Daughter has just arrived home with a damaged wing mirror. "he came round the corner like bat out of hell doing 60 and smashed me mirror off"
She has his name, address and phone number but as a grumpy old man I don't know if we're going to get anything out of this. No admission of liability; no car reg no.; no insurance company; no witnesses.
It's a local address so I can find out the reg no. easily enough but will it do any good?
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Very difficlt to prove, SWMBO had a similar incident at the weekend, but she sdmits it was her fault, she was slightly over the other side of the road on a corner and clipped the wing mirror on an older "Gent" (term used very loosley), first thing he said was "That will cost you a good £100" The car was an old rover 416 - she called me and I went to see him at the side of the road, no damage, just glass had popped out of ball joint on the back. As I said to him, could he prove she was on the wrong side of the road? Unless there are witnesses might just be a case of cutting your losses.
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Depends whether he is a decent bloke. When teaching my son to drive he tried to squeeze past a parked car and misjudged it slightly, grazing the side of car. I used a bit of T-cut on ours and the scratch disappeared. Left a note on other car saying what had happened, asking driver to get in touch, and we would sort it out, she insisted on going to main dealer to get her scratch removed and it cost me £100 (I suspect it was a T-cut job as well since respray would have cost much more). But, fair enough, we had damaged her car - seemed only fair and I paid up without complaint - could have been a lot worse.
Phil
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Being a cynic Brad I'm afraid it doesn't look promising. She may have name, address and phone number but doesn't have an independant witness or admission of liability, even if she gets insurance details it will almost certainly degenerate into she said/he said, she did/he did argument. Insurance co will almost certainly not get drawn into it and you/her will lose hours of your life fighting it.
Personally I think your only chance will be to find out the cost of replacement mirror, approach him on an informal basis to see if he will do the decent thing, it's surprising how people feel guilty a little while later after the event if they really were in the wrong, if not swallow the cost and walk away to fight another day. I am assuming that it is just a broken mirror by the way not body damage as well which might make it financially viable to fight but I still don't fancy your chances of forcing a liability admission out of him.
Just glad he wasn't 6 inches further over and only glass got smashed.
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Presume daughter has spoken to other driver and exchanged details? Suggest as a starting point he is visited and again given opportunity to pay for damage. If refused obtain insurance details from him and pass to daughters insurers with any witness details for their action. If insurance details refused consider informing police as he may have been driving without insurance cover. The final alternative is to just get the damage rectified at daughters expense or claim on her insurance if fully comp but risk loss of no claims bonus.
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<< or claim onher insurance if fully comp but risk loss of no claims bonus.
And pay the inevitable excess!
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L\'escargot.
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The cost of a wing mirror and the ease of replacing varies hugely from one car to another, even on everyday marques. I had the wing mirror on my Sierra taken off by a loony (Saturday night/drunk?) who scarpered some years ago. The mirror was body colour coordinated/electric/heated etc and, as a company car, it went into a dealers to be fixed. I can't remember what it cost - but it was significant.
On the other hand, my son took the wing mirror off the old Fiesta by reversing past a tree branch. The mirror was manually operated and black plastic - hence no paintspray was needed. The local car breaker didn't have one, but was able to order me a pattern (new) one for £20 which I was able to replace myself.
I'd find out as quickly as possible what it would cost to replace the mirror (strike while the iron is hot) and see if the bloke will pay up. I would avoid the hassle of involving insurance if at all possible.
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Wing mirror? Door mirror?
Not many cars have wing mirrors these days, but they are very basic and very cheap. Door mirrors can be another matter. It's quite difficult to clip passing door mirrors on a corner, because they are each half-way along the car. The geometry doesn't quite add up.
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Sorry, wrong term, I meant door mirrors - it's still a bit early!
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Some mirrors to stick out rather a long way. One advantage of the old Vectra faired in mirrors was that they were hardly wider that the rest of the car making a mirror clash unlikely, the rear vision was OK as well.
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You could spend a lot of time and effort in pursueing the other guy and only end up more frustrated.
What of the mirror is broken...bracket, glass, wiring, casing.
What cost for a second hand one / new one maybe off ebay.
Could you fix it yourself? I know I would!
I once clashed mirrors with a car coming the from the opposite direction. Mine barely moved. The other guys (Vauxhall Tigra) fell off onto the road.
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Cornering at 60mph?Where was this?Unless one party is well onto the wrong side of the road I regard mirror to mirror as equal blame.Last time it happened to me,in very tight traffic,neither of us bothered stopping.
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Hello
Unless one party is well onto the wrong side of the road I regard mirror to mirror as equal blame.
No way! I don't like other drivers forcing me into the verge. It should be remembered that a mirror clash is only inches away from being a head-on crash. That's something you really *don't* want.
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Hello >> Unless one party is well onto the wrong side of the road I regard mirror to mirror as equal blame. No way! I don't like other drivers forcing me into the verge. It should be remembered that a mirror clash is only inches away from being a head-on crash. That's something you really *don't* want.
The proviso was "..... one party is well onto the wrong side of the road ......"
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L\'escargot.
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Ignore my last post ~ it wasn?t sufficiently explanatory.
What Sierraman is saying (subject to him not correcting me) is that if both vehicles are equally placed with respect to the centre of the road on their respective side of the road then both drivers are equally to blame for a mirror clash ~ and I agree. If one vehicle is using more than it?s fair share of the road then the driver of that vehicle is at fault.
I would add that it still might depend on the width of the road. Anyone who drives nearer to the centre of the road than is necessary, even though they are still technically on their side of the road, is asking for trouble.
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L\'escargot.
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Many of the roads in my area are so narrow that a HGV will take more than *half* the width, usually these are so narrow that there is no white line; I have often thought that should an accident occur in these circumstances, i.e. one vehicle is wider than half the road, the over-width vehicle should automatically be at fault.
This provision would cut the number of HGV's using unsuitable roads...discuss...
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One mans junk is another mans treasure
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Brad
What car is it? and what dammage is there to the mirror, it may just be easier and cheaper to cut you losses and sort it yourself.
Most door mirrors are quite an easy change over, depending on your spannering skills.
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