Sunlight made me crash this morn!

[smr]

Hi all,

Was taking the kids to school this morning and was coming out of the close, the sun was absolutely blinding and I couldn't see for the life of me so I put down the visor as did my partner at the same time as me. Next thing we know ****SHUD**** ...

Stopped the car immediately and got out to see the damage:

I hit a new Black Astra and did about the same level of damage, both bumpers (my front and her back) have come out of place a bit as per pics and the obvious damage is the crack where as hers is more like a small but a similar size.

She said she's going to get a quote for a body repair. My excess details I can't quite work out but stupidly my car isn't registered at my address, it's at my mum and dads so if it has to go through insurers I am ******** :/

How much would this cost to fix at a body shop?

 

[smr]

Cost depends on what level of repair you want. It's pushed the bumper out at the side so could have broken/twisted the mounting points.

Do what most Mondeo driver do in this situation and use black gaffa tape

I can't, I advertise my PC repairs business on this car so I am going to look a bit unprofessional with black gaffa tape

 

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Doesn't matter what the log book address is so long as the garaging address notified to the insurers matches with the actual erm.... garaging address.

I've given the lady whose car I crashed into my current address though, and not the address of where the insurance thinks the car is kept.

 

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I was wondering if this would be ok :

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/FORD-MONDEO-F...s_SM?hash=item2c50c88853&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

£45 for a primed mk3 2001 front bumper and £60 to paint it in the same colour if I give them my reg... would that be ok and then I guess I could take it to my mechanic to fix on?

 

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What is all this guff about addresses got to do with anything?

You ring your insurance, say you shunted someone, give them her details and ask when you can get your car booked in.

wouldn't i lose my no claims bonus though?

 

[smr]

Gaffa tape and paint? Mondeo hybrid

Get the address changed pronto, that cause cause you serious issues.

well yeah but it's gonna look a bit silly now if she goes through insurance and my insurance company found out i shunted her but the same day earlier i changed my address...

 

[smr]

In this situation the address doesn't really matter. I know people who have been in the same situation and it wasn't an issue, the vehicle was even collected from a different address to the one declared on the insurance.

What will happen is the designated repair place will recover the car, assess the damage and fix/write off accordingly and deliver it back or allow you to collect it.

If the car was stolen or vandalised, police would no doubt be involved and if it was clearly stolen from an address the vehicle has been stored at for some time you'll run into big problems.

I am no way condoning lying about the address however if you should go through insurance it probably won't matter in this instance. No claims will be adjusted if they deem it your fault though (it was).

Thanks for that sensible answer. I am going to see what the other party wants to do first as she says she's getting a quote from a body repair shop today and will contact me later on or tommorow. IF she wants to go through with body repair work does that mean she would expect me to pay for the damage or would she out of her own pocket?

 

[smr]

I don't think there's anything to stop you getting a quote from somewhere else if the one she comes back with is unreasonable in your eyes. However, if you find somewhere cheaper - she's completely free to insist on her preferred repair garage.

It's either that or your insurance.

Well in that case I am best going through my insurance as my excess is very low anyway (max £200) and the cost to repair both mine and her car is going to be way more than that. If it means losing a NCB then so be it, I can't afford to pay £500-700 on getting both cars repaired.

 

[smr]

Hmmm, thinkin about this further and if it went to insurance I'm not so sure if I would be to blame entirely.... her car was parked close to a junction at the end of the close, on a corner... I can show you a map of where her car was parked and you can tell me if she was parked dangerously I guess...

 

[smr]

Believe me, it will not go in your favour. You've more or less admitted liability at the scene too.

Saving £6-700 now could cost you more with insurance over time. It might not be so much, but if you have another accident down the line where you can't circumvent insurance then you're going to end up inot a vicious circle. I lost my no claims due a silly accident of similar nature and I cannot get insurace less than 1k and I'm 24 with nothing to declare and 3 years no claims

ok, well i just spent some professional skills in paint anyway so you can have a nose at the pic anyway

 

[smr]

How on earth do you think that accident could possibly be her fault? You drove into a stationary car!

