car accident 50/50

[Stu-Pid]

Hi all,

 

Basically I'm looking for a bit of advice really, I was involved in a car accident on the 23/06/14.

 

I approached a dual carriageway roundabout in the middle lane and the third party was in the left hand lane after going past the first exit the third party appeared to be wanting to turn right at the roundabout and me going straight over he collided with the rear end of my car damaging the door, around the wheel arch and wheel of my car, his car is damaged on the drivers side wing next to the indicator. Immediately the third party blamed me for being in the wrong lane, which I wasn't, unfortunately no witnesses either. I Immediately contacted my insurance company and explained to them what had happened and they soon collected my car to be repaired.

 

This is the situation

My insurance company have told me worst case scenario if he blames me it will be 50/50 which I'm not happy about as it wasn't my fault. As either insurance company hasn't decided who's at fault yet I might be worrying for no reason. But on the other hand I want to be prepared for the 50/50 fault claim.

 

Can I contest it?

 

My cover has legal cover so can I use one of their approved solicitors to defend my case?

 

Any other avenue I can take?

 

I'm not very clued up on this, I've been driving for over 10 years with 9 years no claims never been involved in an accident so this is all new to me.

 

Any help would be a massive stress relief

and massively appreciated

[honeybee13]

Hello and welcome to CAG. I expect the insurance guys will be along later with advice for you.

 

My best, HB

[BankFodder]

The first thing you need to understand is that the insurers will do 50/50 whether you like it or not and whether it is fair or not. Insurance companies are incredibly lazy and also they really don't care. By making each of you partly liable, they guarantee that next year both of you will lose your no claims bonus and therefore each of you will have higher premiums which will then continue for several years before you re-establish your discounts. This is good news for the insurers because they make more money and it's bad news for you – but who are you anyway and who cares anyway because you are just an insurance customer.

 

If you want to deal with this then you are going to have to do look at the long-term. You can try and make a complaint to the ombudsman – which could take a year or more but I don't think you will get any result here. The other thing you could do would be to put a small claim together and sue the guy who hit you.

 

It might be an idea if you started off by drawing a diagram which shows very clearly exactly what happened and post it up on the form so we can see. Your explanation is not completely clear.

 

Of course it is a major problem that you don't have any witnesses so you will be hard pressed even in court and frankly it will only be possible to succeed on this case with any certainty if the position of the damage on both of your cars shows that it could only have happened in the way that you say it did.

 

Have you taken any photographs of any of the damage? Were the police called at all? These are things which would have helped and if it hasn't happened then it is probably too late.

 

I have to say that I'm becoming more and more interested in dashboard cameras because those are the kind of gadget which would help to protect motorists who find themselves falling victim to bad driving and to insurance companies whose only interest is in making the next buck.

[unclebulgaria67]

You can argue about it, but it might not do any good. Unless you have evidence that the other party was responsible, you will have difficulty escaping any slight fault. It is a shame that there were not traffic cameras on the roundabout which may have recorded the accident.

 

All you can do is gather evidence as best as you can. Perhaps photographs and drawings of the road layout, where you can show the insurers how the vehicles travelled towards the accident point. Without video footage, it would be an argument using general road traffic rules from the highway code.

 

The Insurers won't let you use the legal cover, if they don't think you have a good chance of success. When you make a phone call regarding the legal cover, any usage of the legal cover is decided on initially by the insurance companies staff. I can't see that for this accident, you would be referred to a Solicitors.

 

Your reaction is the same as most people. Very annoying and you realise that for simple accidents, Insurers might not be as keen to argue about fault for an accident, as you will be.

 

Google, '50/50 accident who pays' and you will find numerous articles from Solicitors. It would be worth you reading these.

[fllegend]

The insurer may advise 50/50 but they can't force you to accept that if you absolutely don't want to. However if the other party also contests then you must be prepared to go to county court as a witness to stand a decent chance of winning on the issue of liability.

Also be aware you will lose your no claims bonus until it can be proven you were 0% at fault. If the county court does rule that way you will be refunded the extra premiums you had to pay.

[Stu-Pid]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]51962[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]51961[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]51960[/ATTACH]Thanks for the advice. I've posted a few pics of the damage and the roundabout where it happened to see if that helps you guys.[ATTACH=CONFIG]51959[/ATTACH] my Car is the blue bmw and his is the grey citreon.

[Stu-Pid]

forgot to mention, the police attended and there was no witnesses. When the guy jumped out his car it also looked like a map/magazine fell out with him. I believe he was reading it and his attention distracted hence why he hit me.

He's told his insurance company that I swerved into him at the roundabout.

 

Many thanks

[SuperVillain]

The road markings approaching that roundabout indicate the left and centre lanes are for heading straight. The exit you were taking has two lanes - which lane were you exiting into the left or right? If you had a photo of your car in the right hand lane of the exit it might help swing things your way on the balance of probabilities (the test the Court would use).

 

Either way the photographs above don't show the resting position of the cars immediately after the accident so we're back to your word against his.

 

If the collision happened with you exiting into the left hand lane, he's just going to say that he was heading straight and you cut him up.

 

With you exiting to the right he'll just claim he was in the middle lane and you were in the wrong (right) lane and you cut him up.

 

There doesn't appear to be any evidence which supports one version of events over the other, so 50/50.

[unclebulgaria67]

Just had a look from google street view of this roundabout. There is a lack of lane markings and no road traffic cameras. I would think that you would have difficulty getting to a position, where you had 0% responsibility for the accident. It looks like a case of 2 cars coming together on a roundabout.

 

If it were me, I think I would not want to waste too much time arguing about it. Grab a copy of the highway code to see if there is anything helpful and if there is nothing which helps, then just leave it to the Insurers to argue.

[SuperVillain]

He's told his insurance company that I swerved into him at the roundabout.

 

I was typing my post before I saw this but, like I suggested, he's saying you cut him up.

[Stu-Pid]

I was in the centre lane for going straight over and exiting into the right lane of the dual carriageway. He's told his insurance company I was in the far right and he was in the centre lane (lying b******)

 

I've been pretty convinced it will fall 50/50 but was hoping from the information given I might of been able to convince the insurance companies It wasn't my fault.

 

Thanks for the quick reply.

[Stu-Pid]

I was typing my post before I saw this but, like I suggested, he's saying you cut him up.

 

yes

[SuperVillain]

I was in the centre lane for going straight over and exiting into the right lane of the dual carriageway. He's told his insurance company I was in the far right and he was in the centre lane (lying b******)

 

I don't like being right here but I thought he might...

 

Unless you can prove otherwise there's not much you can do unfortunately.

 

His insurers are no doubt having the same conversation with him and your version of events.

[Stu-Pid]

Will the fact this paper/map fell out his car when he got out have any bearing on the decision made?

As you can see in the first photo there is no map and then once he had got out his car there clearly is a map/paper on the floor.

[SabreSheep]

none

 

ALl the photo proves is a map appeared on the floor between photos. this could have fallen out ofrom a door pocket etc.