Van crashed into my parents car at 2am!

[High-Lo]

In the early hours of Sunday morning a van crashed into my mum's parked Peugeot 206 at high speed. Not sure how the crash happened but it caused my mum's car to spin and the van driver must have hit the back of it as well. My neighbour said that it was a Police chase but I'm not 100% sure on that one. My parents were asleep throughout and didn't even wake up when the Police were knocking on their door at around 3am. They only found out when they woke up at around 9am. Thankfully the Police left a note for them giving them the van's registration number and registered keeper details (it was a hired van from the Wirral - Not sure what it was doing in Kent). There are no signs of any skidmarks so my guess is that the driver fell asleep at the wheel. Anyway, here are the pics:

They got a courtesy Ford Ka today and waiting for the Salvage company to take the car away. Does anybody have any experience of these situations? How long would they have to wait roughly until they get an offer of settlement from the insurance company?

Thanks,
Steve

 

[PaulE230]

In my experience I waited around 2 months for a no fault claim to be settled. I had the free hire car for that long though
You can say you want a better hire car


Thank god no one was in it at the time



.

 

[glojo]

Hopefully your mother did not park her car in the location of the picture? I'm surprised the vehicle was not removed to a garage as it looks insecure and is clearly in a dangerous condition with perhaps liquids leaking onto the highway.

If it were a police chase type scenario then I doubt the van driver was asleep? Thank goodness your mother was safely tucked up in bed as that looks a horrible incident, but at the end of the day it is just a motor car.

Good luck with the insurance claim,
Regards
John

 

[grober]

Do some homework!

Shouldn't be too long. The insurance assessor will have to write it off-- may take a few days before he gets to it / submits report----the insurance company will then contact your mum to say its a write off ( which it undoubtedly is) and offer her a settlement. Do not accept this first offer unless its really good ---you can sometimes get a bit more---now is the time to do some homework----look in autotrader etc to get an idea of your mum's car's current market value to compare with the insurance offer---remember to compare like with like model/spec wise. Low mileage and a good service history should help your case here. HOW LONG IT TAKES WILL REALLY DEPEND ON YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY --SOME ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS.

 

[High-Lo]

Hopefully your mother did not park her car in the location of the picture? I'm surprised the vehicle was not removed to a garage as it looks insecure and is clearly in a dangerous condition with perhaps liquids leaking onto the highway.

Thanks John. You are correct in that thats not the way it was parked before the incident. I was told that the police smashed the passenger side window to gain access to move the car to that position. I told the insurance company that the car was unsafe, with fluids, glass, and car bodyparts everywhere and positioned inappropriately but they kept saying that the Salvage company would need 1-2 days after being notified. I phoned again yesterday evening and they said they'd make it an emergency removal and would move it within 24 hours. Fingers crossed

 

[GrahamC230K]

Hopefully your mother did not park her car in the location of the picture?

Oh yeah, those 206 handbrakes are the best on the market!



EDIT; added the smilies to the end of my comment that I should have made sure was there originally.

 

[glojo]

Oh yeah, those 206 handbrakes are the best on the market!

Are they??

 

[chriswt]

A very similar think happened 4 years ago with my girlfriends car when we were both away for the night. Someone was speeding down our road in the early hours and hit the back of her parked car. It made a right mess and woke several neighbours.

One neighbour got a registration and the driver actually called the police when he got home to tell them he’d hit a car (wonder why he wanted to get home first?).

We came back to the house the next day to find that a policeman had left a hand written note with the PC’s details and the name and address of the driver responsible. Her Saxo was left half in the road and half on the pavement and it was up to a neighbour and I to move the car and clear the road of debris the next morning.

Her insurance was the free citron insurance (same call centre as Tesco insurance) and they took 5 months to sort it out and still managed to c0ck it up. The car was less than a year old and so I managed to get the full cost of the car back.

Forward 3 years and the same thing happened to a neighbour’s car (we’re due another crash in 2009!) but she was with that irritating female insurance company called Diamond and they paid out within 2 weeks, no fuss at all.

 

[glojo]

Thanks John. You are correct in that thats not the way it was parked before the incident. I was told that the police smashed the passenger side window to gain access to move the car to that position. I told the insurance company that the car was unsafe, with fluids, glass, and car body-parts everywhere and positioned inappropriately but they kept saying that the Salvage company would need 1-2 days after being notified. I phoned again yesterday evening and they said they'd make it an emergency removal and would move it within 24 hours. Fingers crossed

We had a trades-person working on our pool yesterday and he was really complaining about the attitude of his local police and I fully sympathised with his every word.

