Daughter's car hit from behind

[VAGCF]

All good comments and advice here but whatever happened i.e. who hit who behind (and as has been said is for the insurance companies to sort out) is that as well as your daughter being OK is that she is absolutely not to blame.

 

How the insurance companies for the two cars behind divvie up the costs between them is up to them and nothing for you and your daughter to worry yourselves with.

 

As advised you have done exactly the right thing in notifying your daughter's insurance company, especially as she has a black box recorder. As well as taking the risk of the taxi driver not paying up or arguing about the cost, as said the damage may well be more than the superficial damage you can see, and likely given the impact. Also her insurance will likely find out via the other insurance companies and wouldn't be happy that you/she hadn't notified them - they want to know about any accidents/incidents whether there is a claim or not.

 

Just not worth the risk nowadays with so may unscrupulous/uninsured drivers and scammers about. 

[Chriswright03]

Caveat:

I know nothing about the law, but . . 

  3o seconds on 'tinterweb produced this:

 Each time a police officer responds to a call or makes an arrest, they write up a police report. These reports are stored for referencing later on. If you were involved in an accident you will want a copy of the police report to use in court.

It is from ehow, and there will be millions of others.

Worth a try?

I think the lesson here is do not believe everything you read on the net!

 

Police will not attend if there are no injuries.  They may attend if there is an allegation of bad driving involved (or used to in my day) but I doubt they do now.

[Dr Zoidberg]

A hand brake would not hold against the force of an impact from behind of another vehicle. If you bolted the wheels to the disc assuming the bolts didn't shear the tyres would slide. Your talking massive forces here even for minor impacts.

 

Hand brake is only for holding the car still and provides very little stopping force in these accidents.

 

Indeed. The time I was taken roughly from behind and punted into another car, my foot was very firmly on the brake as I'd just done a hard stop.

A handbrake is far less effective and wouldn't have made much difference at all.

[Naths vRS]

In a situation like that, I would've thought it'd be the taxi drivers fault for not leaving adequate space between his car and the daughter's car.  As said before, taxi will claim off the persumably drink drivers, and daughter would claim off the Taxi.  I hate these people that say i'll pay cash, nah you'll go through insurance like me.  And again as said it would've registered there & then (and probably already notified the insurance about the sudden force on the g-meter but obviously tell them any ways whether you had a black box or not. 

[Dr Zoidberg]

In a situation like that, I would've thought it'd be the taxi drivers fault for not leaving adequate space between his car and the daughter's car.  

 

There's no legal requirement to leave any particular distance between you and the car in front. 

[BJM]

In a situation like that, I would've thought it'd be the taxi drivers fault for not leaving adequate space between his car and the daughter's car.  As said before, taxi will claim off the persumably drink drivers, and daughter would claim off the Taxi. 

 

Nope, wrong. Don't think / presume anything in a situation like this.

There are long standing (literally hundreds of years) legal stipulations covering the chain of liability this type of event.

After all, if the Taxi driver was quietly sitting minding his own business, how is it his fault that someone slammed into him from behind and pushed him into the car in front?

In truth these sort of accidents happen scores of times a day.

 

See post #16

 

The really "fun" ones to sort out are the multiple vehicle pile-ups on motorways, where a simple tail-end shunt and heavy braking suddenly turns into a scene of carnage when  44 tonne trucks join in.

[999pooch]

In a situation like that, I would've thought it'd be the taxi drivers fault for not leaving adequate space between his car and the daughter's car. As said before, taxi will claim off the persumably drink drivers, and daughter would claim off the Taxi. I hate these people that say i'll pay cash, nah you'll go through insurance like me. And again as said it would've registered there & then (and probably already notified the insurance about the sudden force on the g-meter but obviously tell them any ways whether you had a black box or not.

Why do you HATE people that would prefer to pay cash than go through the insurance?

If someone paid me up front for the damage to my car, to be repaired at a garage of my choice I would be more than happy

[Dr Zoidberg]

Why do you HATE people that would prefer to pay cash than go through the insurance?

If someone paid me up front for the damage to my car, to be repaired at a garage of my choice I would be more than happy

 

This gets discussed regularly here, and as a lot of people have found out to their cost, it often results in trouble.

At-fault drivers frequently offer to pay cash, or get cars repaired by "someone they know", but when it comes to actually handing over money they suddenly become evasive.

They all seem to assume that it's only going to cost a couple of hundred quid, and when you provide them with a full quote from a quality garage repairing or replacing every damaged part they argue the toss, dispute liability or vanish. By the time this happens and you realise that you should have informed insurers it gets much harder to sort out.

Insurance approved repairers aren't perfect, but you have a lot more comeback than you do with some random chap off the street who drove into you.

[999pooch]

This gets discussed regularly here, and as a lot of people have found out to their cost, it often results in trouble.

At-fault drivers frequently offer to pay cash, or get cars repaired by "someone they know", but when it comes to actually handing over money they suddenly become evasive.

