Clipped my wing mirror

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br0ke

Active Member
Joined
Sep 10, 2008
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338
Taking daughter No1 to school yesterday I made my usual right turn onto a narrow town road with parked cars on my right and double yellow lines on my left, so nothing parked on my side.
It's about 100m before I need to turn left so proceeding slowly down this road I see a car coming through the junction I want to take, at a reasonably fast speed. The normal etiquette is for the oncoming car to pull in between the parked cars to allow cars in my direction to proceed. This is all normally done at walking speed. Anyway, this guy is going for it and whacks my wing mirror on the way past. I was practically stationary at this point but it was a fair old thump.
The mirror bends back and he has disappeared into the distance. I make my left turn and push the button to pop my mirror back in but it starts flailing around. I thought right - I'm going to get you at the main road so another left turn and up to the main road - he is not to be seen. Back around to the scene of the crime and he has done a U-turn and is facing the way he came with his car parked on the right.
I pulled up behind him and jumped out of the car. He was retrieving his mirror from the road. I wasn't going to get into a discussion with him about fault so simply said. "Hello. We just clipped mirrors there and we need to swap insurance details as that looks quite expensive there", pointing to my floppy mirror. His response was "I never hit anything", with his mirror in his hand!! So I repeated what I said and he said "OK, you've got my number". I leant into my car to get my diary and pen and he jumped into his car, wound up his window and took off like a scalded cat, just as I was about to knock his window. He very nearly caused another accident in his hurry to get away.
Bearing in mind this was near both a Secondary and a Primary School just after 08.30, so I decided not to get involved. It's only a mirror after all.

Dropped my daughter at school, pulled up in a car park and phoned the police to report a RTA and minor Hit & Run (technically probably not, but certainly got their attention). They took the details and discussed the probability of him not being insured and left it at that. I drove to work with my floppy mirror and then was able to figure out how to pop it back in place, however the lens was cracked. I ordered a new one from ebay £20 and thought that was the end of it.

Two phone calls within a few hours, from the police and it turns out the guy was insured. They went round to see him, so I asked them why he left in such a hurry and they didn't really know but did admit he was a bit strange. They gave me his details but I figured it's not really worth it.
However, I later noticed a dent in my wing where his mirror must have bounced off it. It has marked the paint but I think it will polish out - the dent won't though. It's on the crease of the wing so shows the extent of the forces involved.

Bit peeved about it but it's just more battle damage. The thing is that road has just been resurfaced within the last month and the speed bumps have been removed. If they had been there it wouldn't have happened. I never though I would bemoan the lack of speed bumps.

I still don't understand why he legged it. It wasn't as if I threatened to pull his head off or anything like that. Very strange.

Must look up a You-Tube clip to figure out how to replace the lens. Isn't technology wonderful.
 
By your account , he left the scene without giving his particulars to someone reasonably requiring them (you) - that in itself is an offence .

A further offense would have been not reporting the incident to the police as soon as reasonably practicable and in any case within 24 hours - since the police traced him , we'll never know whether he might have reported it .

Since the repair to your wing could be a few hundred , it is probably worth asking your insurer to chase him - as long as the claim is met by his insurer you should lose neither excess nor NCD - the crucial thing is to have him held 100% responsible .

Were there any independent witnesses ? Perhaps other parents who saw the manner of his driving ? If no one else , is your daughter old enough to make a statement ? Although her statement won't carry the same weight as a fully independent witnes , it would support your case .
 
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I (no-one else) whacked/cracked my lens (not a euphemism) a couple of weeks ago..
I'll get around to fitting a new one when I get the time.. I saw a Howto on here somewhere..
 
No witnesses at the time and the £20 to fix the lens is not the issue, but the dent is annoying. Somehow I think this would pail into insignificance if asked to deal with insurance companies, and I have no doubt they would make it cost me more money, so I think I'll just put it down to experience/bad luck and move on.
Really I was just venting above...
 
Being on the crease may present a problem , but it may be worth asking a Paintless Dent Repair specialist .

If you see the guy again , you can always let his tyres down :devil:
 
I did think of that shortly after I noticed the dent. Whilst I know it would be childish, I fear I would derive satisfaction from it.
Must grow up a little more - mentally...
 
Modern wing mirrors are so vulnerable and expensive.

