tonykdee

I originally posted this in GED but their no help. hopefully someone can help me with this. post is long and i apologize. thanks in advance. fventura03 or toyomatt84 or Vantage. your suggestions will be VERY appreciated. thanks guys.

last october of '06, i got into my first accident. i was driving in the far right lane of a 3 lane street in an unfamiliar area going straight when i noticed my lane was becoming an only.

i noticed this because the lines to me left got longer but still dashed. so i slow down a bit by not gasing and look over my shoulder to check if i can chnage lanes. it was clear with enough space for me to change lanes. note* clear as in the car on the next lane is about 6-7 cars with space behind me in the next lane over. so i proceed to change lanes with the turn signal on.

as i was doing so. traffic infront of me was slowing down also because we were approaching a red light. by the time i chnaged lanes, all the cars in front of me have stopped and so have i. unfortunately, i was not completely in the next lane over (middle lane). more than half of my car was in the middle lane, and the rest, the far right lane. this wasn't a problem because the street was wide enough on the far right lane for other cars to past by.

as i was stopped there for a couple seconds, i checked my rear view mirror and then quickly checked my side mirror. remember that car that was 6-7 cars behind me in the next lane over? well, i pretty much watched that car from my side mirror after having stopped for more than 5 seconds hit me. hit me left rear drive side on the bumper and cracked part of my tail light. i was driving an 04 civic coupe and they were driving a murano.


ok so.. whos fault do you think this is? i think its 100% the other guy's fault. he totally failed to stop. traffic didn't just stop quickly with people braking hard. everything was normal and gentle. he had enough room to stop.

also, he didn't have insurance. he wasn't even driving his car. he was driivng a family members car. the owner, who is a she was in the car with him along with some other dude.

so after he hits me, i get out. look at everything and ask if everyone was alright. the guy who hits me goes.. "aww man.. is my insurance going to go up? " im pretty sure he knows its his fault. so we exchnage info and stuff. the info was from the owners car. the insurance was the girl's.

i got the info of the guy that hit me down. during the whole time, he was talking about how he was in debt. he had no money to pay for it. so he was talking to the girl who owned the car. asking "would it be better to go thorugh this with your insurance or should we try to settle this a different way." in my head the whole time, i know it was his fault. i tried to call the police to get a statement so they wouldn;'t try to lie about the accident to the insruance company but they never came cause no one was injured. -_-

after i got all their info, i asked the guy who hit me to write down that he did hit me and sign it. i did this to make sure he wouldn't lie. i had a feeling he was gonna pull somethign on me. and he did. when i heard from my insruance company, they said the girl was driving and he was not. the girl told the insurance company i cut them off this and that. -_- hella lied bout it. after a couple months, my case got into arbitration. even with the evidence i had that the guy did hit me, the girl who owned the car won. and i lost.

sorry if this was long. my question is though, after i told you the story, what should i do. my insurance company already paid them the money for repairs for their car. but i wanna make this right. i dont want anything against me when it wasn't my fault. i want to sue the guy that hit me but hmm.. what should i do guys? if you guys need to ask any question if i didn't cover this enough, feel free to ask. any help is appreciated.

mrtrinh

you cant change anything now because the dispute has already been settled by your insurance company as your fault. I'm guessing you're a teen and the person that hit you is an adult? So its your word against theres and people are most likely to favor in the adults because "teens" are more reckless drivers even though this might not be true. Another factor you have is that you have no witnesses on your side and they do, so that also gives more lenience to the opposing side. I have been in a very similar situation and our dispute came to be inconclusive and we paid for our own damages. I know it sucks, but good luck with it

toyomatt84

iTrader: (1)

I think you're not going to get full return on what time/money you invest in returning proper order to what had happened. I hate to sound like I'm not being hopeful, but from what I've dealt with in Insurance and Court issues, once they rule something, there will always be a mark of it on some record they have. So, you'll never fully get rid of it. Next time, when you have an accident like that, call the cops. That will be the easiest way to clear your case. If a cop is there, at the scene of the accident, you have much better odds of getting the right information across to the judge when taking your claim to court.

tonykdee

forgot to mention your name mrtrinh. thanks for the response.

i know after arbitration. whatever they say goes. its messed up though because i do have proof that the guy hit me. he wrote on a peice of paper that he hit me and he signed it. another thing to think about is that why would i get his info if he wasn't the one that hit me. if this is confusing you guys, heres the thing. when the lady claimed the accident, she said she was driving. but infact, the guy was driving her car.

