Advice Needed Regarding Minor Car Accident

In My Humble Opinion
1

So my wife was involved in a small accident yesterday. She was driving on a major expressway where construction was being done. There was a lane shift, and she shifted lanes as she should, as did the person to the right of her, but the two cars beside her to the left never shifted over. The first of those cars went right ahead, no problem, the second is the one that made contact with my wife’s car. She was stuck in the middle with nowhere to go, totally saw that this was about to happen but she was even with the cars next to her on both sides, literally in the middle, and all she could do was hold her space and lay on her horn. Everyone was fine, and honestly there is minor damage to both cars. She got the brunt of it from what she said, and she has paint and plastic (rubber?) transfers from his car to hers. Her car also has some body damage, not much though. The wheel arch is bent some. According to her, his car had a little paint transfer on it too. They were pretty much parallel and rubbed.

Of course, he claims that she came into his lane, neglecting the fact that his lane shifted and he never went with it. He’s a young guy and his parents are involved in the conversations too. The police weren’t called, and they had exchanged insurance info at the scene after pulling over in construction and a very scary place to be, with cars whizzing by at 80mph.

The state it happened in is a no fault state. As I see it, this is just a he said/she said and although my wife was in the right, it won’t matter at all. He has a nice newer car and likely full coverage on it. My wife drives an old car with liability only. The paint transfer can likely be buffed out, and she’ll be left with a little dent. Not worth making a claim, in my opinion, but the guy who hit her has an appointment to take his car in to get an estimate and he’ll then decide if he’s going to his insurance company.

We would be content to just walk away, even though we feel like we’re in the right. Of course, he feels like he’s in the right too. What happens if he goes to his insurance and files a claim? Are they going to go after our insurance? Does it behoove us to go to our insurance and make a claim? They aren’t going to pay for our car anyway, as we have liability only, so I don’t see an upside for us, but does it look bad if he goes to his and we don’t?

My wife has some trauma around all of this, as do I. The only wreck she’s ever actually been in was on a curvy ramp during an ice storm where she hit ice and spun out. She was hit by another vehicle, but it was her fault for being out of control, which makes sense. There was nothing she could do, but such is life. Years later though she was accused of a hit and run on a street that she was never on in an incredibly suspect matter that would take me forever to explain, in a situation where a silver Honda was turned inside out but her car had no damage because it was literally never on the scene, and the charges were dropped after fighting it for months. Somehow our insurance lost in arbitration though, and she has a wreck on her record that literally never happened as far as she was concerned. (Okay, basically there was a hit and run, the good samaritans chased the offender, who turned into our neighborhood. We’re the first house in the neighborhood and the offender had lost the good samaritans, who saw my wife getting out of her car in our driveway with dinner and because they were morons hyped up on adrenaline and heroism called the police and told them to come get her because they had the license plate at our house. Trying to disprove what they claimed happened was a hellacious nightmare that still has us both jumpy when anyone knocks on our door, as that police knock that life changed our world for half a year and cost us a lot of money over something we had nothing to do with. So you can understand that my wife, and I too for that matter, are paranoid about this entire situation and afraid it will escalate in some terrifying way. I’d rather take the L, and the damaged car, and just walk away, even if she was in the right, but we’re both afraid he’s not going to do that now.)

All of that being said, do we wait and see if he decides to file next week after visiting the body shop and getting an estimate and then file if he does? Should we take the bull by the horns and go to our insurance company and report that this guy hit my wife’s car even though there’s likely no end result that benefits us because it’s literally a he said/she said with low stakes that the insurance companies aren’t going to want to fight about? Do we just ignore it all and see what he does and let his insurance company contact ours if he decides to go that route? Does my wife suddenly have back and neck pain and we call one of those shady lawyers on tv? Just kidding on that last one, obviously. I was hoping we could all just walk away, everyone deals with their own cars with their own money because no heavy damage was sustained anywhere and we actually got the worst of it, but if they go forward with insurance, I don’t want my wife’s record to be damaged. I don’t want our rates to go up if our insurance pays for his car, or in any way that it could occur. I just want to be left alone, and so does my wife. We would take the loss on the car damage and be happy to just be left alone based on past bad experiences. Should we be fighting all of this in some way?