On our XC70 we have:

motors to adjust the heated glass
indicator
motor to retract mirror
ground illuminating light
blind spot camera

Thats going to cost a pretty penny

Needless to say I am very careful when going through small gaps now!
 
I think that it is still quite likely that the actual driver wasn't insured. He could have even been disqualified or not hold a licence - hence his rapid departure from the scene.

He may well have been driving a car belonging to a relative or a friend and it was either them that the police spoke to or who's details they were given.
 
Modern wing mirrors are so vulnerable and expensive.

On our XC70 we have:

motors to adjust the heated glass
indicator
motor to retract mirror
ground illuminating light
blind spot camera

Thats going to cost a pretty penny

Needless to say I am very careful when going through small gaps now!

The processing power used to run that one wing mirror is more than was available to NASA on the first appolo mission.

Just a thought.
 
The processing power used to run that one wing mirror is more than was available to NASA on the first appolo mission.

Just a thought.

Still driven by primates though. :)
 
I changed the lens today. A 10 minute job and was able to give the wing mirror a good clean inside.
My neighbour couldn't believe the £20 price. He reckons an equivalent one for a Saab was nearly £100. I have to say it is impressively well made and looks / feels a lot more than £20.
If MB see this, I'm sure they'll put the price up as befits their market positioning.

Ssssh !!!!
 
The processing power used to run that one wing mirror is more than was available to NASA on the first appolo mission.

Just a thought.

Just tried and my car won't fly to the moon, I think I'll take it back to Volvo for them too look at
 
I encountered a fool approaching me at great speed on a lane recently, despite there being a passing place about 10-20m up the road I was unable to reach it without risking a collision, so tucked the car in as far as possible and stopped, said fool continued at dangerous speed towards and past me, clipping my mirror as he went. No damage, but very annoying.

Caught up with him at traffic lights about 3-4miles down the road whereupon he firstly denied hitting me, and then proceeded to criticise my driving and the fact I stopped in too narrow a section.

The conversation went a little bit circular and his attitude towards the incident was appalling.

Summons is in the process of being raised.

I love my job sometimes.
 
I encountered a fool approaching me at great speed on a lane recently, despite there being a passing place about 10-20m up the road I was unable to reach it without risking a collision, so tucked the car in as far as possible and stopped, said fool continued at dangerous speed towards and past me, clipping my mirror as he went. No damage, but very annoying.

Caught up with him at traffic lights about 3-4miles down the road whereupon he firstly denied hitting me, and then proceeded to criticise my driving and the fact I stopped in too narrow a section.

The conversation went a little bit circular and his attitude towards the incident was appalling.

Summons is in the process of being raised.

I love my job sometimes.

Seems to be fairly typical these days.

What is your job?
 
I'm a detective. Whilst off duty I wouldn't usually bother but the attitude test towards the incident was spectacularly failed. From his comments and attitude, I inferred that he had deliberately driven closely to me, at speed, in order to teach me a lesson for stopping in the wrong place. And not being "local".
 
I'm a detective. Whilst off duty I wouldn't usually bother but the attitude test towards the incident was spectacularly failed. From his comments and attitude, I inferred that he had deliberately driven closely to me, at speed, in order to teach me a lesson for stopping in the wrong place. And not being "local".


It'll be your word against his and the chances are you'll get nowhere with it regardless of your job.
 
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We'll see. You might be surprised. I had an admittedly non-independent witness in my car. And the fact I followed him for nearly 4 miles does indicate that something happened, would hardly have done so if I didn't think it necessary.
 
Being on the crease may present a problem , but it may be worth asking a Paintless Dent Repair specialist .

If you see the guy again , you can always let his tyres down :devil:

If you do by a Schrader key and remove the valve core on all 4 tyres, that stuffs them completely, just don't get caught ;) not that I am advocating doing this nor ever have I done such a thing :D
 
We'll see. You might be surprised. I had an admittedly non-independent witness in my car. And the fact I followed him for nearly 4 miles does indicate that something happened, would hardly have done so if I didn't think it necessary.
And if he says you were driving like a lunatic and then turned round and chased him for miles and terrified him out of his wits ??
 
It'll be your word against his and the chances are you'll get nowhere with it regardless of your job.

I do this if you know you are going to get nowhere with them, there's not a magistrate in the land going to side with someone else when a lawyer, police officer, detecctive or class 1 police driver raises the summons, works every time never lost one yet.
 

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