someone backed into our car

[mucusmembranesmoist]

My neighbor was getting her house painted and one of the work truck backed into my wife's car that was parked in front of our house on the street. The guy left us a note saying: " I'm sorry I backed into your car. I will pay for the estimate. Here is my name. This is not worth reporting." Guy left his name and phone number.

We did not get home till close to midnight and found the note. Looked at the car and the front bumper is dented and it popped out in our corner. Fog light is off.

Called the guy up and left a message saying "I am glad you left us a note. It is our policy as a family however to report any car/insurance related issues to the cops/insurance.

Guy calls me up this morning mad that I am calling the police and reporting this to the insurance. He says he was honest enough to leave a note and he was more than willing to pay $1600 to the bumper because according to him this is all that would take. I told him that I had a prior experience with someone who also wanted to pay me out of pocket and not involve insurance/police and then I could not find the person and this is why as a rule I report anything. The guy did not want to hear it and proceeded to tell me that if I did not want to get hit I should not park on the street by the neighbor's driveway. I told him that we have been leaving in our house now for two years an nobody has hit me till last night. He then went on to say that he could have just driven away and did not have to leave a note ( my neighbor saw him hit our car so this is probably why he left a note). I told him that how would he like it if this happened to him and his family and someone just left. he did not answer. Anyway, he kept on raising his voice at me telling me what to do. He could have persuaded me to not file a report had he been nicer and did not come at me aggressively. He never once apologize for the hassle he gave me now with no car and have to run around getting an estimate. Also, how dare he tell me how and where to park my car in my own neighborhood.

GRRRR. Just want to vent....

[CollinsE90]

[JayKay335i]

Should have just got the estimate asked him for a copy of his license when you saw him so you could track him down. I think people who park their cars near the end of other peoples driveways are asshats and asking to get hit.

[VinnieAces]

i fucken hate when my neighbours or their friends park along the curb that is directly infront of my driveway, fucken hate it, i wanna hit all of their cars with my hummer WHICH is not easy to reverse out when they park like that

[hks786]

If I knew the person I would not report it, but in your case I would report it to be safe.

[NDAPUPR]

Fuck 'em. Report that shit.

[BTM]

How the fuck do you come up with that username

[TMNT]

Report it.

I was in a similar situation in which I agreed to let the person who hit my car in a parking lot pay out of pocket and not report it. I thought I was being nice and accommodating.

We exchanged numbers/info and it took forever to get the $700 dollars from her. I had to threaten her with court numerous times until she finally paid up after like 6 months. Apparently she didn't have insurance either.

Never again.

[Maestro]

I agree if you have doubts about the guy report it. However, if you got all the information from him and he is willing to pay it out of his pocket, that is always the better way to go. Even if the accident is not your fault, turning them in to you insurance company can count against you. Plus, if the guy does not come through in a day or so you can always report it then. Just tell him he has two days to come up with the cash after you get an estimate, if he does not then you report it.

I personal did this a couple of times, one time I hit someone less than $1000 and I arrange to get it fix and only cost me $500 and the other time someone hit me and they gave me cash, $1200 and I got it fixed for $800, so I got $400 for my pain and suffering.

I have to also agree with the others here, why would you park across from someone driveway, you are asking for problems. In my old place my mail box just happen to be right across from my neighbors drives and 3 of their friend destroyed their trunk lids backing into it. Did not damage the mail box post but did thousand $ of damage to their cars.

The best part the idiots who could seem to figure out how to back out of a driveway tried convincing me it was may fault and I should have paid for their damage.

And no, I did not put the mailbox there, it was the build since it was new home and all mail boxes had to be place at certain location on your property. My house was built first and the neighbor's builder put the driveway in the wrong place

[ABQ325i]

Business insurance is more expensive than regular insurance. I am guessing that since he did leave a note that he would have been more than happy to hand over $1600 cash rather than to deal with the hassle and inevitable rate hike. You are in Joisey, don't you guys get raped enough without having to deal with insurance rate hikes over a minor issue?

On the plus side now it will be reported on Carfax so when you go to sell the car you won't have the dilemma of asking yourself whether you should tell the prospective buyer if the car has been in an accident or not

[Freakazoid]

as people have said, at least give him the chance to make it right. get an estimate and give him a day to pay. if he doesn't, get insurance involved.

[UltimateBMW]

[UltimateBMW]

Originally Posted by mucusmembranesmoist

He could have persuaded me to not file a report had he been nicer and did not come at me aggressively.

Doesn't really sound like it from the below excerpt.

Originally Posted by mucusmembranesmoist

I told him that I had a prior experience with someone who also wanted to pay me out of pocket and not involve insurance/police and then I could not find the person and this is why as a rule I report anything.

You seem to be borderline offended when he seemed to be more frustrated with you. In truth, he did do you a favor by leaving a note as most people don't.

[Inspired]

Originally Posted by Freakazoid

as people have said, at least give him the chance to make it right. get an estimate and give him a day to pay. if he doesn't, get insurance involved.

1. The op is the reason why people is so unwilling to leave notes after they hit someone's car.

[Quick6EF]

I kinda agree with the OP. I'm not taking my chances - people are fucked up.

[Hawkeye]

If you get the money up front what is the issue? If you have proof he did it, especially in a work van, that is all you really need. Just say I won't report it if you will sign something saying you are 100% liable for it.

[Year's_End]

Originally Posted by BTM

How the fuck do you come up with that username

.

[Maestro]

Originally Posted by ABQ325i

On the plus side now it will be reported on Carfax so when you go to sell the car you won't have the dilemma of asking yourself whether you should tell the prospective buyer if the car has been in an accident or not

yep another down side of reporting it to the insurance. I know when I sold my one car I had work done on because of the accident, it did not show up in the carfax report. I told the guy I had the hood and grill fixed since if he looked closely under the hood you could tell there were new parts.

[Freakazoid]

Originally Posted by Quick6EF

I kinda agree with the OP. I'm not taking my chances - people are fucked up.

this is exactly the reason why hit and run drivers exist even more now...
at least give the guy a day...

[JayKay335i]

Across the street from my house a family purchased the lot. They have roughly twice the street space as we do. The lot was the builders lot who owned the development and the land and its probably 2-3x the size of all the other lots in the development. It had 2 smaller houses and a massive barn. They started building and living in one of the smaller houses. For some reason despite all of the sidewalk space in front of their house they decided they were going to park at the foot of our driveway. Not just one car, 3-4 cars bumper to bumper right behind our driveway. After a few weeks of this shit I told them to move before somebody rams their S500 and runs. They're a bunch of cockbags.

[BTM]

CSJ

[JayKay335i]

Originally Posted by BTM

CSJ

thanks b