Any advice is appreciated. I’m almost 47 and have driven all over since I was 16 with no accidents. My wife is about to be 44 and this is just her second (actual) accident. We have no experience here.

2

I don’t know if this is the right answer, but if it were me, I’d call my agent and ask him. Mine’s been pretty good about helping me with which way to proceed. So far, I haven’t caught him giving me advice that favors the insurance company over me.

Did you get the other guy’s info? His insurance company? Your wife may have to file a police report to have on record what happened. Your agent should be able to guide you through what to do.

3

Never, ever do this in any accident no matter how minor.

Get the details (person’s name and insurance info and you give them the same). Call the police and get a police report. Take photos. Yeah, you will likely be waiting a while. You need to protect yourself though. Most people might be fine with a handshake and walking away but some will take advantage and you do not know who they are.

Cover your ass is the mantra.

4

You need to review your insurance policy to see what’s required regarding reporting the accident. You likely are required to report the accident within a certain amount of time, regardless of fault. This may seem minor, but a common tactic of those looking to make a buck in this kind of situation is to wait until just before the statute of limitations expires to drop a lawsuit on you. You don’t want to be arguing with your insurance company at that point whether you forfeited your coverage through failure to report.

5

In my state this would not work. If you both leave the scene the police can’t investigate. They won’t do an accident report for something they can’t investigate. There is a form where you can self report an accident directly to the state.

In years past I would always say call the police before you leave the scene and get a report. Now it’s not so clear. If you have a minor accident with just cosmetic damage it might not be worth it. If you file a report it will go to carfax. If you go to trade in your car it might cost you thousands if there is a reported accident on file.

6

I would like to give a piece of advice for anyone involved in an accident, based on personal experience. If there are any bystanders that witnessed it, be sure to get their names and contact info, too.

I was involved once with a (relatively minor) accident where an opposing driver turned in front of me and I crashed into her. She claimed I ran a red light (I did not – the light was green before and after the accident) and brought all the legal resources she could afford (a lot!) to pressure me or my insurance company to pay.

But I had gathered the names, addresses, and phone numbers of 3 bystanders who volunteered to testify that I did NOT run a red light.

When the lawyers talked to each witness, they quickly dropped the claim against me, and the lady’s insurance company paid up. The witnesses made all the difference.

And the OP’s story brings up the importance of having a dashcam. Hindsight, to be sure, but good to know, yes?

7

I agree with the other posters here. Gather the names of witnesses. Call the police before leaving the scene of the accident. When you call them, they will likely ask if anyone is hurt. If you say no, they will probably tell you to exchange insurance information with the other driver. Instead, simply tell the truth: you don’t know if anyone is hurt. In your situation, I would have added that you are “stuck on a busy expressway” and need police assistance ASAP before there is another accident.

I was involved in nearly the same exact accident you describe when I was in college, except that I was not able to get the names and phone numbers of witnesses. Instead, I simply exchanged insurance info with the other driver, who admitted at the scene that he was at fault. At the time, it was the custom to go to the local police department to file a report if a police officer did not respond at the scene. This guy had time to think about his story, realized that it was his word against mine, and filed a police report that I had run a red light and hit him. Which was a lie.

I filed a police report saying the opposite, of course. But nevertheless, my insurance company paid to fix his car, then raised my rates. His insurance company refused to fix my car, saying I was at fault. :rage:

After that I vowed to always, always, call the police. A driver at fault is a lot less likely to lie to a police officer at the scene of the accident with the other driver standing there, especially if there are other witnesses still present. And if the witnesses are there, the police officer can compel them to give their contact information.