They all seem to assume that it's only going to cost a couple of hundred quid, and when you provide them with a full quote from a quality garage repairing or replacing every damaged part they argue the toss, dispute liability or vanish. By the time this happens and you realise that you should have informed insurers it gets much harder to sort out.

Insurance approved repairers aren't perfect, but you have a lot more comeback than you do with some random chap off the street who drove into you.

I didn't say I wouldn't inform my insurers. Report the accident to my insurance company as 'for info only'. Allow the 3rd party to pay. If they don't go back to my insurance company to start formal claim.

By not making a formal claim your insurance premium will not increase as much as an official one.

I had a car ram into my parked car and I used a 3rd party claims company to claim off the other party. I rang my insurance company to inform them of the accident and to let them know I wouldn't need their services my premium went down the next year

Edited 9 December, 2015 by 999pooch

[XLBaconDoubleCheese]

Agree with Pooch.

Also, how far could a truck push a car? 5 car lengths? 10? So you're expected to leave that size gap?

[Chriswright03]

If you think back to your learning to drive you 'should' have been taught to leave enough room between you and the car in front to be able to pull out of they break down.  There is no legal ruling on how far.

[Liomer]

If you think back to your learning to drive you 'should' have been taught to leave enough room between you and the car in front to be able to pull out of they break down.  There is no legal ruling on how far.

That's while in motion, though

[Dr Zoidberg]

That's while in motion, though

 

When you stop in traffic, it can be considered best practice to leave enough room so that you can pull round the car ahead if it doesn't move off - if you can see any of the road between you over the bonnet, this will be enough room.

It's not very efficient use of road space though it does also protect you if they roll back on a hill.

[Chriswright03]

That's while in motion, though

Err no.  On the move it is the two second gap not just enough to pull out on full lock!

[VAGCF]

I didn't say I wouldn't inform my insurers. Report the accident to my insurance company as 'for info only'. Allow the 3rd party to pay. If they don't go back to my insurance company to start formal claim.

By not making a formal claim your insurance premium will not increase as much as an official one.

I had a car ram into my parked car and I used a 3rd party claims company to claim off the other party. I rang my insurance company to inform them of the accident and to let them know I wouldn't need their services my premium went down the next year

Why didn't you go through your insurance company?

 

Your car was parked and so a no fault claim and your insurance premium wouldn't have been affected!

 

And don't assume that just because you haven't "used the services" of your insurance company that in other circumstances your premium won't go up! Perfectly innocent folks have had this happen when they have been stopped and hit because the insurance company sees them as an increased risk!!

[FUBAR]

Err no.  On the move it is the two second gap not just enough to pull out on full lock!

 

Tell that to the cockwombles around here :(

 

2 seconds dry, 4 seconds wet and 10 seconds ice/snow. Here it's generally sub 1 second in any and all conditions possible if you refuse to exceed the NSL like they want to. 

Edited 9 December, 2015 by FUBAR

[999pooch]

Why didn't you go through your insurance company?

Your car was parked and so a no fault claim and your insurance premium wouldn't have been affected!

And don't assume that just because you haven't "used the services" of your insurance company that in other circumstances your premium won't go up! Perfectly innocent folks have had this happen when they have been stopped and hit because the insurance company sees them as an increased risk!!

My insurance company wanted to use 'their bodyshop' using patent parts to repair a brand new S4 and give me a small 1.0l car as a loaner.

I enquired at the Audi main dealer who put me in touch with their recommended claims firm who took over the claim. They guaranteed the outcome regardless of whether the claim was successful or not. i.e. my insurance would not be involved, but my car would be repaired to its former glory at the Audi approved centre with all OEM parts, even if they failed to recover any money from the other parties insurance.

Oh and they also provided an S5 convertible for the duration

As far as my insurance premiums are concerned, as I already stated the next years premium went down. Difficult to say regarding this years premium as I changed cars after that but still only paying £200 for a Golf 7R so hasn't done much damage

[Chriswright03]

Tell that to the cockwombles around here :(

 

2 seconds dry, 4 seconds wet and 10 seconds ice/snow. Here it's generally sub 1 second in any and all conditions possible if you refuse to exceed the NSL like they want to. 

I quite agree Fuby.  I didn't go into the full dry,wet and snowy conditions because I thought doing that to someone who thinks less than a cars length behind in moving traffic was taught to them would be a waste of time and effort!

 

Having taught the two second rule for years it is amazing how many of the pupils on two wheels be it moped or bigger bike thought that meant you should be able to touch the boot of the car in front!  I did a quiz on the Highway code the other day and got caught out by stopping distances.  Mainly because I cannot remember them off by heart like I did for my test in 1970!  I think they are meaningless as apart from being set in the days of drum brakes all round without assistance you could take a group of 5 people and not one of them would be able to accurately assess how far any distance is in feet or metres.  So for ,e the simplest way to understand it is the basic two second rule enforced by the wet/icy condition add on.

[Naths vRS]

There's no legal requirement to leave any particular distance between you and the car in front. 

 

I'm not saying there is a legal requirement it's more common sense.