Last week while driving to work on the main road another driver shot out of a side road without warning when I was less than three car lengths away. I managed to avoid T-boning her car but her driver headlight side hit the passenger headlight side of mine and shunted me into oncoming traffic and a third vehicle. She was rushing to a personal family tragedy and not in a fit state of mind and admitted as much. This is not really the issue, it's being dealt with although I really don't like all these ambulance chasing lawyers. My Skoda was written off.

I had a garage courtesy car. This was picked up on Saturday morning and I was asked to go to a local hire company to pick up a car. At the time they only had a Vauxhall Meriva available. I took it and drove three miles home and parked it outside my house. Ten minutes later I left the car there and went off in the car of my old driving instructor just to build up my confidence as I am now really worried every time someone is waiting at a junction and afraid they will just shoot out. (I'm not a kid but only have been driving in the UK a year having worked abroad for most of my life).

We came back to the house about an hour later. As we passed the car my driving instructor shouted out that it was all scratched. I thought he was joking. I looked out someone had hit the back of my wheel hub and scraped all the panels on the driver/road side it looked a mess. There were bits of plastic from the other car stuck in mine and on the floor by the wheel. I picked them up and kept them. I reported it to the hire company, the police and my insurers I was told I would have to pay the excess (£350) and that my premium would now go up. I was already paying £2600 a year fully comp for a class 4 vehicle (and that really was the cheapest I could get as an older female but inexperience driver). I also have to pay the excess for the earlier accident until I can recover it and have the claim from the driver I was shunted into. I am in despair -- and think I'll end up in a noddy car -- if I could afford one. I reported the incident to the police and had to wait around for two hours there because one person was on duty and there were several people ahead of me.
I haven't driven the hire car since and want to return it as soon as the company opens on Tuesday. I'll get about with taxis. I would use my bicycle but in too much pain from the bruising from the collision.

I spent some time looking around local garages to see if anybody took a car in with matching damage. I didn't spot anything. Then today as I go to the end of the street I see an "old banger" with front bumper damage exactly the same colour as the bits I found. I went and got the bits I'd found by my damaged hire car and they fitted perfectly like a jigsaw. I took photos of the car and reported the numberplate to the police. They said they would get someone on it - but it's just sitting there. I don't know who the driver is but it has been parked in our street before. As it is a bank holiday weekend I cannot get hold of the insurers or the hire people. I'm afraid that I'm still going to be heald liable. I don't really have witnesses a couple of neighbours heard a bang and one saw a car run off at speed but at 80 year's old struggled to describe it.

Is there anything I can do? Other than just hope the police do their job? Will I ultimately have this hit and run putting my premium up (if it was my own car and not a hire car I probably would have just got it fixed at my own expense).