What will my insurer think of this rear-ending?
Discussion
I'm driving along one of the big roads in central London, off side lane. No one in front of me for several car lengths. A black cab stops suddenly to pick up a fare on double red lines. The white car behind him (in front of me but near side lane) swerves into my lane and I hit her from behind. White car drives on (they are bound to have known the collision happened), I follow it, indicate to pull over/stop, they don't, I follow for 1-1.5 miles, after which because of traffic lights and other cars, I've nearly lost them and they are heading for the M1, so I stop following.
My car is damaged; as far as I could tell visually, the white car was not.
Should I bother claiming i.e. is my insurer likely to assume it was my fault? It didn't feel like my fault but objectively I don't know how this would be assessed.
My car is damaged; as far as I could tell visually, the white car was not.
Should I bother claiming i.e. is my insurer likely to assume it was my fault? It didn't feel like my fault but objectively I don't know how this would be assessed.
Sadly the police won't give a f
k. By all means speak to them but don't be surprised when they tell you 'it's a civil matter'.
Unless you have HD CCTV footage of the driver and provide the police with his address, insurance details, favourite pasttime etc they will not give one fk at all.
k. By all means speak to them but don't be surprised when they tell you 'it's a civil matter'. Unless you have HD CCTV footage of the driver and provide the police with his address, insurance details, favourite pasttime etc they will not give one f
k at all. Sounds similar to an incident that happened to me and the reason I now have a dashcam. I'm travelling in lane 2 of a dual carriageway, an Audi TT decides to pull out behind me and sits on my back bumper. I can't go anywhere as I'm overtaking a string of cars at the time. At this point a black Peugeot decides he'll just pull into lane 2 in front of me and he was doing about 55mph but didn't speed up. As I slammed on the brakes and missed his bumper by a fag paper's width, the Audi fails to react as quickly as I did and he rear ends me.
The Pug didn't stop and went on about his business and I didn't get his number plate. The end result was nobody stopped to help me as a witness and while the Audi driver admitted he saw the Pug pull out on me, he also claimed I pulled out on him at the same time. Both insurance companies decided to settle on 90% my fault, 10% his despite my protests. I'll never drive without a camera again.
No advice to you but your story just brought it all back.
Edited to add, it seems if you are driving in a lane and then rear end someone, it's your fault. If someone pulls out and you rear end them, it's not as simple as you not allowing enough braking distance so not necessarily your fault.
The Pug didn't stop and went on about his business and I didn't get his number plate. The end result was nobody stopped to help me as a witness and while the Audi driver admitted he saw the Pug pull out on me, he also claimed I pulled out on him at the same time. Both insurance companies decided to settle on 90% my fault, 10% his despite my protests. I'll never drive without a camera again.
No advice to you but your story just brought it all back.
Edited to add, it seems if you are driving in a lane and then rear end someone, it's your fault. If someone pulls out and you rear end them, it's not as simple as you not allowing enough braking distance so not necessarily your fault.
montecristo said:
I'm driving along one of the big roads in central London, off side lane. No one in front of me for several car lengths. A black cab stops suddenly to pick up a fare on double red lines. The white car behind him (in front of me but near side lane) swerves into my lane and I hit her from behind. White car drives on (they are bound to have known the collision happened), I follow it, indicate to pull over/stop, they don't, I follow for 1-1.5 miles, after which because of traffic lights and other cars, I've nearly lost them and they are heading for the M1, so I stop following.
My car is damaged; as far as I could tell visually, the white car was not.
Should I bother claiming i.e. is my insurer likely to assume it was my fault? It didn't feel like my fault but objectively I don't know how this would be assessed.
From an insurance perspective (not being critical or patronising...) there can be a valid expectation that you would see a cab and know that one of the things they do is stop suddenly for fares - you could see a white car very close behind it - and on that basis you would a) keep an eye on them and b) anticipate that something could happen and give more space...My car is damaged; as far as I could tell visually, the white car was not.
Should I bother claiming i.e. is my insurer likely to assume it was my fault? It didn't feel like my fault but objectively I don't know how this would be assessed.
therefore, from an insurance perspective you could be seen to hold some of or all the blame for the incident...
p4cks said:
Sadly the police won't give a fck. By all means speak to them but don't be surprised when they tell you 'it's a civil matter'.
Its not a civil matter as they left the scene of an accident, the police may still do nothing but its good to throw this back at them when they try on the old civil matter cr ap.akirk said:
From an insurance perspective (not being critical or patronising...) there can be a valid expectation that you would see a cab and know that one of the things they do is stop suddenly for fares - you could see a white car very close behind it - and on that basis you would a) keep an eye on them and b) anticipate that something could happen and give more space...
therefore, from an insurance perspective you could be seen to hold some of or all the blame for the incident...
Yes, I get that. The cab stopped on double reds so he was in the wrong; had the white car stopped rather than swerved, we would have been OK. But split-second decisions and hindsight... therefore, from an insurance perspective you could be seen to hold some of or all the blame for the incident...
As for the police - I've reported it as a pre-emptive measure and because I have to, but I am not looking for anything from them. Hopefully they have better things to do.
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