People definitely suck

[germ]

After reading above thread....


Coming back from work tonight, stopped in traffic on an overpass ramp behind old Toyota truck, about 4ft away. When traffic moves truck starts sliding back. I honk, but it's too late. He hits me with his steel hook.

Here's the dent on my front bumper. You can see the imprint of the hook support frame:




The guy has the balls to say that I hit him. Of course, without witnesses there's no way I can prove what happened.

What should I do? I somehow do not like to let him get away with nothing. I could:

1. Do nothing. To be honest, the car isn't new and there are a few other small bumps. OTOH, it is visible and every time I will look at it I will remember this lowlife.

2. File a claim. It will be impossible to prove what happened. I guess I will need a new bumper. Quick online search: $439. With shop markup, paint job, labor in SF Bay Area, I am looking at ~$1500 give or take a couple hundreds. My deductible for collision (damage to my car) is $500.

Suggestions (other than keep more distance in stopped traffic)?

[asiflicious]

Originally Posted by germ

After reading above thread....


Coming back from work tonight, stopped in traffic on an overpass ramp behind old Toyota truck, about 4ft away. When traffic moves truck starts sliding back. I honk, but it's too late. He hits me with his steel hook.

Here's the dent on my front bumper. You can see the imprint of the hook support frame:




The guy has the balls to say that I hit him. Of course, without witnesses there's no way I can prove what happened.

What should I do? I somehow do not like to let him get away with nothing. I could:

1. Do nothing. To be honest, the car isn't new and there are a few other small bumps. OTOH, it is visible and every time I will look at it I will remember this lowlife.

2. File a claim. It will be impossible to prove what happened. I guess I will need a new bumper. Quick online search: $439. With shop markup, paint job, labor in SF Bay Area, I am looking at ~$1500 give or take a couple hundreds. My deductible for collision (damage to my car) is $500.

Suggestions (other than keep more distance in stopped traffic)?

I'd say leave it alone or get a 1M bumper and paint it

[Matticus91]

Kinda tough since you're now after the fact and there was no one to back you up. Pursuing anything is pretty much pointless. $1500 for a front bumper is fucking nutty. Buy one off any site for around $300, have a shop paint it, and bolt it up yourself. Bumper uninstall/reinstall takes like 10 minutes.

As far as avoiding similar situations in the future, get a dashcam!

[germ]

@Matticus, my estimate for bumper replacement was just a guess on my part. It may be off.

However, your solution is probably the best. I'm not sure I can find a shop to paint it. I have taken down the bumper before and I agree it's easy.

I thought about the dashcam after posting this. My question is, would insurance companies actually bother looking at the footage?

[iminhell1]

There is/was a bumper in your color in the for sale section.
I can't recall if it near you or not though.


*edit
It's in LA --> http://www.1addicts.com/forums/showt...ghlight=bumper

[Esteban]

Sorry to hear about this. That guy is an asshole to not take responsibility for what happened. I say take Matticus91's advice. Sounds like the least expensive way to go.

[Mybimmer]

Install a dam cam on the weekend.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by germ

@Matticus, my estimate for bumper replacement was just a guess on my part. It may be off.

However, your solution is probably the best. I'm not sure I can find a shop to paint it. I have taken down the bumper before and I agree it's easy.

I thought about the dashcam after posting this. My question is, would insurance companies actually bother looking at the footage?

Yes, the insurance companies will. Before the invention of dash cams, I was involved in a wreck. I was making a left and was clearing the intersection when some old hag blew the light and rammed my passenger rear quarter panel/bumper. It became a he said she said thing. She tried to go after my insurance to pay for her damage. After what I told the claims adjuster, he denied her claim. I went after her insurance but had to get my car fixed under my policy.

I had a friend who is a licensed professional engineer in mechanical engineering. He was certified as a court expert witness for car accident analysis. I asked him for his help. We went out to the intersection. Measured the distances and timed the lights. Also that day the road was a bit damp so he took that into consideration with his calculations. He did a whole write up and I submitted it to my insurance company as evidence. I didn't hear back for months about what happened and then one day I received a check in the mail for my full deductible I paid.

[Matticus91]

Originally Posted by germ

@Matticus, my estimate for bumper replacement was just a guess on my part. It may be off.

However, your solution is probably the best. I'm not sure I can find a shop to paint it. I have taken down the bumper before and I agree it's easy.

I thought about the dashcam after posting this. My question is, would insurance companies actually bother looking at the footage?

Just look up reviews of local shops online. Paint matching a bumper cover is pretty much 101. Worst case, get a quote from a certified BMW repair facility.

[olds350]

Originally Posted by Mybimmer

Install a dam cam on the weekend.

