Minor accidental at petrol station

Mattius said:
Whoahh read what i said, they won't refuse the insurers they will however need a letter from a lawyer will get it. I would doubt they would hand someone off the street a copy of their footage. I certainly never handed out a copy of footage in 12 years of doing it to any member of the public. I did however hand hundreds of copies to the police and appeared in court some 15 times to say so.
I would however bend over backwards to help customers in your situation, i could usually give make/model/colour/registration occupants description, any distinguishing features of the car. If the police got involved there are other types of info you can hand out to identify them.
You will probably need it in formal writing of legal nature to the operator of the forecourt to get an actual copy. But the staff should give you the details of the car and owner, if not get the police involved a clever petrol manager will bend over backwards to help the police, the old you scratch my back situation.

Your insurance company should deal with all that crap anyway, all you need is the reg and brief description.

The main reason companies had such anal policies about footage is not for any personal privacy or secret information (you can isolate individual cameras so not to show sensitive info) its simpler than that, if dodgy people know where the cameras are pointing and the quality of each of the cameras it becomes a security issue. People intent of driving off will avoid cameras at all costs so protecting where it really looks is quite important. And the housing doesnt always show where the camera is pointing! or which housing has the high def cameras.
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Under the data protection act individuals have a right to request all footage and images where they are featured.
 
You can't just walk into the petrol station and say under the data protection act i am allowed to get the footage...
Under the data protection act you need to provide a request in writting and your request must give a suitable reason as to why you deserve a copy of the footage. This would then be sent to the companies lawyers who would hum and haw over it, then they would need to take the footage and modify it in case they need to respect others privacy. Oh and you only have the right to view the footage, not to have a copy of it.

Try that with one of these big companies, 6months down the line you get authorisation to get the footage, oh damn its been overwritten!

have you ever tried to get information under the data protection act?
I have its bloody impossible! Took me 6months to get the information i wanted.

Unfortunately thats the way in real life it works..

In my years of doing the petrol manager thing i was in charge of 3 petrol stations, i had numerous accidents happen on the forecourt, never did i hand out footage to anyone bar a police officer nor did any of the other sites in my area. If it went legal, the police would come round with a warrant to retrieve the footage. Thats just the way it works with these large companies, not saying i agree with it (and im not in that job anymore) but there is no point in saying but the data protection...
 
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Dont panic, he was probably genuinely busy.


In the future, after any accident ALWAYS phone the police. Saves so much stress and hassle in the long run.
 
Mattius said:
You can't just walk into the petrol station and say under the data protection act i am allowed to get the footage...
Under the data protection act you need to provide a request in writting and your request must give a suitable reason as to why you deserve a copy of the footage. This would then be sent to the companies lawyers who would hum and haw over it, then they would need to take the footage and modify it in case they need to respect others privacy. Oh and you only have the right to view the footage, not to have a copy of it.

Try that with one of these big companies, 6months down the line you get authorisation to get the footage, oh damn its been overwritten!

have you ever tried to get information under the data protection act?
I have its bloody impossible! Took me 6months to get the information i wanted.

Unfortunately thats the way in real life it works..

In my years of doing the petrol manager thing i was in charge of 3 petrol stations, i had numerous accidents happen on the forecourt, never did i hand out footage to anyone bar a police officer nor did any of the other sites in my area. If it went legal, the police would come round with a warrant to retrieve the footage. Thats just the way it works with these large companies, not saying i agree with it (and im not in that job anymore) but there is no point in saying but the data protection...
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Yeah when I worked in halls of residence many many years ago we were told; don't view the footage, don't let anyone else view the footage, don't give it to anyone bar the police (even then we were told to give the accommodation manager a call first) and also to make sure you don't track people (by flicking through the various cameras) without first making a note of why you were doing so in the day book.
 
Just ask the manager to tell you the plate of the car that hit you, the footage is irrelevant at this stage.
 
Data Protection Act 2004 is very clear on this. Requests must be made in writing and must be processed in 40 days. There are a limited number of circumstances where information can be withheld however this is laid out in the act.
 
We wouldn't just give CCTV footage out to anyone, however I believe in the past where incidents have happened (not a garage but retail) the manager has sat down with people, previewed relevant footage and held a secure copy of it for them if there was anything useful - it would only ever be passed onto the police or the courts.
 
