Last week the wife was dropping of a little one at nursery and reversed into a parked car. It was on a quiet residential road with no one around. Now normally at this stage, the decent thing to do would be to try to find the owner of the car and/or leave a note.

However, my wife being a bit of a wimp (I have to be careful about the choice of words I use in case she ever finds this post!), after waiting for a while and not being able to get hold of me by phone decides to drive off and spends the half an hour in catatonic state in a nearby car park while waiting for me to call her back.

When I do, I tell her to go back and leave a note on the car. She has no pen and paper so I tell her to go get some, by the time she gets back, the car has gone. Even worse, she didn't make a note of the cars registration or even its make and model.

So I rush home from work because at this point she is in a bit of a state worrying about everything, drive round to where the car was and knock on a few doors, leaving my details at the house where the car was parked directly outside of. Then drive down to local police station and file an accident report, they advised to contact our insurance company to let them know, which we also did. We also drove round the area 5 times over the course of the afternoon to see if we could find the car again, but no luck.

Given the number of dings we collected on our cars over the years with no notes left - I'm guessing there are a lot of drivers out there who would have just driven off, but that could have been both illegal and just plain wrong.

So far no word from the Police, or the owner of the other car.

Damage to our FL2 was minor, with one of the parking sensors pushed in slightly and a small scratch on the bumper which was luckily near the bottom, so after touching up with some paint is not noticeable. However, I know from previous experience of a similar coming together with a X5 that the FL2 bumper generally come off much better in these situations, so it would be nice to be able to help the owner of the other car put right any damage. Just like it would have been nice to have had the owners of other cars who put dings and scrapes in my cars over the years to fess up and contribute.

Given the circumstances, I think you did all you could. How long would your wife be expected to wait for the driver to return? Say the driver was away on holiday for 2 weeks! Granted she could have left a note at the time of the bump but it's easy to panic. My guess is that said driver will not notice any damage for a few days & then wonder where it might have happened - it's just a factor of driving on our overcrowded roads! I'll be honest & say that, a couple of years ago, I bumped a parked vehicle in a hotal car park. Damage was slight & I considered driving off but then noticed the CCTV cameras!  From a time when dinosaurs weren't just confined to zoos!

Also interestingly, since reporting the accident to the police and insurance company. I've had three calls from various 'claims management' companies.

I 'politely' told two of them where to go, but played along with the last one who just called, and the gist of the conversation was.

"was it a non fault accident?"
"no, we were at fault, and the other car was parked and empty"
"oh... um... okay.. was there anyone else in your car"
"yes, my three year old daughter"
"oh... um... okay.. we can help you claim for her injuries against your insurance"

The mind boggles!

Mrs G once bumped a van outside her work and drove off. I told her off she claimed it didnt damage the van just our car. 2 weeks later the police came to see her. the vans owner had seen the incident from a nearby window.
The van was indeed quite badly dented.
Luckily the police officer was from Middlesbrough police and didnt appreciate been sent on an errand for Leeds police so let her off after purposely not seeing the damage on our car.
I suggested he take Mrs G to the cells for a few days to teach her a lesson but he wouldn't despite an attempted £50 bribe  At work
At home

"I can't always believe facts I read on the web" - Charles Dickens

winner by default of the tractor vs caravan race

Well done Sam, very public spirited of you! I only hope I and others can be so good.

Re the "claims managers", it would be interesting to know what Police employee or insurance clerk is getting commissions from these sharks.  10MY (Sept 09) TD4 HSE Auto in Stornoway Grey (Now Gone)

08 FL2 TD4 SE Manual in Rimini Red (Now Gone)

I would have followed it up with posters throughout the village/town then a full page advert in the daily's and possibly a 2 minute slot on TV.

Seriously, although Mrs Sam failed miserably you did all you could and a lot more than most

Have you divorced her yet and don't let her on here to reply

Loving the fact that "one of the parking sensors pushed in"

This is Italy ... People here regularly bump, scratch and dent your car !
It adds character !

Pretty sure it would have been the insurance company that passed my number to the ambulance chasers - the police report was all hand written and I would be suprised if it went further than a filing cabinet somewhere. What I dont understand is why an insurance company would do that since it could only result in them paying out more if I had taken the bait.

Harrim51 hadnt realised the irony in my original post!

Harrim51 wrote:

Loving the fact that "one of the parking sensors pushed in"

Been there, done that:


 10MY (Sept 09) TD4 HSE Auto in Stornoway Grey (Now Gone)

08 FL2 TD4 SE Manual in Rimini Red (Now Gone)

Mine currently looks like this

Click image to enlarge

Click image to enlarge

How come those insurance companies got any details? surely the police come under the data protection act the same as anyone else? Maybe it is ok for them to break the law but no one else. Ex 2010 Freelander2 GS-e Diesel manual Silver owner

I had one ring me when a bus pulled out on me in my first FL2, bus company rang me directly within one hour to apologise and pay for any damage without going through insurance. Even though I never told my insurance about the incident I still had a claims firm on to me the next day offering injury claim (only damage was a broken wing mirror on my car!!)

Had to give the Beemer a full inspection yesterday evening, was visiting Ironbridge early evening and the carpark was near empty, I decided to park alongside a hedge so only one side of the car was exposed. Despite there being only about 15 cars randomly spread around a carpark with around 100 bays some numpty decided to park next to me and had swung in at a angle so that there was about 2 inches gap at the closest point and no more than a foot at the furthest point. I photographed the cars position before pulling mine out to inspect it - I felt like loosing its tyres down but missus told me not to! Now - 2017 BMW X3 M Sport Carbon Black
Gone - 2014 BMW X3 M Sport Space Grey, faultless!
Gone - 2011 Freelander 2 SD4 HSE Bali Blue with xenons
Gone - 2008 Freelander 2 TD4 HSE Rimini Red with bodykit

The police don't release details of collisions to insurers other than to interested parties. However all insurance companies share information with each other and claims handling companies. The moment you tell your insurance company, potentially the entire industry knows. They make money out of sharing work on claims. Td4 XS manual, Orkney Grey, MY2014

DAC364 wrote:

The police don't release details of collisions to insurers other than to interested parties