Kids Threw An Item At My Car
Discussion
Hi PH,
I wasn't really sure what to title this thread, however the above is fairly accurate.
Yesterday, i was driving home, pulling up to a set of traffic lights, 3 young kids (i would guess around 10 or 11), decided to throw an object at my car & run off laughing.
Short story even shorter, i managed to apprehend said kids, after a small amount of verbal from them, they gave up & offered their sincerest apologies whilst laughing about it.
This annoyed me somewhat so i gave them the option to call their parents on their phone so i could explain what they'd just done, or I'd phone the police, (police station was 150 yards away). I'm glad they chose the first option as the police would probably not actually have shown up.
I relayed my displeasure to the the perpetrators dad & he agreed i could take his phone number to discuss later any damage.
Anyway, the dad has relayed his sincerest apologies & that he will offer life advise, which I'm fine about, but, unfortunately that won't undo the small dent that's been caused to the otherwise bodywork.
I have said to the dad that i understand boys will be boys & i don't want to make a huge deal out of it, but that i will expect them/him to put right the damage. He has then taken the stance of 'please send details of he damage they may/may not have caused & we will discuss further'.
Now i have done so, he's apologised on their behalf again, but that doesn't fix the damage.
For the record, i don't want to actually make a huge deal out of it, but the car is a company car & it's leased & it's less than 12 months old so i will be expected to cover the costs of any damage & whilst the damage is minor (small dent around the size of a 20p), i don't see why i should have to potentially put this right.
I guess what i'm asking for is, if the dad doesn't offer to cover the costs, if i did decide to speak with the police, are they likely to actually do anything about it? The dad has acknowledged they damaged the car & the child in question has admitted to it.
I wasn't really sure what to title this thread, however the above is fairly accurate.
Yesterday, i was driving home, pulling up to a set of traffic lights, 3 young kids (i would guess around 10 or 11), decided to throw an object at my car & run off laughing.
Short story even shorter, i managed to apprehend said kids, after a small amount of verbal from them, they gave up & offered their sincerest apologies whilst laughing about it.
This annoyed me somewhat so i gave them the option to call their parents on their phone so i could explain what they'd just done, or I'd phone the police, (police station was 150 yards away). I'm glad they chose the first option as the police would probably not actually have shown up.
I relayed my displeasure to the the perpetrators dad & he agreed i could take his phone number to discuss later any damage.
Anyway, the dad has relayed his sincerest apologies & that he will offer life advise, which I'm fine about, but, unfortunately that won't undo the small dent that's been caused to the otherwise bodywork.
I have said to the dad that i understand boys will be boys & i don't want to make a huge deal out of it, but that i will expect them/him to put right the damage. He has then taken the stance of 'please send details of he damage they may/may not have caused & we will discuss further'.
Now i have done so, he's apologised on their behalf again, but that doesn't fix the damage.
For the record, i don't want to actually make a huge deal out of it, but the car is a company car & it's leased & it's less than 12 months old so i will be expected to cover the costs of any damage & whilst the damage is minor (small dent around the size of a 20p), i don't see why i should have to potentially put this right.
I guess what i'm asking for is, if the dad doesn't offer to cover the costs, if i did decide to speak with the police, are they likely to actually do anything about it? The dad has acknowledged they damaged the car & the child in question has admitted to it.
I do see your point of view, but, at the same time, i do feel like people just get away with things in society as a lot of people can't be arsed to do anything about it. I don't want the kid to end up with a criminal record or anything like that, but it would be nice if the parents offered to cover for the dent to be pulled from the bodywork, which i anticipate they aren't particularly keen to do.
Feel your pain same thing happened to me a few years back some pesky kids threw a stone at my 3 month old 911 Carrera T (parked up in a private car park) and I watched in horror as an inch sized stone hit the rear nearside quarter and rolled over the rear window onto the rear end paintwork of the car.
I immediately gave chase but because the exit to the car park was some distance away they had disappeared. Probably a good thing for me that they did otherwise I would have probably been arrested for assault lol.
Sizeable dent on the topside of the rear quarter and worst of all the paint was damaged which would have meant repainting half of the nearside. I was seething.
Trouble is there is actually very little you can do. Parental responsibility for 'minors' is somewhat restricted as in theory they are responsible for any criminal damage of their 'minors' and associated costs to rectify but you would have an uphill struggle to prove it even with any camera footage etc.
There are numerous instances of scrotes/kids keying cars damaging/denting with handlebars riding past deliberately damaging disregarding folks property but as I say there is little you can do but suck it up its the way of the world especially with rapidly decreasing parental responsibility.
I immediately gave chase but because the exit to the car park was some distance away they had disappeared. Probably a good thing for me that they did otherwise I would have probably been arrested for assault lol.
Sizeable dent on the topside of the rear quarter and worst of all the paint was damaged which would have meant repainting half of the nearside. I was seething.
Trouble is there is actually very little you can do. Parental responsibility for 'minors' is somewhat restricted as in theory they are responsible for any criminal damage of their 'minors' and associated costs to rectify but you would have an uphill struggle to prove it even with any camera footage etc.
There are numerous instances of scrotes/kids keying cars damaging/denting with handlebars riding past deliberately damaging disregarding folks property but as I say there is little you can do but suck it up its the way of the world especially with rapidly decreasing parental responsibility.
I had that happen to me some years ago. I saw what house the kid had legged it into so I knocked at the door and got an apology from a lady I took to be his mother, who didn't seem surprised but also didn't look pleased so I reckoned he'd be getting some grief.