In the case of the OP, I would call your insurance company ASAP and report the accident. You need to assume worst case–like what if the other driver purports that the accident is your wife’s fault and decides that he was supposedly injured? Your wife needs to tell her side of the story and explain what happened to your insurance company right away. You are paying them to protect you–but they can’t do that if you don’t tell them what’s going on.

8

I’d go for the middle ground here. Take their details and take photos of both cars and accident site definitely (though presumably that ship has sailed? Though you can still take photos of your car)

But no don’t need to wait for the cops to get there (you can file a police report online). I’d actually say unnecessarily waiting on the side of the freeway is about as dangerous as you can get, more so than driving over the speed limit, not stopping at sto signs or a host of other risky driving habits.

Your call as to whether to file an insurance report. I really don’t think the person who files first is gonna have an advantage in a case like this. It’s a minor fender bender not a shootout.

9

Then their insurance company will contact your insurance company and an adjuster will ask for your side of the story (this is a what happened to me). Why would them reporting it first matter?

10

I would GTFO as soon as you’ve exchanged details and taken some pics. I would happily drive 20mph over the speed limit and run through a ton of stop signs before I stayed at the side of a busy expressway for any length of time (and if I did have to I would may sure I did not stay in the car while I waited for assistance)

11

One thing I’ve ALWAYS heard is “Never admit you were at fault, or blame the other person,” no matter how obvious it was, or wasn’t. Let the police and insurance company sort it out, even if it’s just a fender-bender.

12

6 of this, half a dozen of another.
You’re 50-50 here.

Good luck.

13

Great advice. I was the witness once. A truck in front of me in the slow lane suddenly crossed three lanes of a freeway, sideswiped a poor woman in the fast lane, then crossed the three lanes again to stop on the shoulder. I stopped also, and gave my information. Their lawyer called me, clearly having been told by his clients that the accident was her fault. I set him right and said I’d be happy to testify. Never heard from him again, and I suspect it was settled.
As for calling the police, I did that once when I got hit, and the police basically said file an accident report and don’t bother us if no one was injured.

14

Sadly, sometimes you will be dinged with an insurance surcharge even when it wasn’t your fault. The insurance companies are more interested in settling cases efficiently than in getting every one exactly right. I have no idea whether it will help you to proactively contact your insurer. Probably, as even minor body work is expensive, and the other party is likely to file a claim. But my advice is to not stress overly about it. In the grand scheme of things, insurance surcharges can be a manifestation of bad luck. The accident was minor, and not physically traumatic. Don’t let the financial fallout be traumatic.

15

Who reports it first is irrelevant. The reason I’m saying to report it right away is because you are required to do so by your insurance company, and this especially goes if you need or want them to cover you, such as in a case where the other driver holds you to be liable for the accident. Best to report it ASAP while the details are fresh in your mind.

If you wait a week, or wait for your insurance company to contact you, and the other driver reports it to their insurance company right away, you are behind the eight-ball and they may start taking action based on the other driver’s version of events. I just think it’s best to report it right away and get your version of events into the record. YMMV.

I would get out of my vehicle and stand on the other side of the guardrail (if there is one) or well off the road (if there is not). You’re pretty safe there. I would wait for the police and exchange information from there.

16

I’m with you. At the very least let your agent know. They don’t file? No harm, no foul. They do? You CYA.

17

Yes, the insurance companies (or, the parts that deal with these things) consider it a form of insurance fraud to fail to report an accident.

I used to work for a large insurance company, and went to a lot of presentations about insurance fraud, and that always startled me. Most of the presentation would be about people faking workers comp claims, or creating accidents on purpose to collect. But the fraud-busters, when taking about the prevalence of fraud, would always mention the guy who offered cash in a fender bender to avoid reporting it.

If you report it, there is, unfortunately, a decent chance the insurer will decide your wife is at least partially at fault, and you may well end up with a surcharge. My advice is to accept the things you can’t change in the world, for the sake of your own mental health.