Regarding the number plate not being recognised by any websites, I have noticed that is often the case when a car has been imported. Just a possibility
 
lordrobs said:
Exactly. No need to call them unless their is an injury.
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You should ALWAYS phone the police to file a report of the accident as soon as you have the other drivers details, always.

It's up to them wether they deem it worthy or not of showing up in person or not. If the car is not insured on the database you can bet your bottom dollar they most definatly will.
 
I have spoken to the petrol station myself and they have said they will only give the footage to the police. The manager has isolated the time period in which she was at the petrol station but says he himself could not see an incident. It was very minor though and he won't have know what he was looking for.

There has been a further development. My girlfriend's insurance company has approached a garage about repairing the body work who in turn have spoken to my girlfriend and arranged an inspection next week. She has received a letter today from the insurance company stating that her premium is now going from £427 to £530+. Previously she had 5 years no claims and had no intention of claiming for this small incident. As of last night, her insurance company had not been in contact with his.

Surely if this incident is his fault then her premium should not be going up so dramatically?
 
shadesofgrey said:
You should ALWAYS phone the police to file a report of the accident as soon as you have the other drivers details, always.

It's up to them wether they deem it worthy or not of showing up in person or not. If the car is not insured on the database you can bet your bottom dollar they most definatly will.
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They simply aren't interested unless someone has been injured (or one party is DUI), and it's hardly surprising. If everyone did this they would be snowed under with accident reports.
 
[ASSE]Hinchy;21008457 said:
I have spoken to the petrol station myself and they have said they will only give the footage to the police. The manager has isolated the time period in which she was at the petrol station but says he himself could not see an incident. It was very minor though and he won't have know what he was looking for.

There has been a further development. My girlfriend's insurance company has approached a garage about repairing the body work who in turn have spoken to my girlfriend and arranged an inspection next week. She has received a letter today from the insurance company stating that her premium is now going from £427 to £530+. Previously she had 5 years no claims and had no intention of claiming for this small incident. As of last night, her insurance company had not been in contact with his.

Surely if this incident is his fault then her premium should not be going up so dramatically?
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They will be taking her NCB from her and repairing her car because you have called them, You will only get this NCB back if all goes to plan and they can recoup costs from the other guys insurance company. What you should have done is call his insurance company direct, Or so I'm lead to believe. Someone else will be along to give you a better answer.
 
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^^ This.

Get her to ring them back to explain she does not want to repair the minor damage through them.

She is meant to ring the other guys insurers, and ask if he has told them about the accident and admitted it's his fault yet.


EDIT: Have you got in contact with the guy yet?
 
Well we gave the insurance company a call and the letter may have been related to the renewal of the policy prior to the incident. We called to renew on Sunday and had the quote knocked down from £550 to £450. This letter states that the policy will be renewed at £530ish. We called them to ask about it and it looks like our quote of £450 hadn't been completed properly. They are getting back to us tomorrow on this.

I didn't know you should ring the other person's insurance company? He has contacted us to tell us he is insured with Direct Line.

I'd be surprised if they take away her NCB as it was made clear to them that the incident was not her fault and that he reversed into her whilst she was stationary in the petrol station. The policy renewal date is the 16th January so if when we speak to them tomorrow they say they aren't going to honour the quote of £450 that was agreed we will put her on my family's fleet policy. It would be pretty poor form. I've never known insurance companies to act that fast if they have increased the quote already because of this!
 
[ASSE]Hinchy;21009753 said:
I didn't know you should ring the other person's insurance company? He has contacted us to tell us he is insured with Direct Line.
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If it's their fault and they've admitted it, you deal with their insurance company and do nothing more than notify your own company that you've been involved in an incident, the other party admitted liability and you are pursuing it with their insurance.

Whilst you are dealing with your own company they will likely 'suspend' her NCB until they get the other party's insurance company to agree to stump up the costs. They essentially treat it as a fault claim until they get their money back from elsewhere.
 
All that we told her company was that there had been an incident in which the other party admitted liability. Her insurance company then said that they would pursue it with his insurance company.

Our first call was only to make them aware of the incident.

I hate all this! Thanks for the advice though everyone. It's all being taken on board!
 
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