In Michigan at least it is a crime to leave the scene of a property-damaging accident. I imagine most states have similar laws.
Well, what did the insurance company say?
The insurance co. gave me the name of their company shop and as soon as they fax the paperwork, I can drop off the car and get it fully repaired for the cost of my deductable. But thats not the surprising part.
The surprising part is that between Sunday at 4pm and 8AM on Tuesday, our delightful neighbors detailed that car and had the damage buffed out. :eek: :eek: :eek:
This is a family that I thought I could trust. The father was a town councilman (recently voted out I heard) and his family are supposed to be flag-waving up-right citizens. Yet there they are, cheating, lying, and destroying evidence of crimes that they refuse to accept personal responsibility for.
It almost makes me wonder which party he ran for town council under.
PS- ‘pre-detailing’ Digital pix are already in the Inbox of my handy-dandy claims adjuster. She thought it was odd to have a car detailed the day after police observed evidence on it too. Statistically, I guess most people don’t take Mondays off to get their car detailed and all that… 
Wow. This just got a whole bunch more interesting. Keep us posted.
I sure hope your insurance company isn’t charging this against you and causing your rates to go up as a result, since they’re apparently paying it out. I’d hoped they’d go after the person who hit your car for the full cost of the damage – there should be no deductible for you to have to pay. If you do have to pay it, be sure to send the councilman the bill for it, and if he doesn’t reimburse you, take him to small claims court.
I shouldn’t be surprised, but it still stuns me that a father would believe his teenaged daughter that the damage on their car just mysteriously appeared there when it was in a parking lot, in light of the fact that a neighbor’s car turns out with damage that’s an exact match on his nearby parked car. Way to teach the kid responsibility, jerk.
I’m really glad you’re following up with this. Just last night I noticed my neighbor’s car had some pretty bad damage on the front fender and quarter panel, which some jerk actually did do to her car in a parking lot. For the life of me, I don’t know how anyone can drive away from doing something like that and not have their conscience eat a hole in their soul.
I can’t see as I see anything really suspicious about this. Unless the cops or insurance company told them not to because of pending legal action, why wouldn’t they repair the damage as soon as practical?
And, since the cops and insurer had a chance to say so, but didn’t, I think it was a dead issue anyway.
You might also mention to him that you’re considering civil legal action against the daughter. IANAL, but I do know that the burden of proof is much lighter in civil litigation. You only need to prove that things probably occured the way you suggest rather than the whole beyond reasonable doubt thing.
Seconded. The Insurance people wil fix the problem now and recoup their loss against the accident causer. With the police report and the pictures in hand, the other family’s insurance will probably pay without making trouble.
Will they then refund the deductible?
Dunno. You can ask them.
My guess is the opposite. They will do nothing further and the OP is out the deductible.
Frankly I’m shocked (and happy for you) that the police got involved in this. If you called the Phoenix police for this they would tell you to go fuck yourself. And that’s not a cynical guess. I’ve had 3 similar incidents and tried dealing with the PPD multiples times on each, to no avail. On one of them I had the name, address, license plate #, and phone number of the guy who did it, pictures of matching damage on his truck, and an eyewitness whom I didn’t know, and they still told me to get bent. $4,500 in damage on that one.
I don’t think so, because right now the Insurance company is out the money. And with that much evidence they can make life pretty rough for the other insurance company. Doesn’t mean they will. But insurers have and do, do this.
Wow, did they even come out and look at the damage? If the dispatcher told you this, I would try to get ahold of someone else higher up.
Did you report it to your insurance company? I think they would be intersted to hear that the police department refused to take a report.
Nope.
And after tenaciously refusing to give up, my wife and I were finally able to meet with a detective downtown. I presented all my evidence and said, “he lives at this address” and he said “he could live at 123 Up Your Butt and we’re not going to do anything about it.” My wife and I still joke about that, even though it was incredibly frustrating to us at the time. Every address is 123 Up Your Butt to us now.
Well, looking back to post #23, I’m pretty certain the issue is closed from the Coun’t insurer’s POV. Since the damage did not exceed the Count’s deductible, the insurance company is not out one penny. They will not pursue it.
The good news is that the premium shouldn’t go up either.
I was in a similar situation a couple of years back, except that I was hit by another car when we were both moving – so there was no question of identity of the other driver. The other driver got ticketed and I didn’t so there was no question of fault either.
Nevertheless, my insurer — State Farm – told me they would not pursue the other driver, because they had no damages. I was free to do so, if I wanted, do recover my deductible, but they would not represent me if I chose.
They suggested simply calling the other insurer and arranging a settlement, which I did, and because the issue was so clear cut, they reimbursed me.
But in a case like the OP’s, where the other party is denying it, there may be a lot more trouble reaching an agreement.
A boot to every panel on the car should have gotten satisfaction. Unless he agreed to pay.
ETA: Truck quarters? 800 to a G a piece. Valuable info, that.
Just for the part.
Skinning a bedside is a bodymans dream. 
:eek:
Makes me glad I live in a smallish suburb of Milwaukee. I know alot of the cops by name in my city (three live on my block) and the next city over. Hell I was at work a little later then usual a few days ago (so I was there past the shift change and the 3rd shifters didn’t recognize my car). FOUR cops showed up to make sure I wasn’t robbing the place. A few days ago I called the police chief* and reported a noise violation.
Of course in the city of Milwaukee, I’m sure the situation is more similar to what you were dealing with. I’ve been blown off my 911 operators when reporting drunk drivers. “Okay sir, we’ll send someone right over thanks for calling goodnight” “Ummm, do you want to know where I am?” and I’ve had freinds call for things that were urgent but not life or death and end up waiting two or three hours for someone to respond.
*His direct number was listed on the city’s website as the non-emergency number, so I actually called him by accident. But I told him that as long as I had him on the phone, I’d like to know what he’s going to do about my problem given that I’ve already called the cops on these people 7 times. Honestly, I figured he would transfer me to dispatch, but he talked to me for a little while and then said he would go and personally talk to dispatch and get the problem resolved.
Man. Stuff like this is why I’m glad I drive a 1993 Corolla in San Francisco.