OK. I was waiting behind a truck in my apartment’s driveway immediately before the road that fronts the complex. The driver of the truck felt she’d pulled too far forward into the road, and decided to back up to let traffic on the road pass. Before I had time to do much more then briefly honk and grab for the shifter, she’d planted the ball of her hitch into my front bumber, giving it a dent that body shops are quoting around $400 to repair over 3 days.
Has anyone else been in a similar accident (or have any experience in the insurance industry…)? If so, did you have any luck getting the other parties insurance to pay for it? If so, did you have any witnesses (I didn’t)? I have a sinking feeling that I’m gonna be out some money over this, as I’ve read that when there’s damage to the front of one car and the back of another, the guy with the damage to the front is pretty much paying no matter what (in this case, there wasn’t any damage to her car because the trailer hitch ball was all that hit my car).
If you had posted this message threeyears ago and it was a car instead of a truck that hit you I would if asked you if you were the person into whom I backed!
I’ll bet that guy thought I was such an asshole, too. See, I hadn’t even had the car a whole month so what’s the first thing I do after driving down off this guy’s bumper? Get out and look to see if my vehicle sustained any damage! Imagine that! It’s something-to-nine in the morning, you’re just trying to get to work, some broad in a Jag backs into your car and she gets out to see if her car is OK.
My brother-in-law, in his big old red-neck pick-up truck, backed into my tiny little Saturn. But because his truck was jacked-up, the front of the car was fine until about mid-hood when it was crushed. Quite funny looking but his insurance got it fixed.
It’s definitely worth a shot to see if the other party’s insurance company will cover your damages. IANAL, nor an insurance agent, but I did work as a transcriptionist for a large insurance company in the past. Insurance companies don’t automatically assume it was the person in the back who caused the wreck & if the woman who backed into you doesn’t try to cover up her error, you should be able to have your damages covered.
If she tries to claim it was your fault, and there are no witnesses, it’s likely her insurance company will refuse to cover you, and it would fall to you to cover your own damages (unless you make a claim on your own insurance).
Yeah. When I was a kid, I was in the car with my mom, waiting for a red light to change. When it turned green, the driver ahead of us accidentally popped her car into reverse and backed right into us.
A friend of mine had the same thing happen–but she was in a little Celica, and a big yellow school bus backed nearly all the way over her car! Fortunately, she wasn’t at all hurt.
In both cases, the driver that did the backing up admitted guilt, so their insurance company paid for the damages. Even if she doesn’t admit guilt, your insurance company will investigate if you say that she backed into you.
Just a couple weeks ago, actually. I was parked along the curb and was turned around talking to my boyfriend. I couldn’t have been more than 2 feet from my car. Boyfriend leaves, I turn around and our friend Bob was leaning out his truck window saying “I just backed into your car!” I looked at it, and there were just a few black smudgey things along my bumper. After a quick apology and a promise to buy me a present, we were on our way. Obviously my car isn’t that nice otherwise I would have cared a lot more.
Sounds very familiar, just the other day i was reversing into a parking spot in my Landcruiser when this mean little car, with no one in it, that was parked behind me, decided to jump forwards and belt the towbar of my car . Little bugger should have known he was gonna get whooped.
When I inched forwards, the plastic bumper was missing a large chunk, about the size of a dinner plate. I contemplated pissing of quicly but karma said leave a note. And because i almost brained a woman with a tire iron a few months ago because she did the same to me. She rammed my car in the parking lot, got out, checked damage to her car and then drove off…I caught her at the exit of the carpark and used every ounce of self control not to smash her windows :mad: (Helped by Ex girlfriend screaming at me not to :mad: :rolleyes: ).
I left a note, they rang and said it was a hire car and they couldn’t give a shit. The hire company said they would chase it up…better hurry up cause i think my memory is fading
It happened to my dad. He had this little mazda miata, and sitting at a stop light, and old guy in a F250 put it into reverse on accident. It was pretty funny looking, the entire front of the car smushed together and up, like a slinky. It was really bad for the car though, it was in the shop for weeks. And the other guy was totally at fault.
I was waiting in line to pay to leave a parking lot and the woman in front of me realized she was in the wrong line (it was the line where you scan a card rather than paying cash). I had lights on, I honked repeatedly when I saw her start moving, and she still backed straight into me. I couldn’t back up to avoid her as there was a car directly behind me.
There were witnesses, but every single one of them drove off without offering to act as a witness.
At first glance, the damage looked minimal (some scrapes on the lisence plate). Then I saw the dent in my hood. She had an SUV with a spare tire on the back door which was the perfect height to put a huge dent in my hood. When I got home, the front passenger headlight was hanging out of the car as well (though it still worked),
The woman who hit me apologized profusely. We exchanged insurance info. My insurance agent advised me to go through her company first. She admitted fault. Her insurance paid for all the repairs as well as a rental car. It was well over $1000 for them to replace the hood (apparantly cheaper than fixing the dent because of where it was located), fix the light, and repaint my bumper.
(It actually worked out ok for me since I had put some bright yellow streaks on the corner of my bumper when I didn’t quite clear a pole and they had to repaint the whole bumper anyway to cover up the damage she did to the paint job. Car looks much better without the yellow accents)
The woman in front of me was in an El Camino that was jacked up a little at the back, and had one of those perforated screens on the rear window. (This was in the 80s when those screens were popular.) I pulled up behind her at the stop sign in my bright orange-red '66 MGB roadster.