I left it at that because luckily whatever he threw hit a side window so thankfully there was no damage.
And seeing as it happened in the road I lived in I didn't want things to escalate!
I left it at that because luckily whatever he threw hit a side window so thankfully there was no damage.
And seeing as it happened in the road I lived in I didn't want things to escalate!
theguvernor15 said:
Hi PH,
I wasn't really sure what to title this thread, however the above is fairly accurate.
Yesterday, i was driving home, pulling up to a set of traffic lights, 3 young kids (i would guess around 10 or 11), decided to throw an object at my car & run off laughing.
Short story even shorter, i managed to apprehend said kids, after a small amount of verbal from them, they gave up & offered their sincerest apologies whilst laughing about it.
This annoyed me somewhat so i gave them the option to call their parents on their phone so i could explain what they'd just done, or I'd phone the police, (police station was 150 yards away). I'm glad they chose the first option as the police would probably not actually have shown up.
I relayed my displeasure to the the perpetrators dad & he agreed i could take his phone number to discuss later any damage.
Anyway, the dad has relayed his sincerest apologies & that he will offer life advise, which I'm fine about, but, unfortunately that won't undo the small dent that's been caused to the otherwise bodywork.
I have said to the dad that i understand boys will be boys & i don't want to make a huge deal out of it, but that i will expect them/him to put right the damage. He has then taken the stance of 'please send details of he damage they may/may not have caused & we will discuss further'.
Now i have done so, he's apologised on their behalf again, but that doesn't fix the damage.
For the record, i don't want to actually make a huge deal out of it, but the car is a company car & it's leased & it's less than 12 months old so i will be expected to cover the costs of any damage & whilst the damage is minor (small dent around the size of a 20p), i don't see why i should have to potentially put this right.
I guess what i'm asking for is, if the dad doesn't offer to cover the costs, if i did decide to speak with the police, are they likely to actually do anything about it? The dad has acknowledged they damaged the car & the child in question has admitted to it.
I think many lease companies will accept damage up to that size as fair wear?I wasn't really sure what to title this thread, however the above is fairly accurate.
Yesterday, i was driving home, pulling up to a set of traffic lights, 3 young kids (i would guess around 10 or 11), decided to throw an object at my car & run off laughing.
Short story even shorter, i managed to apprehend said kids, after a small amount of verbal from them, they gave up & offered their sincerest apologies whilst laughing about it.
This annoyed me somewhat so i gave them the option to call their parents on their phone so i could explain what they'd just done, or I'd phone the police, (police station was 150 yards away). I'm glad they chose the first option as the police would probably not actually have shown up.
I relayed my displeasure to the the perpetrators dad & he agreed i could take his phone number to discuss later any damage.
Anyway, the dad has relayed his sincerest apologies & that he will offer life advise, which I'm fine about, but, unfortunately that won't undo the small dent that's been caused to the otherwise bodywork.
I have said to the dad that i understand boys will be boys & i don't want to make a huge deal out of it, but that i will expect them/him to put right the damage. He has then taken the stance of 'please send details of he damage they may/may not have caused & we will discuss further'.
Now i have done so, he's apologised on their behalf again, but that doesn't fix the damage.
For the record, i don't want to actually make a huge deal out of it, but the car is a company car & it's leased & it's less than 12 months old so i will be expected to cover the costs of any damage & whilst the damage is minor (small dent around the size of a 20p), i don't see why i should have to potentially put this right.
I guess what i'm asking for is, if the dad doesn't offer to cover the costs, if i did decide to speak with the police, are they likely to actually do anything about it? The dad has acknowledged they damaged the car & the child in question has admitted to it.
Did you find the item that they threw at you? Must have been fairly heavy so wouldn't have bounced far.
I don't know why people think this is acceptable. It's not an accident - it is vandalism. As the dad hasn't offered to cough up then I would report to police. Some years ago near my parents house a go we had a spate of incidents - kids throwing stuff from a bridge, someone had their side window shot out with an air rifle and attempted arson (trying to light a rag near the filler cap) etc. Police did give the parents/kids a ticking off and the kid with the air rifle - they had to pay for a new window.
Terminator X said:
GasEngineer said:
Terminator X said:
The police? This is a civil matter Sir ...
TX.
According to the "hospital parking hit & run" thread this would be Criminal Damage.TX.
TX.
Suck it up.
Thanks all for the responses so far, fairly mixed from the collective, which is sort of what i thought would happen.
I see it from a few points of view: boys being boys, may be i should suck it up and get on with it, but i also see it that why should i not do anything about it, as in my eyes, half the problem with society is people cant be bothered, or are too scared to do anything about it.
As i said, i'll give the dad a couple of days to speak with the mum (i got the impression they aren't together). The relationship could be fractious, as the dad said he had no idea his son was out, let alone throwing things at cars!
I'll follow it up with a polite, but firm, well are you going to do anything about it, if not, i may speak with the police to see if they'll give him a gentle prod to cover putting it right, the worst they're going to say is no at the end of the day, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I see it from a few points of view: boys being boys, may be i should suck it up and get on with it, but i also see it that why should i not do anything about it, as in my eyes, half the problem with society is people cant be bothered, or are too scared to do anything about it.
As i said, i'll give the dad a couple of days to speak with the mum (i got the impression they aren't together). The relationship could be fractious, as the dad said he had no idea his son was out, let alone throwing things at cars!
I'll follow it up with a polite, but firm, well are you going to do anything about it, if not, i may speak with the police to see if they'll give him a gentle prod to cover putting it right, the worst they're going to say is no at the end of the day, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
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