UKC

Hi everyone. On Thursday I went to the park where I take my dog everyday. When I walked back in my car I found my car crashed on the car that was parked in front of me. There was a note on my window from a witness who lived at the house exactly outside where the accident happened. The note read your car was hit and run ... there was a date and time , details of the driver and the registration number of the car who hit me and the contact details of the witness. I reported the incident to the police and to the insurance immediately. Also it looks like the hit and run driver was uninsured.

i never had an accident before, I have 23 years of no claim bonus. My car has been completely destroyed and insurance will total it. So even though car is not worth anything, it was a fully working car. So now I ended up with no car and probably no money to get another car. 

I was wondering if anyone with more experience on this knows what happens on hit and run scenarios, and what my options are in terms of being left without a car now. 

Curious. Why would the insurance not pay out the money for another car? I assume you're fully comp.

I’m fully cover yes, why will my insurance or me be responsible for it though? I didn’t cause the accident. 

Maybe you didn't cause it but they've insured you not the other guy. It's down to them to settle with you and then try to recover their costs from the other party(Or his insurers, if any)

What else do you want to happen? Are you going to try to track down the culprit?

As long as you are fully comp they will pay. The really annoying thing is the accident might have to  go down as your fault (fault doesn't meant blame in insurance terms) and you will have to declare a your fault claim for the next few years. This happened to me but with no witnesses. 

All insured drivers pay into a fund via a levy on their premiums to pay for damage done by un-insured drivers. I have just been paid out if full, as a 'no fault' party, without it affecting my no claims bonus. A lot depends on who you are insured with as to whether it affects your no claims. The cheap on-line insurers will remove your no-claims bonus, the more established companies will pay out, retaining any excess, and then pay you that when they have received the cash from the fund.

Mine was not a hit and run, but I was collected by a spinning car on the M1, as it rebounded of another car, killing that cars driver. The driver of the car which caused the accident had no valid license, the car was uninsured, untaxed, untested, the number plate, the model and the chassis number did not match, the man was under the influence of something, probably drugs. Almost one year on they still do not know his name, or nationality (from somewhere in eastern Europe judging by his accent), None of the countries they have contacted have been of any help, to the point of being obstructive. He is still in custody and costing us a fortune. They can't charge him until they have a positive identification for him, when he will be charged with causing death by dangerous driving, all the other things mentioned above, possession of an offensive weapon, and drug dealing. When they know who they are charging!

Insurers can be very helpful and can, if they wish sort things out quickly, or, like several of the cheaper ones, do their best to avoid paying out! My insurer provided me with a hire car until the police released my car which had been impounded as it was involved in a fatality.

Good luck. Hope it is resolved quickly for you. 

This. ^

https://www.gocompare.com/car-insurance/guide/uninsured-driver-claims/

Thats the police’s job and they have the details. 

However if you are implying that nobody would bother to chase then fantastic news. I don’t have to renew my insurance either, no consequences and if I cause an accident let everybody else suffer while I walk away free.  

If you are fully comp, make a claim with your insurance.  They will be able to recover their costs via either the last registered insurer (unlikely but possible if only recently uninsured) or from the Motor Insurance Bureau.

Have a read here: https://www.mib.org.uk/making-a-claim/claiming-against-an-uninsured-driver/

Insist with your insurer that its recorded as a non fault accident.

However if your no claims bonus is not protected you make take a bit of a hit on premium and you may need to pay your excess upfront depending on your cover but this is also recoverable from the MIB, but it shouldn't be big - check with your insurer.

Thank you. My insurance looks helpful so far and they told me I’m lucky there was a witness that can proof i was not at fault. I’m just a bit shocked that people can get away doing this and some people think that this is acceptable. 

I’m glad you sorted your case out.

Thanks. I’ll have a read through this. 

I'll repeat: what else do you want to happen?

The police will complete their investigation. There may be a prosecution. There may be a conviction.

Recent figures show that only 20% of crimes are 'solved'. It's 'not right', but what else do do want to see happen?  As you have been told, think yourself lucky that you have a witness.

To be honest with you I consider my self lucky I wasn’t in the car when it happened. If you see the state of my car I doubt I would have survived. The rest hopefully can be sorted. 

