|
|
This topic comprises 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
|
|
Author
|
Topic: My First Car Accident
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Randy Stankey
Film God
Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
|
posted 12-17-2007 12:01 AM
Your first accident is always the worst. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
By the time you've had two or three of them, you'll just get out of the car, kick the fender and say, "Aw, fuck..." ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Okay... Seriously...
Glad you're okay!
I don't know what the laws are in your state but, here in Pennsyltucky, if you're caught without insurance it's an automatic loss of your driver's license. If you are in an at-fault accident without insurance you could end up in jail. And, in rare cases, if you are in an at-fault accident without insurance and there is a death or life threatening injury, you could POSSIBLY end up getting charged with vehicular homicide! (Again, rare but possible.)
If you were 100% NOT AT FAULT, your insurance company should just pay the cost. Then THEY will go after the other driver for the cost of repayment.
I gather you've already gone to the hospital and documented EVERY LAST scratch and bruise on your body. Right? Be sure to let your legal representative know about your loss of sleep, lack of appetite, loss of transportation to work, your pain and suffering and any mental distress you have had. You're probably not the type of person who would nickel and dime the court system for every penny you can weasel out of them... BUT you DO want to make sure that every last marble goes on YOUR side of the scale when it comes to weighing out justice. You can bet that, if a person doesn't have insurance, they will be the type who tries to weasel out of responsibility in court too. Every chit you can place against them is another chance that you'll both get what you deserve.
| IP: Logged
|
|
Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
|
posted 12-17-2007 05:00 AM
quote: Randy Stankey
If you were 100% NOT AT FAULT, your insurance company should just pay the cost. Then THEY will go after the other driver for the cost of repayment.
OK, but is there a potential issue around no-claims bonuses that Joe needs to look out for?
I don't know what the situation is in the US, but here you earn a 'no claims bonus' for every full year you're insured and no claim is made against you, with the result that your premium goes down a bit each year (a lot for the first five years, then a little bit thereafter). Assuming you have fully comprehensive insurance (as distinct from a cheaper third party only or third party, fire and theft policy, which doesn't cover accident damage to your own car, only the other person's if the accident was your fault), you're totally covered for any damage, but unless your insurance company successfully recovers the money from the third party's, the accident is deemed to have been your fault for insurance purposes.
That's what happened to me in Middlesbrough: even though the accident was clearly the third party's fault and I had photos to prove it, because the other car had false number plates and the police could never trace its occupants, they couldn't recover the money from the third party, so the claim went on my policy and I lost my NCB.
Insurance companies will want to do this if it saves them hassle. If the third party gets a clever lawyer on board, alleges you were doing something stupid (e.g. using a mobile phone), and especially if they have a passenger(s) in the car who are prepared to lie for them, your insurance company will probably want to cut the hassle and legal costs, settle it as 50/50 and you lose your NCB. It's especially bad news if you're driving alone and the other car has more than one person in it, for obvious reasons.
I heard one horror story in which a colleague's husband was rear-ended at traffic lights by a drunk driver. An open-and-shut case, you'd have thought... until the guilty party's insurance company had my friend's car examined, and discovered that one of its tyres was about 0.001 nanometres below the legal minimum tread depth. They then reported this to my friend's insurer, who declared the comprehensive cover invalid, because the small print in the policy stated that the car had to have fully legal tyres on it at the time of the accident in order for the policy to be valid. He then ended up having to cut a deal with the third party's insurer, which ended up being far less than his car was worth.
Given that the other driver did a runner in Joe's accident, I'd have thought that this was as open-and-shut a case as there could ever be ... but in my experience, beware of insurers wanting to take the easiest (for them) way out.
| IP: Logged
|
|
Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
|
posted 12-17-2007 05:30 AM
Joe -- you are a very lucky man....well, lucky that you are not hurt, but no so much that you have 14yr olds mashing into your car and having to have it put to sleep. ![[Frown]](frown.gif) Really glad you are ok, bro. And glad to see your famous sense of humor hilarious as ever, still in tact; surely that's a good sign.
And yes, that damn film loop in your brain which seems to be stuck in replay will bother you for awhile, especially whenever you have a free minute to think, so just keep busy, tell yourself dirty jokes, etc. That, and time, usually will make it fade. Traumatic stuff like this take much longer to become "the past." But it will. Here's to making it a distant memory! ![[beer]](graemlins/beer.gif)
Now make them buy you a new car.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Joe Redifer
You need a beating today
Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99
|
posted 12-17-2007 05:46 PM
quote: Frank Angel
tell yourself dirty jokes, etc.
I guess it's time to dig out one of my old "Truly Tasteless Jokes" paperbacks from the 80s!
quote: Tim Reed
Yes, but also if you'd waited 2 seconds more somewhere the day before, or someplace last year, you would've been in a wreck that you've already avoided.
Yes, all a possibility. But still, I've realized that 30 seconds one way or another would have done much with stoplights being what they are. It won't matter until I get that time machine completed, but until then I'll just have to deal with "what happened, happened". It's kind of stopped being scary as I've gotten used to it. I still wouldn't want to do it again nor would I wish it on anyone else, though.
Peter, sorry to hear about your friend. If I were that minor and I got off scot free, that would probably make me feel even more guilty about the whole thing. It would be one of those things in my life that I'd always be trying to make up for. But then again that minor isn't me, so he probably just went out and partied.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
|
This topic comprises 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|
Home
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Mad]](mad.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[evil]](graemlins/evil.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic