Safe Speed Forums

Can someone please tell me what the legal position is regarding a collision with another vehicle in a supermarket car park ie not on the public highway. My husband bumped someone slightly and she agreed there were only scuff marks to her wing which they wiped off. Now he has heard from her insurance company saying the damage is substantial. Do garages have to photograph the vehicles before they repair them?

I think the situation is that if you caused damage to somebody else, you are liable. From the sound of it, there's no doubt that the incident occured and your friend seems to have accepted liability, but not the amount of the damage.

Normally they would not repair the damage until the liability had been established. If they repair it anyway without that they are in a much weaker position trying to claim damages from you. Since they have made a claim against you, you are required to notify your insurers. However, you are not obliged to have your insurers settle the claim; you could choose to settle it yourself to protect your no claims discount, if you wanted. Given that the claim is disputed, life will be an awfull lot easier if you have your insurers settle it, though.

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Peter Humphries (and a green V8S)

When my car was bumped in a supermarket car park, I had the owner of the offending car paged - to no avail
The supermart duty manager told me that the drivers insurance would not be liable to a claim for an accident on private property, so the driver was probably lying low hoping I would get fed up and go.

I did, after I disentangled my vehicle from his, and left a message wired up to his towing bracket socket.

I have never known anyone put it to the test, but in this case, it seems that the other vehicle insurers are keen to recoup the money from you in an intimidatory manner - so I too would let your insurers handle it, and if you ever tangle with another car again, take some photographs. Keep a disposable camera in the dash if you dont always carry a digital camera.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Most repairers authorised by insurance companies will take digital images of the damage to the vehicle at the time of estimating for repair. They can then use a computerised system for transfer of data to the insurance company.

If you are in any doubt over the extent of repairs claimed against the damage noted at the time of the incident and, importantly, in relation to any damage to your own vehicle then you should request copies of those images.

Ironically it may be much easier to mount a challenge to any claim if there was damage to your car that needed repair - for then there will be documentation of the damage you sustained and thus a better comparison of relative damages can be made. Any significant disparity then apparent should aid your case.

Of course, if there was any significant delay between the accident and the claim against you - specifically in the time delay for any repair estimate to be made - that can only benefit you.

You should notify your insurers of the accident even if only on an 'information only - no claim' basis. If the situation escalates beyond a level at which you are confident in handling the case, you can then elevate the notification to your insurers to an actual claim; alternatively, pass the matter to them straight away but be sure to set out clearly to them your observations of damage to both vehicles.

And be aware always that insurance companies (and solicitors where 'legal protection' policies exist) do use intimidation routinely when they are dealing with an individual.

Many thanks for the info.

Being the cynical old sod that I am, as the damaged party agreed to only minor damage at the scene and is now claiming major, I would suspect them of trying to stuff you for prior / subsequent damage to their vehicle by parties unknown. I would insist on copies of pre-repair images along with images of your own vehicle's damage to be examined by an independant vehicle engineer. I think you may have a scam brewing...

BTW, to the mad-house!

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Aquila



Licat volare si super tergum aquila volat...

MGBGT said:
which is exactly the point I was trying to cover - and which echoes my own experience, hence my knowledge of the procedures I mentioned.

She said she'd only just had the whole front of her car repaired after a bigger collision. We think she might be saying, at the very least, we've knocked her headlight out of alignment but they might not have been aligned properly by the repairers. We think the only damage we caused was slight rubber scuffing from our bumper.

I assume there's no marks on your bumper?

FWIW last time I had a prang, I wrote down exactly what happened, the damage to both vehicles and the fact that no-one was injured. Copy it twice, sign both copies and get the other party to do the same, that way you've both agreed on the details at the scene and you make it much harder for them to change their story.

With regards to the 'public highway' issue, I'm not sure of the details, but... If the public has free access to the area then the rules and regulations of a pulbic highway still apply. I got pulled for riding in a carpark with no helmet on (riding from store to petrol station) and asked the same question then.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

This seems to be the a revelant 'Precedent'.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/p ... arke01.htm

I found it interesting (yes I know, I should get out more)

fatboytim