In November of 2012, I received a knock on the door from 2 police officers wanting to arrest me for a hit and run accident. After a long discussion, they gave me 3 tickets and told me to take it up in court. I was NOT involved in an accident and they took pictures of my vehicle supporting my claim. One of the tickets was a no insurance ticket, now let me explain … my husband was injured at work and my insurance lapsed, the place I had my van financed through had added $2000 telling me it was for my insurance, only to find out it wasn’t insurance that covered me but them. So went to court at which all 4 court dates, the lady that accused me did not show up, it went to trial at which the states attorney looked over the pictures of my van and her truck and said there was no way they could pursue this as the pictures showed the damage done to her vehicle was not by me. So the case was dismissed (except for the no insurance ticket I had to pay) this was on March 3 of 2013. March of 2014 I received a letter from the Secretary of State telling me that they were suspending my license on March 21 2014 if I didn’t pay for the damage to this lady’s vehicle. I faxed them the papers from court showing I was not guilty and charges had been dismissed, however they said I was still responsible for the damages because of not having insurance and they claim I have no proof of not being involved in the accident. Has anyone else ever dealt with this or does anyone know what I can do or who to talk to about my license being reinstated WITHOUT paying for damages that I didn’t do.
It will help if you tell us what state you live in. IANA lawyer. You aren’t responsible for the damages, but it could take a lot of work to resolve the problem. A lawyer could get it done in a hurry for you, otherwise get ready for a bureaucratic nightmare.
What does your lawyer say?
I apologize … I’m in the state of Illinois. I called 9 lawyers and none of them would deal with it because of the Sec. Of State and Illinois Dept. Of Transportation being involved but one did say that it made no sense for the state to dismiss it only to come back for my license a year later.
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Welcome to the SDMB, Blndenblue.
The General Questions forum is for questions with factual answers. Questions seeking advice and opinions (especially on legal matters) belong in our In My Humble Opinion forum. I will move this thread there for you.
Also, please note that any responses you receive here are just the opinions of some random folks on the internet and should not be taken as the equivalent of professional legal advice.
Moving thread from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion.
Have you tried contacting your local legal aid office? I’m sure there are lawyers that will take virtually any case as long as you have all of the documentation showing your side of things.
If what you say is true it sounds like you are being railroaded into paying for something you legally don’t owe.
Get legal representation from someone before you do anything else. This might be cleared up in 10 minutes, or may require you going to court, you won’t know until you have a competent lawyer sort it all out…
Zero out of nine lawyers would help you? That’s weird. Is there something you’re leaving out here? Did you tell the lawyers you were broke?
I’ve never heard of a lawyer being intimidated by the Sec. of State, or IDOT.
I would advise you to get a lawyer, but… Hell, maybe the 10th of 10 is the one you need to speak to.
Best of luck, and a word to the wise: if your license gets suspended, DO NOT DRIVE.
No I’m not leaving anything out … And yes I would have thought with the ones I talked to someone would help. No I didn’t tell them I didn’t have money, as I am willing to pay to get this cleared up.
I called all attorneys that deal specifically with traffic issues, is there any others that would also be knowledgeable in this?
Insurance companies make their own determinations of fault in all claims, and their findings are not necessarily influenced by police reports or traffic court findings.
The other party’s collision insurance paid the claim, and are now going after an at-fault party to recover. You failed to pay (either yourself or via insurance), for which the other party has named you at fault. Consequently, you were reported to the Secretary of State. Your license will be reinstated as soon as the Secy-St has been notified that the claim has been settled, so the insurance company’s claim is where you need to attack…
If you have now reinstated your insurance with the original company, a friendly phone call to them would at least yield a suggestion about how to proceed next. Your insurance company would certainly be able to shed light on what it will take to get the claim withdrawn or declared satisfied.
Hell, I can’t even figure out why you were ticketed for not having an insurance card if you weren’t driving the vehicle when they wrote the ticket. It’s one thing if you’re stopped for a moving violation, but the vehicle was sitting in your driveway. People start and stop insurance all the time for vehicles that don’t get used a lot, like RVs for example. Illinois must have some odd laws.
$2000 for insurance??
Presumably on a policy that only covered the risk of damage to their asset?
Wow, someone sees a nice way to make money by kicking people while they are down.
(The reason most insurance is so high is because the liability for personal injury is high. If these guys are just insuring that they get reimbursed if their vehicle gets bent, it should be cheaper than full driving insurance. Ask Geico…)
Or are they also liable if you hit someone? If so, why are they not part of the original accident claim, since they have the means to pay?
All the advice on the internet means nothing compared to a good lawyer. Presumably you need to go to court and fight, and guess what that means… LAWYER.
If you think there’s some magic button somewhere you can press and then suddenly the government will say “oops, we made a mistake…” Probably ain’t gonna happen, even if it’s possible, without the proper submission from your lawyer.
Maybe she cleverly told them she had been driving?
No it was just insurance that covered them should I have totaled the vehicle, however that was not told to us when they explained the money being added.
Oh I know the government isn’t going to say they made a mistake …
I guess I was more wondering if anyone else had been through this chaos and what the end result was.
I don’t understand how if in a court of law the charges were dismissed because there was no evidence to support the claim being made, that they are now able to come over a year later and take my license.
The whole thing makes no sense and I feel stupid each and every time I talk to the Sec of State just because of the ridiculous answers that I am given to my questions.
I’m a little hazy too… are you claiming you weren’t driving the car at all, or weren’t driving anywhere near where the accident happened, or you were there but your car didn’t touch the other car? How exactly did this person track you down?
Here’s the thing … The person who claimed I hit her, told the police she chased me down the street (I think I would have noticed this) also gave my hair color as being Brown (I’m blonde) and said my passenger was wearing a ball cap (my dog was riding in the front seat)
THEN she waited an hour and a half to contact the police after said “accident” claiming she needed to discuss with her husband what to do.
The Sec of State told me my only hope would be in an amended police report, when I called to ask about this no one knew what I was talking about and the police supervisor said they had never given an amended police report and wasn’t sure how to answer what I was asking for.
Vinyl Turnip,
Yes I was in the area the “accident” occurred BUT I was not involved in an accident.
Her bumper was steel and by the pics that I was shown the bumper and rear quarter panel sustained quite a bit of damage , my bumper is plastic and there was NOTHING wrong with it no dents no cracks no missing paint NOTHING, which I questioned the police why it was even going to court based on said evidence. The officers response was because his supervisor told him to let a judge handle it
You need to find a lawyer in Illinois. No one here online is going to be able to wade through this very complicated situation without access to the records. You’ll have to try a different approach - either through your insurance company or by finding a better class of lawyers.
I’m not asking for someone to “wade” through this for me as I mentioned twice I was wondering if anyone had been through this situation before 
Pm me their address. Bet I can “convince” them to drop the claim 
Attorneys who specialise in traffic won’t take your case because it involves the government authorities that deal with traffic? Riiiiight.
Are you saying that in the OP’s state an insurance company can cause someone to lose their licence for non-payment of accident costs even though that person hasn’t been found by any court to have caused the accident? I don’t think so.
There is stuff we aren’t being told.