Forced off the road on M6 into traffic cones - they failed to stop. What are my options?

Kenai said:
I assumed from the 'evade further damage' comment that contact with the other vehicle was made, the escape into the cones was to prevent a bigger accident occurring than whatever else actually did.
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I didn’t word it well - evading further damage meant that moving into the cones was avoiding potential further damage of a lorry hitting us.


The car didn’t make contact with us thankfully - goodness know how she avoided contact as it caught her off guard completely. Completely unexpected.
 
Haggisman said:
True, but does the value of a claim actually directly affect how much your insurance goes up? I've never actually checked tbh :s
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I would have thought there’s a link, if only because the total money spent on repairs goes up, so to cover the cost, the general insurance cost climes

This is a reason insurance has gone up in general, as the cost of repairs has.




I’ve been to a local body shop and they’ve quoted me on a front bumper respray, and dent repair on the bonnet.


Roughly £800 + VAT.
 
The cost of the repair doesn't affect the cost of your premium, the fact there is a repair is what matters.

I'm still struggling to understand how she ended up in the cones. She took evasive action of driving into cones to avoid a car trying to move into her lane?
One of those times to avoid being passive. I assume there was a filter in turn at some point and the merc got right to the last possible point to filter?
 
It's easy to say what you'd do in that situation when you're not actually in the heat of the moment, instincts and all that.

However, if you believe in mentality of Mutually Assured Damage she should have stayed in her lane and taken the merc driver out, avoiding the lorry of course. Learn defensive driving techniques, contrary to what people think it's not about being a pushover on the roads.

Also - get a dashcam.
 
MrRockliffe said:
I would have thought there’s a link, if only because the total money spent on repairs goes up, so to cover the cost, the general insurance cost climes

This is a reason insurance has gone up in general, as the cost of repairs has.
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Overall yes - but on an individual basis I don't know?

If you declare a claim when generating a quote, does putting the value at £5,000 give a higher quote than if it was £500?
 
MrRockliffe said:
The lorry was right behind and closing - guessing he was at 54 on cruise. So out of the two options, driving into cones was probably the right call.


Otherwise it would have been a lorry into the back of us :(
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That still sounds like a dangerous manoeuvre, during roadworks the hard shoulder is typically closed because it could have anything from materials stored or even heavy machinery. That could have resulted into ploughing into something solid at 50mph.
 
Even in the scenario you got the number plate and had a dashcam, your wife would still be considered partly responsible. The Merc was known to be beside you, she knew the lane was coned off and that it was driving dangerously. So she had ample opportunity to back down and no, the truck behind you would not have ploughed into her.

Sorry but regardless of how you feel, this was not all the Merc drivers fault. In many cases blame is proportional to the actions you don’t take, rather than the actions you do.

To give an example, if you are on a one way road and a car comes towards you driving in the wrong direction. You stubbornly driving on without taking any sensible evasive action, puts you at equal blame when you have the inevitable crash.
 
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MrRockliffe said:
I didn’t word it well - evading further damage meant that moving into the cones was avoiding potential further damage of a lorry hitting us.


The car didn’t make contact with us thankfully - goodness know how she avoided contact as it caught her off guard completely. Completely unexpected.
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In which case, i'm not sure how much effort i'd expend on trying to chase them down - whilst them pulling a stupid manoeuvre is the root fault here, if they didn't actually make contact, i'd expect the insurance to end up being a long and drawn out argument at best, as they (or their insurer) argued that you had various other evasive options that could have caused less damage, or no damage, or even that maybe you closed a gap etc. etc. etc. after which you risk ending up with a fault claim anyway.

If they'd hit you, as I thought, that's more clear cut.
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
The cost of the repair doesn't affect the cost of your premium, the fact there is a repair is what matters.

I'm still struggling to understand how she ended up in the cones. She took evasive action of driving into cones to avoid a car trying to move into her lane?
One of those times to avoid being passive. I assume there was a filter in turn at some point and the merc got right to the last possible point to filter?
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Sounds like the car overtaking MsRockliffe pulled in too soon and the truck behind was too close.