18

UPDATE: Sorry for the delayed response to all you lovely people and your advice. I’ll address a few things to clear up some of the comments and let you know where things have ended up.

We don’t have an agent. Well, we do, but we signed up with Geico online and “they” are our agent. I don’t know that we have a specific individual, and it’s not like we’ve got Dave or Dana at the local office to talk to that we have a relationship with. If we did, we might have talked to them.

My wife did swap insurance information and contact information at the scene. The young guy got out of his car and immediately called his mom. I believe he’s 21, but we’ve largely been dealing with his parents, who weren’t there and even in the face of video evidence (we went back later and showed them video evidence of the scene and lane shift, which they still don’t believe is there even though it’s on video), they will maintain to their graves that he did nothing wrong. The video makes it very obvious that his statements aren’t entirely true, but whatever.

No police were called. It was a very minor non-injury accident. As I understand it unless there are injuries or disabled cars in the road, they really don’t care here. I may be wrong about that.

My wife got photos of her car only, once they had pulled over. I would have gotten video evidence of everything with full walk arounds, but she was frazzled and knows she should have gotten more information there. Again, there wasn’t a really great place to pull off, and cars fly on that highway (80mph easy). She was shaken by it all, and hopefully there is no next time but if there is, she will get video of everything on both cars.

There were no witnesses, or if there were, nobody stopped.

She now has a dashcam. Had she had one it would have showed that she was in her shifted lane at a minimum, which could have been helpful. I’ve always had one and believe I them, and I think that now she’s a believer too. It can’t show everything from every angle, but even a simple dash cam could have showed her make the shift that was required and that she was in her lane.

I’ve read so many instances where people reported things like this and their rates went up, even if no official claim was ever filed by either party, that I didn’t want to get screwed on our rates for something that wasn’t our fault and where the insurance wouldn’t pay out for us anyway because we only carry liability as it’s an older cash car. So we didn’t report it, waiting for today because today was the day that they were taking their car to a body shop for an estimate, in order to make a decision on their next steps. Had they decided to go to insurance, I would have made it every bit of a war that I needed to make it, as I’m tired of getting screwed.

Ultimately I sent them video today of the scene, with a breakdown of what happened in very clear terms, to help them make their decision. It was going to come down to a he said/she said no matter what, but I wanted to remind them that his story makes no sense and here’s the exact place where everything took place. They may never agree on what happened, and that’s fine, but they agreed to fix their car and we’ll fix ours. No insurance needed. I don’t think either car had enough damage to warrant the likely deductible. Well, my wife’s might because body work is super expensive and I think her repairs would cost more than his, but our insurance is never paying for our car anyway, and in a no fault state and with such a really unclear situation the insurance companies wouldn’t even fight about the pennies we’re talking about here overall.

So it sounds like our plan worked out, though I agree with some of the advice given and appreciate the input. It was nice just to see what others thought, and gave my wife a lot to think about for next time. We’re still going to have to decide what to do to make her car look as good as it reasonably can with a reasonable outlay of cash, but the decisions are ours to make and nobody has to walk away with this on their record to give insurance companies a chance to put the screws to anyone involved. He’s a young guy that doesn’t need it on his record, and my wife wasn’t at fault and doesn’t deserve it on hers. It will still cost us money, but we get to decide how much now.

19

Yes yes yes. A thousand times yes. I was saved in a situation similar to the OP’s by a witness…who approached me, and I’ll always be greatful to him. Saved me in the long run, Plus, the other party were idiots. But my younger sister had a almost identical situation to yours, and the guy who hit her tried to pull the “I’m a lawyer” intimidation card. But fortunately the lady behind my sister in the left turn pocket saw the whole thing. She pulled over and parked behind my sister, and when the jerk left she left her info as a witness. Saved my sister’s bacon.

20

I’d still want to talk to an insurance person in your state to verify if what you believe is in fact accurate. I’d cold-call any agent and ask them.