Because I seem to remember from my theory test days ( going back about 7 years though ) that you can't park a car x amount of feet away from a junction in the road. Probably doesn't apply here though...

 

[smr]

People aren't supposed to stand in the middle of the road either, but if a person was, and you just drove into them, that would be your fault. It's a stationary object, you are moving, the onus is on you to avoid it!

So if someone is standing on the middle lane of the M1 the onus is on all the drivers to avoid him/her?

 

[smr]

If you're going to defraud your insurers, you may as well go the whole hog and not bother insuring at all - you're paying for something that won't pay you back if you need it to.

Do it properly next time (insure that is, not crash )

I've rang them this morning and they didn't ask any questions about my address, I think they only really care about that if the car was stolen from a different address or damaged (fire etc.) so all they need to know is that I was seeing my girlfriend at her address and that's that. Not exactly improper, as it happens I am moving out in October anyway so I will be telling them my new address then...

 

[smr]

So she's going through her insurance because it's going to have to be a new bumper for her car, she rang up and told me this morning and I basically said fair enough.

Apparantly it would cost over a grand to get her bumper replaced, whereas my lowly mk3 mondeo it would cost just £100 for a primed and colour coded painted new bumper

My insurance details state:

"we may use warranted replacement parts which are not supplied by the manufacturer of the car. if suitable replacement parts are not available we will pay the manufacturer's last list price."

So basically if they can they will fit it with any old crap bumper? Nice. Least I know what I am paying £40 a month for eh?

 

[smr]

I just got off the phone to my insurance company. The lady I spoke to said that it would cost me £200 to have the bumper replaced but it wouldn't be with the manufacturer's standard as the car is over 3 years old.

They'd send me a courtesy car as I'm fully comp and that would be that. One of my mates has told me not to go with insurance garages and told me to insist on getting Ford to do the job. Is this really worth it? I could take the car to Ford and ask them to fax an estimate through to my insurance company but the lady told me that even Ford may not use a brand new manufacturer's bumper.

What do you think I should do please?

 

[smr]

http://www.mauijim.com

Go forth and invest.

 

[smr]

LOL so you want to blame the other party for the accident even though her car was parked up Are you american?

Take it on the chin to be honest if you was THAT blinded by the sun, you really shouldnt have been moving! 100% your at fault

I was only wondering because she was parked so god damn close to a junction, like 2 metres away. For God's sake can you just drop it now ? And when I drove out of the close I didn't drive in a straight line from my drive to the junction and believe it or not there is only one Sun.

Therefore, I was blinded at precisely the moment that the front of my car was facing the direction of her car. Ergo, it would have been quite hard to stop.

I don't care what you think, my girlfriend says I am getting really hard done by and it's not fair but that's just the way it goes.

p.s 100% Clap Clap - I've already taken the blame and I at no point said I was to blame, I was merely pointing out that I didn't feel as though I was entirely to blame because the stupid woman parked in such a stupid place.

 

[smr]

Anyway, moving on from all the sheep in this thread so happy to jump on the bandwagon of OMG SUNGLASSES ROFLFOZLZ OMGZ HOW WAS ITNOTURFAULT!!111 I have had some good news at least.

The woman from my insurance was insistent that I wouldn't be able to get Ford to repair the car and put a manufacturer's bumper and not some 3rd party bumper on my car so I did no more than took my car to Ford, then the accident repairs guy rang my insurance and in about 20 seconds he put the phone down and said "there you go, done..."

So now my car is getting fixed at ford instead of a shabby insurer's garage

Premium will go up but I'm gonna join the Mondeo Owners insurance discount club and see if that will bring it down a bit.

 

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not once have I ever managed to not see a car in front of me, especially a black one, in broad daylight, it wouldn't exactly be inconspicuous.

Well it would if it was covered in snow and maybe the sunshine around here is better than how you get it. (more intensity )

 

[smr]

Insurance has gone up from 40 quid to 60 quid a month because of this bump. The epitome of extortion. Fair enough if I had a PROPER crash on an A road or even the motorway, but a tiny bump not even man enough to compete with dodgem cars... ridiculous.

My insurance is up for renewal on the 26th of this month as well, gonna shop around, not that I expect anything significantly lower :/