Hopefully they pay you out enough to get a decent car. I have a worry about the wife's car, its only worth about £500 on paper but in the 11 years we have owned it it has never broken down nore cost us anything other than a once a year service plus consumables.

If it got written off I would need to spend 10x the amount the insurance would pay out and even then it probably wouldn't be as reliable. 

Skipping lightly over your awful story (there but the grace of god), I wonder about the miscreant.

Will they die of old age in a holding cell if they don’t divulge their identity?  Do we just let them go at some point?  Can the court of protection award them some status to break the deadlock?  

Sorry to hear about your bad luck; at least no-one was hurt. I had a not totally dis-similar incident a few months back, though I did discover that the vehicle which caused the damage was insured, and this was the key fact. So I'm not sure my experiences will be of any help, but here are the links anyway:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/off_belay/car_written_off_outside__-_prob...

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/off_belay/car_written_off_-_the_denouemen...

The officer I am dealing with is as much in the dark as me. They have suspicions that he is well know in his own country, where ever that is. They don't want him back and he is happy to sit in a much nicer remand cell than he would get back home. The police are being driven frantic by this case. The CPS are the ones who are now in charge of the case, so on recent form, they will let him go and compensate him for his troubles! Much better would be to put him in a small concrete room without any amenities until he gives identification that can be verified. I have no scruples about doing this, he killed someone, and could have killed me, and, if I had been pushed into the next two lanes of the motorway, several others as well! Don't mention bloody 'smart motorways'!

I know exactly how you feel. I’m in the same situation. Car is not worth anything but it’s mechanical condition is excellent. We bought it brand new it was very well maintained through the years. The garage I had the last MOT told me it’s a very good car even though is now old. I did a 130 miles trip recently no issues at all. Nobody will compensate me for that, this is my biggest issue. I would probably get 500 from the insurance and that’s it. I will be left without a car even though I had a fully working and reliable car before.

I’m fairly sure that you can get agreed values on cars as they get older if you have kept them in good repair. Involves getting an assessor out, but needs to be done before you have an accident, when you renew your insurance. 

If your car is in that bad a state, I'm surprised the other driver managed to drive away in his vehicle!

Mine is a small car he was driving a BMW 5 series. I wasn’t there so I don’t know what condition his car was. I’m assuming he sustained some damage too. 

The only time I have managed an agreed value is on a 30 plus year old classic Land rover. 

I am being pedantic. This is not a hit and run incident. Hit and run describes a situation where somebody is injured or killed and the driver does a runner. 

You have fully comp insurance probably with protected bonus so I am not sure why you should worry at all. 

If you have a claim your insurance premium goes up.

Your no claims bonus might be protected but your premium isn’t.

Leaving the scene of an accident without identifying your self is a criminal Offense. If you think crime can be acceptable because there is no death involved congratulations. 

More importantly for me, it's an absolute dick move and makes me just that more depressed about people in general. 

I'm going through a bad patch at the moment over the shocking driving I see every day on my conmmute; here in the Lancashire mill towns there are people who just treat the roads like a giant game of Grand Theft Auto and it's beginning to scare me. I've got a year to go before retirement and I'm beginning to fear I might not make it alive. 

That depends on your insurance company. It’s a competitive market and you can always shop round.

I did not say it was not an offence.I merely suggested that hit and run normally means an injury or death. 

I am curious about this whole thread. New user, registered Saturday, this is his first and only posting, English seems to be a second language(*), bizarre inability and refusal to understand what motor insurance actually is and what it's for, and angrily lashing out at a lot of helpful respondees, with sarcastic and passive/aggressive statements


* not that I have a problem with this, of course. But it does add a layer of mystery to the whole thing

Its almost as if they’re really stressed and annoyed at something that’s just happened in their life...

I had made a reasonable allowance for this, but in my opinion some of responses go beyond this. Petulantly twisting peoples' words etc. 

"if you are implying that nobody would bother to chase then fantastic news. I don’t have to renew my insurance either, no consequences and if I cause an accident let everybody else suffer while I walk away free" 
 

There is just something odd about the whole thing. Being really proud because the car managed a 130 mile round trip?! 