There are two lanes in each direction. She wanted to turn left (east) The westbound lanes are clear, so she pulls out into them to in anticipation of an opening in an eastbound lane. (This is in Lancaster, CA in the 1980s. Not exactly a lot of traffic there.) Naturally, I pulled up to the stop sign. Some cars started coming from the east, so the woman in the El Camino decided she would back up to the stop sign. Either she didn’t look, or the heightened back end of her car or the window screen obstructed her view. She backed right into me.
She crunched a bumper overrider and my nice chrome grille. The funny thing was that after I’d gotten repair estimates, my dad and I went to her insurance carrier to deliver them in person; and she was there talking to her agent. She was telling him it was my fault because I shouldn’t have pulled up to the stop sign after she’d started her turn. Her insurance paid me.
A bit off topic: we were almost backed into once. Some fool was backing out of a parking spot at a busy shopping mall without looking. Fortunately, our horn got his attention and he stopped backing up but he didn’t start moving foward either. He got out and started to walk toward us! He thought better of that after I sat up.
I’ve never backed into anybody on the road, but I have been guilty of using the Braille Method of Parallel Parking from time to time. But even the crappy bumpers they have on cars nowadays can handle a slight 2-mph nudge.
Unless that 2-mph nudge is delivered with a towing ball. People are quoting around $400 to repair the nickel sized dent it made (have to remove the front bumper cover, pull the dent, repaint it, order a new license plate dingus, paint it, etc.).
I’ve seen enough pain caused by towing balls that aren’t currently being used to tow things to almost work up a pit rant. They’re easily removable for a reason…
This happened to me and my husband within a week of each other in two different cars! In my husband’s case, the woman he was behind in traffic suddenly decided that she needed to parallel park. No signal, no warning, she just backed right into him.
When it happened to me, I was following some guy into a hotel parking lot, and he overshot the space he wanted. He just backed right into me before I could reach the horn. Then he had the gall to jump out of his car and start yelling at me for not getting out of his way (which would have required me to back out onto a busy road). I got his insurance information and name, but it turned out to be a company car, and I never could track it or the driver down.
It wasn’t much damage to look at, but they probably would have had to replace the bumper. I just lived with the damage until we got a new car.
My Fiat has been backed over/into twice. Yeah, it has a little Bondo on the front end.
Around 1981-2, when the car was still very new, my dad had it parked in the garage and my mom’s psycho poodle scratched up ever inch of paint on the poor car one night except the top of the trunklid. Not sure what bug crawled up her ass that made her do it, and how she survived it is beyond me. Anyway, dad took it to have it painted and on the way back from the shop went to the drive-up bank teller window. He was sitting behind some nut-job in a 4x4 pickup who decided the wait was too long, threw it in reverse and backed right over the hood. Dad left the bank and went straight back to the shop. Poor car never made it home!
Fast forward about 12 years. I now own it and some old feck backs into the front of the car in a parking lot and small chunks of the original Bondo repair job lie like broken glass all over the place. I took the money, but still haven’t fixed it to this day. :shame: Don’t worry. It will get the full resto some day soon. I’ll never sell it. I still drive it once in a while. It makes a great spring skiing car. Top down, skis on the custom rack, toolin’ thru the mountains! Good times!
I’m an insurance broker, so I feel I can offer a bit of advice. What you do depends on if you are in a tort or no-fault state/province.
No-Fault: Report the accident to your own insurer/broker. They will either send out an appraiser to see the damage, or refer you to a garage that they deal with. These garages are usually pretty good. Your insurance company will pay for the damages to your vehicle, with no deductible, and your insurance record will not suffer. No fault states are North Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Florida, Kansas, Utah, Colorado & Hawaii. No fault provinces are Ontario, Quebec, and Saskatchewan (if you choose it.)
Tort: Same procedure. Report the accident to your insurance broker, and they will arrange with the Third Party’s insurer to have your vehicle fixed. Again, your insurance rate shouldn’t suffer.
This happens to me all the time. Just a week or so ago a guy in a truck decided he was too far forward. I saw what he was doing and threw my car in reverse, but it was too late. Fortunately, I was able to back up enough that there was only minor damage to my car. The license plate took the brunt of the damage. Since my car isn’t exactly “new” or “presentable,” I decided not to even bother fixing it.
So if you’re driving around and you see a red Escort wagon with a hopelessly mangled front plate, wave to me!
When I was in Vancouver last May, I was behind a woman in a Mercedes. We had stopped at a stop sign and she moved past it so she could see oncoming traffic. Seeing some cars coming, she backed up into my little Corolla while I was honking a warning.
We both got out and checked our cars. I didn’t see any damage on either of them. She apologized profusely and that was that.
On hindsight I should have at least got her info and reported it just to be careful. My sister-in-law was rear-ended once and didn’t report it. She ended up being sued by the rear-ender and taken to court.
Last weekend near Seattle, we witnessed a car back into another car HARD in a parking lot. The driver didn’t even hesitate and just sped off. I got the licence plate numbers and we called it into the police. While we were waiting for the police to arrive the owners of the car showed up and we told them what had happened and gave them our names and number in case they needed witnesses.
. Little bugger should have known he was gonna get whooped.
:rolleyes: ).
People are quoting around $400 to repair the nickel sized dent it made (have to remove the front bumper cover, pull the dent, repaint it, order a new license plate dingus, paint it, etc.).