Now I read your post and am disappointed in the way your mother has been treated. I would like to think that as an elderly\middle-aged person the police would have helped remove the car? I wonder why a recovery service was not called and the vehicle removed? I can understand why the police deemed it necessary to break into the car, but having done that they then must surely take some responsibility for the security of the vehicle and its contents?

The police were responsible for leaving that vehicle in a dangerous condition, a potentially dangerous and illegal location and not illuminating it? The car is clearly a write-off, it is no doubt insured and I would assume the police would have a rota of call out garages to deal with just such an incident. If oil leaks onto the highway and as a direct result, someone gets killed, who will be responsible? Shame on the police, shame on them for not assisting your mother and arranging for the car to be moved.

Good luck with the claim and I fully endorse grober's excellent points and if your mother really looked after this car and she has photographs of it gleaming like a new pin, then use them if you are not happy with the first offer.

Don't be too worried about insurance companies as there are ONE or maybe two out there what will make your mother a very satisfactory first offer.

Regards
John

 

[television]

Just a side issue, I notice that High Lo always takes a perfect picture, and I wondered what camera he uses.

 

[GrahamC230K]

Hopefully your mother did not park her car in the location of the picture?

OK, forget the fact I think asking if the car with an impact that substantial was originally parked in the position it was in to be daft, what would this gentleman have to say if the car was parked there, opposite a t-junction on a what looks like a normal suburban terraced road, most likley car lined both sides for the most part, perhaps even a little further from the curb than it should have been?

 

[BTB 500]

Just a side issue, I notice that High Lo always takes a perfect picture, and I wondered what camera he uses.

Incidentally when I went into my local dealership (Ascot) parts dept. last weekend they gave me a couple of 'crash kits' containing a disposable camera with flash, tape measure, pen, notepad, advice sheets, etc.

 

[television]

Incidentally when I went into my local dealership (Ascot) parts dept. last weekend they gave me a couple of 'crash kits' containing a disposable camera with flash, tape measure, pen, notepad, advice sheets, etc.

Thank you, but is that not tempting fate

 

[Spinal]

Thank you, but is that not tempting fate

Tempting fate? I ALWAYS have a disposable camera in the glove box in any car I drive (so much so that when I rent a car I carry one with me)

I firmly believe they should be compulsory in all cars! When a charming fellow in a Suzuki Bandit decided my door was a good test for his breaking potential the pictures I took coupled with Google-earth played a key role in the court case...

Michele

 

[KillerHERTZ]

Wooah!

Glad noone was in it at the time!

 

[Rory]

Now I read your post and am disappointed in the way your mother has been treated. I would like to think that as an elderly\middle-aged person the police would have helped remove the car? I wonder why a recovery service was not called and the vehicle removed? I can understand why the police deemed it necessary to break into the car, but having done that they then must surely take some responsibility for the security of the vehicle and its contents?

That is a bit strange - many people complain that the Police are far too quick to call out their contracted (expensive) recovery service.
The car being a Peugeot, and that presumeably being the best place to repair a Peugeot, I'd have called my local Peugeot dealer to recover it.

 

[Sp!ke]

Just a side issue, I notice that High Lo always takes a perfect picture, and I wondered what camera he uses.

Looks to me like it was taken using a Sony DSC-T9

 

[High-Lo]

Looks to me like it was taken using a Sony DSC-T9

How were you able to tell that? It is the correct answer though

 

[glojo]

OK, forget the fact I think asking if the car with an impact that substantial was originally parked in the position it was in to be daft, what would this gentleman have to say if the car was parked there, opposite a t-junction on a what looks like a normal suburban terraced road, most likley car lined both sides for the most part, perhaps even a little further from the curb than it should have been?

Rather than mouthing off about the incident I very politely asked a question.

I had NO idea where the vehicle was parked.

I had NO idea of the direction of travel.

I had NO idea if this was the only vehicle involved.

Hopefully my remarks were relevant, polite and to the point. I certainly did not make any sort of sarcastic jibe.

Rather than accuse anyone of 'dumping' this vehicle in the location where it was pictured, I asked who was responsible. I have seen all types of collisions and if one thing is predictable, it is the unpredictable way vehicles react after being hit.

John

 

[A-AvantGarde]

How were you able to tell that? It is the correct answer though

You can view the details of the camera from the file properties.

On Windows:

From the image on the website / post, right click the picture, click 'Save Picture as'

Once saved to your PC, right click the filename, click 'Properties', this brings up a tab 'Picture Properties'. Click on the summary and you can see the Camera make and Model, date & time picture taken etc. Some of this information can be lost dependent on whether you edit the picture.