I guess insurance might have called it 50/50 whereas if MsRockliffe had slammed on brakes, and the lorry hit from behind, then it's the lorry's fault as well as the ovetaker.

@MrRockliffe perhaps the driver of the other car was not aware of its size or you ended up in their blind spot.
 
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GarethSouthgate said:
Sounds like the car overtaking MsRockliffe pulled in too soon and the truck behind was too close.

I guess insurance might have called it 50/50 whereas if MsRockliffe had slammed on brakes, and the lorry hit from behind, then it's the lorry's fault as well as the ovetaker.
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Agree I was trying to work out if filtering was included. Because filtering means defensive driving, or if this was an unexpected lane change with someone just randomly (seemingly) just deciding to swap from one lane to another.
 
Most of the time, in traffic, the best course of action is just to slam your anchors on, rather than veering into god-knows-what. Worst-case scenario someone caves in your rear-end and it's 100% their fault. Veering off the road, there a lot of worst cases that would be significantly more painful than an £800 repair job.

Should have been foot on the brakes the instant their indicator went on.

Had a similar incident recently where a dozy cow in a Model Y just flew onto the dual carriageway indicating right off the slip road and turned straight into me in the fast lane. Slammed brakes and horn at same instant, as I was already hovering the brake when I saw them doing 80+ and clocked them for the kind of **** that aggressively shoots for the fast lane immediately.
 
MrRockliffe said:
The car didn’t make contact with us thankfully - goodness know how she avoided contact as it caught her off guard completely. Completely uneunexpected
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There're a lot of idiots on the road these days and unfortunately, you've got to expect the unexpected!

We've got a roundabout near me where the middle and right lanes both go right and the amount of idiots that pull off to left because it's usually the right thing is unbelievable. You just have to expect idiots are going to do that because it's the usual way to do things, unless you read the road or know the rules for that particular roundabout. It's a dual carriage way to all sides so right to right lane and left to left but people will just cut you up without even checking their mirrors. Or they think they're clever trying to stop you undertaking but that's not what you're doing.
 
Not had an accident (thankfully)
My friend had an accident similar to yours where the other driver cut them off causing a collision with road furniture. the other car drove off with no witnesses and no dash cam and unable to identify licence plate.
Friend had to claim an "at fault" collision on his insurance.
Moral of the story: drive defensively, but if there has to be a collision...make sure there's mutually assured damage.
 
Haggisman said:
Overall yes - but on an individual basis I don't know?

If you declare a claim when generating a quote, does putting the value at £5,000 give a higher quote than if it was £500?
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No but the point is that if we all had the same approach it would add up.


My mentality is always to avoid damage where possible. While some may feel as though hitting the merc would have been better, I’d likely be in a much worse position with no choice but to go through insurance.
 
GarethSouthgate said:
Sounds like the car overtaking MsRockliffe pulled in too soon and the truck behind was too close.

I guess insurance might have called it 50/50 whereas if MsRockliffe had slammed on brakes, and the lorry hit from behind, then it's the lorry's fault as well as the ovetaker.

@MrRockliffe perhaps the driver of the other car was not aware of its size or you ended up in their blind spot.
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The key point for me was that when they initiated their lane change, you could not see the rear of their car. But they had come from behind us in the middle lane.


The driver was probably about in line with our front wheel when they just moved across at pace.



Even though she braked it probably wouldn’t have been enough alone, even if she had done a full emergency stop and the lorry go into the back of us.
 
MrRockliffe said:
No but the point is that if we all had the same approach it would add up.


My mentality is always to avoid damage where possible. While some may feel as though hitting the merc would have been better, I’d likely be in a much worse position with no choice but to go through insurance.
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Short term probably worse, but long term probably better.
As long as you got the details its about 99% certain someone moving from one lane to anther and causing a collision is going to be held at fault.
 
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