My case was sorted out from my point of view and the insurance companies. It was classed as a no fault accident and my next premium, on a similar car was approx. the same price, no loss of no claims, no premium hike! I will still probably have to attend court as a witness if they ever get the case that far!

It will not be sorted out for the lady he killed. (As first on the scene it left me sleepless for several days so god knows how the family are coping!)

What is not sorted out is the b"""""d who did it! It must be costing a fortune to keep him in custody, and the expense of trying to get a positive ID on him. And then there will be legal aid, the cost of the court case, the cost of incarceration, etc etc etc, and if they finally deport him, he will probably just return under a different alias!

Thanks, sorry yes this information is in your previous post, I was just distracted by the dominant paragraph. 

Is there any news on this? 

http://www.ayblaw.co.uk/what-exactly-counts-as-hit-and-run/

at least look it up. I struggled to find any definition about it being only injury to person only.

I got a response from RAC that because they can not find the guy on the insurance database they can not progress my claim as there is nobody to chase. They suggest if I want to progress my claim (i’m assuming they mean claim from my insurance rather than his) I have to go through the underwriters who is Zurich. 

I also got a letter from the police on Saturday. It’s from an officer introducing themselves as the case worker. It’s just an introduction letter and to advise they started the investigation. So still early stages with the police. 

I’m thinking of fixing the car and if the police ever find him see if I can recover anything through court. I don’t know if this is even an option just a thought I had over the weekend. 

Thanks for a reply that sort of makes more sense than the rest of your posts. One question though. You said earlier “ If you see the state of my car I doubt I would have survived.”

in such a state, how is it that you can now casually talk about fixing it outside of insurance? 

That’s why I said I don’t know if it’s an option. I basically want to get a quote call it curiosity, I don’t even know if it can be fixed and even if it can, if I can afford it. That’s a lot of “ifs” so I doubt it will happen but I guess there’s no harm attempting to get a quote? They might laugh at me but oh well.

Also the first guy I spoken at RAC when I reported the collision told me that they will total the car. So fixing it through the insurance is not an option? If I go through MIB I’m assuming they will do the same? I’m assuming they will act the same way as a normal insurer will do. But I might be wrong.  

Go back to your insurers. They have a responsibility to pursue the problem especially with the police involved. Give them the crime number.

You may need to be assertive with these people. Some companies will be very devious about their responsibilities. The find a better company after it is all sorted.

Do you mean he said "write off"? Usually when a car is spoken of as being "totalled", it refers to what has physically happened to it, rather than what the insurance do. Is this an RAC guy you spoke to over the telephone, who had not seen the car? I wouldn't have thought he is allowed to give an opinion like that until an assessor has seen it.

 

Yes he said write off sorry. That was without assessment nothing I was just listing the damages as part of the process of reporting the collision to them and this is what he said. That due to the age of my car we are looking at write off. 

Thanks, you are right. I do need to push the insurance. I’ll give them another call today. 

Oh that makes sense then if you were describing damage in detail and he knew the age of the car. I haven't yet been in such a situation luckily, so I am not going to claim a position of experience on that. 

I believe it is possible to try someone if they are refusing to identify themselves. Used to happen a lot more in the days before ID databases. From memory they would be brought to court for the charges, asked for their name, and if they refused to answer then they would get slapped with contempt of court as well. More likely the problem is with bureaucratic process that says ‘find out if they are wanted for something even more serious somewhere else’ and that process has stalled and nobody is brave enough to skip a few stages.

It’s ok, thank you. 

The car had an MOT that expired last week. Just the day after the incident. However is still taxed. So if it’s taxed it must be registered to someone. 

Apologies if I’m just being naive but how difficult could it be?

Sadly, I suspect that no-one is interested. Too much effort for the Police, for no real gain (vehicle crime is hardly worth the effort investigating, considering the sentences that will be handed out). The Police are very under-resourced in these times of 'Austerity'. The 'party of law and order' seems to have forgotten about that particular banner.

That’s probably true. I think i’ve done the right thing by reporting it, not much more I can do really.