On Saturday afternoon, I discovered damage to my Scooby that was parked on my road. The bottom of the rear passenger door has been dented and scraped, with the scrape continuing across the back left wheel and on to the rear panel (local dealer thinks it will need a new door!).

Anyway, a neighbour pointed out that a car opposite had some damage to its bumper. The positions of the cars and the narrowness of the road seemed to indicate that this car had hit mine as it tried to reverse in to a parking space. this was reinforced by there being black paint scraped on to my car (clour of offending car's bumper was black) and their damage was obviously fresh.

Anyway, i waited for the owner to turn up. It turned out to be one elderly and one middle aged woman. The car belonged to the elderly woman and the other woman was her daughter and passenger.

I told them that I thought they may have hit my car whilst trying to park. The elderly woman (who apparently was driving) didn't know either way if she had hit me or not and admitted that she hadn't seen the damage to her car before. Unfortunately the daughter stopped her from talking and said they knew nothing about it.

We exchanged details - they didn't know their insurers but I got their address. I also took photos of the damage on both cars.

I have spoken to my insurers and they say unless they admit responsibility (there were no other witnesses) I will have to pay the excess.

Has anyone experienced this before and can anyone offer advice on what I should/can do!!!

Getting married in 2 weeks and am seriously annoyed about this. The only good thing is that when I went to my dealer to get an opinion on the damage I booked in for a test drive of a STi;)

Peter

Pete

With the police not being called at the time, there's little you can do now short of beating a confession out of the old woman!
From experience, your insurers wont actively pursue the case either.
If you have her number, try giving the older woman a call. She may be forthcoming with the truth now her daughter isn't there.

Hope the wedding goes off okay...

Paul :)

Paul

thanks for your response. I forgot to mention that I did call the police as I wanted them to track down who owned the car. They sent out a policeman to see me, but they didn't arrive until after I had spoken to the driver and they had left.

Should I pursue it with the police?

Another downer was that I was going to drive my car to the wedding and get a few photos - might still be able to do it if I park the car with only the right had side on display;)

Peter

I was working down the road. As I walked towards my car to get my diary. I witnessed the lady hit your car....


I make an excellent witness. Can you let me have more details.....

Sorry to hear - bloody annoying when it happens. Don't think you have hope of getting anywhere though as I'm sure the old bird will have been told by now to keep her mouth shut.
No luck m8
Alasdair

Peter,

Unfortunately the key word here is "think" - I sympathise but unless you or someone (legitimate) witnessed it, there is not a lot you can do. :(

Thanks

Gavin

Don't think the police will be intersted in going this far but you could collect a sample of paint from each car as shown in your photographs and pay to have them analysed in a laboratory. You would then have some evidence to use if the paint from your car was on hers. You could then notify the police and push for charges including leaving the scene of an accident without notifying anyone, careless driving etc. Also get the daughter done as an accessory or perverting the course of justice. The old lady would then be so intimidated that she would pay for the cost of the repairs and the laboratory costs herself.

Probably wouldn't do this myself but it is nice to see people brought to justice and punnished for this kind of driving.

The same happened to next doors car, but this time I saw the culprit driving away in a hurry. There were bits falling off his car as he sped off.

I told my neighbour about it and I said I'd be a witness, but he refused as I hadn't actually seen the impact, just the aftermath!

Fair enough!

F

Paint chip samples.

Someone here must work in forensics.