrrrrr.
In the early hours of a day in late September 2014, I was driving along the M3 towards Fleet services. The sun was barely near the horizon, conditions were good and traffic was light.
All of a sudden, I felt a massive bump as though I’d driven over something and immediately following that, there was a scraping, dragging noise from the front of the car.
As I was only half a mile or so from the services, I pulled in to see what had happened. I got out of the car, started looking at the front when I noticed around ten other cars parked with the owners doing the same thing.
It turns out a lorry had shed a tyre and it was bouncing around the M3, all the other cars had hit it as well to varying degrees of damage.
The front bumper of my car was trashed, the undertray was destroyed and there was various other damaged areas as well. I was lucky, my car was still driveable once I’d pulled the undertray off. Other cars had much more damage, broken radiators, fluids leaking and at least two looked as though they’d never move again. Other cars came in while I was parked there who also had damage.
We called the police and waited for them to arrive. All our details were taken, we were told that a lorry had been found further up the road with a stripped tyre and those of us who were able to move went on our way.
My car was repaired under my insurance, the total cost was just under £1000 and I had to pay £200 excess to get it back. Because I have legal cover, I was told this excess would be recovered.
Fast forward to this weekend just gone.
I had a letter from my ‘legal cover’ telling me they won’t be able to recover the excess because the lorry which lost the tyre had a full and up to date maintenance record.
So I’m down £200.
To top it all, no matter how much I’ve argued the case with the insurance company, they insist that it’s my fault. In their words “you should have seen the tyre and avoided it”. When I discussed this afterwards by telephone with the police officer who came to the scene, he laughed and said that was stupid. The tyre was bouncing around the M3, it was dark and at least a dozen cars were damaged by it. According to Axa, this was all our fault. Bonkers.
So I also have to declare a ‘my fault’ accident when I apply for insurance now even though it clearly wasn’t my fault and it appears that there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.
Grrrrrrrr.