it just really sucks because i can prove it. but its sorta too late (i hope not). and alot of the things that id liek to prove is common sense. unfortunately, common sense doesn't work too much in court sometimes because evidence > common sense.

yea i am a "teen" but im not an idiot. haha. i really just wanna sue them some way to make this right. so i wont get something negative on my record.

for some more response.

forgot to mention. i am a teen. and the guy that hit me was a african american adult in the late 20s. the lady was throwing up a fit left and right. hopefully some can imagine... also. i did call the cops. but they just were too busy eating donuts i guess. =/ i hella just lucked out. everything would have gone the right way if some random cop showed up or came because i called. -_-. i swear to god, i called like 5 times. got rejected evrytime.

toyomatt84

iTrader: (1)

You dialed 911 and got no response? Umm, that sounds a little unbelievable, considering just calling and hanging up usually gets an ambulance to the location of the caller.

fventura03

iTrader: (1)

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by toyomatt84 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">You dialed 911 and got no response? Umm, that sounds a little unbelievable, considering just calling and hanging up usually gets an ambulance to the location of the caller.</TD></TR></TABLE>

i accidentally hit a car in rush hour traffic, going about 5mph, my fault completely, i wasn't paying attention. i called the police so they can do a statement, 30mins passed and they didn't show up, so we just exchanged information and left. i think a "hang up" call is a bit more serious then a simple fender bender, the "hang up" call is unknown so naturally they will send someone ASAP, to find out the reason for the call, but a fender bender, they know what's going on, no one is hurt, they can take their time, come whenever they want.

to OP, sorry - i probably won't be much help, only thing you can do is learn from your mistakes and if you get in this situation later on, do it the right way by making everyone wait for the police to get a statement. the statement is the best thing you can get in a situation like this. and no, you weren't at fault, you were just unfortunate enough to have encountered people like them who in the end screwed over your insurance company. it happens all the time, it'll be on your record for a couple of years, and there's not too much you can do about it. there isn't enough evidence out there for them to believe you weren't at fault.

sorry dude - happens to most of us.

bioweapon

Having just gone through some insurance and court crap, I'll tell you, once it happens, there is no way that it can be reversed. I'm surprised the cops didn't come, here, they have to show up if there is more than $1000 worth of damage to a car. And with body shop prices these days, we all know how little damage can be quoted over $1000. I find the situation a bit strange cause here, there are next to no situations where you can hit someone, and not be at fault, so that guy must have sweet talked his way out of something.

I hit a woman from behind who was stopped in the middle of an offramp from a major highway, in the middle of rush hour, as I was checking my blind spot to merge onto the street. She was stopped because she was picking up hitch hikers. One moment i'm following her, I check my blind spot, and then bam, hit her. Even though she was doing something illegal, where i'm from you can stop when ever, and where ever you want, and if someone hits you, they get charged because they arent in control of their vehicle.

Now that it's settled, unfortunately, there isn't much you can do about it. If you didn't get charged, be thankful. If you get in an accident without charges, your insurance will go up a considerable amount less than if you were charged. Next time you'll know, grab a witness from the scene, and carry a digital camera.

Psychochik

Once arbitration has been completed the only thing you can do to recoup your money is to take it to small claims, but even then, arbitration is on their side and the court will in all likliehood rule in their favor as well.

You should have just not signed any papers and disputed it from the get go cuz now you just look like someone who doesnt want to pay their dues and admit fault.

To me, it sounds like a 50/50 accident cuz you were coming from the right lane and youre not supposed to "pass" on the right side and then he just didnt stop in time, but may have been able to stopin time if you werent coming from the right hand lane. Sucky, I know, but as a claims rep, I see it all the time.

Damage seems minimal, so I wouldnt be too worried about it, your insurance probably will go up, but it really shouldnt be too big a jump, just a few bucks a year.

tonykdee

thanks guys. looks like ill just have to take this one. oh well. it happens to the best of us i guess. good thing allstate has this thing where your premiums wont go up from one accident or something.

brjhnson

Sorry to hear this man but I had the same thing kind of happen to me. Truck hit me ran I called the police they told me to stop chasing him so I did got a police report and everything and still nothing had to pay for everything my self. Bad luck I guess but hey on me bud