^this^

Probably too late now for any insurance action, but this scenario is exactly why I just installed a dash cam in my 128 (see my current thread). With the video you have proof of the other driver being at fault, or if it's your fault, well, do what's best...

[tock172]

File a claim with your insurance provider and tell them exactly what happened to you. They will go up to bat for you and attempt to recover payment from the other driver via subrogation. It doesn't matter what the other guy said to you or what lies he tries to tell his carrier.

[Matticus91]

Originally Posted by tock172

File a claim with your insurance provider and tell them exactly what happened to you. They will go up to bat for you and attempt to recover payment from the other driver via subrogation. It doesn't matter what the other guy said to you or what lies he tries to tell his carrier.

Issue with this is that there will then be an accident on record, and he'll still have to pay a deductible. With that, GOOD LUCK getting diminished value out of the guy in this case.

[tock172]

Originally Posted by Matticus91

Issue with this is that there will then be an accident on record, and he'll still have to pay a deductible. With that, GOOD LUCK getting diminished value out of the guy in this case.

The accident being reported to the state depends on what facility performs the repair.

As far as the deductible is concerned, my insurance carrier has always been successful in recovering 100% of the amount in question, and that has always included my deductible. I've had to wait a month or two, but State Farm has fought hard for me even when the other party has attempted to deny liability.

[champignon]

Catchy Title :-)

I'm not addressing your particular situation, being as you have already been given a number of pieces of advice and I have nothing to add on that score.

I have been very fortunate in my driving career, so far, which spans decades. I did rear-end some fellow when I was 16 and had just gotten my driver's license, but I think the dispensation for that has arrived with the passage of more than 4 decades :-) My 1993 325i did get run into by a teenager at some point in my 10 years of ownership, but I can no longer remember when that was. I did pull up a Carfax on that car out of curiosity a couple of years ago, and it (surprisingly) was still on the road, somewhere in the SE USA, thousands of miles away from where I drove it the first 10 years. I went for quite a while, decades, without having anything other than the odd door ding received in a parking lot.

Then, in short order, my nearly new (but now long gone) STi was vandalized in a Home Depot parking lot, to the tune of $1800. Within a year, another one of my cars was backed into in a Costco parking lot by a hit and run schmuck, who left no note; I chose to pay for that repair out of my own pocket rather than risk a big bump in my car insurance premium, being as I had only shortly before claimed on the STi vandalism damage. That set me back $800, and the body shop gave me a deal because of my repeat business and the fact that I paid for it out of pocket.

After those two experiences, the last one of which was within the last 2 years, every time I parked my car I anticipated that when I would come back out to the car I would find that it had been damaged. Fortunately, that has not been the case, and I have slowly gotten over that paranoia.

There are definitely places one might live where the risk of damage to one's car is high and where one can anticipate car trauma on a repeated and frequent basis. Most of us, fortunately, do not live in places like this. With luck, these sorts of experiences at the hands of cretins won't happen all that often, even if they occur a couple of times in rapid sucession; it's just the "law of large numbers."

[germ]

Originally Posted by tock172

File a claim with your insurance provider and tell them exactly what happened to you. They will go up to bat for you and attempt to recover payment from the other driver via subrogation. It doesn't matter what the other guy said to you or what lies he tries to tell his carrier.

@tock172, you seem to be the contrarian that thinks I should file a claim. I do not see how my insurance will be able to recover a payment from the other driver. I have Liberty Mutual and I doubt they "will go up to bat" for me. However, I will email my agent and ask for advice. So far it seems to me that the negatives of filing a claim are more than the positives.

[tock172]

Originally Posted by germ

@tock172, you seem to be the contrarian that thinks I should file a claim. I do not see how my insurance will be able to recover a payment from the other driver. I have Liberty Mutual and I doubt they "will go up to bat" for me. However, I will email my agent and ask for advice. So far it seems to me that the negatives of filing a claim are more than the positives.

My contrarian nature is a result of widespread misunderstanding of how insurance works.

You're paying Liberty Mutual a premium to keep your vehicle insured. Someone hit your vehicle. Why would you not use your carrier to do their job and have your vehicle fixed at the expense of the person who caused the damage? You have his license plate number, right?

I've been in this situation more than once. I've gone the route of trying to file a police report which was worthless as it was clear the cops had no interest in helping me. None of it mattered, and I've always been made whole. Insurance companies decide things between themselves outside of court via subrogation. You need to be confident and assertive, and above all, clearly explained your side of the story, including the part about the at-fault party attempting to dodge responsibility.

The only thing that would dissuade me from filing a claim is the size of the damage. If I came back to find my car with this type of damage in a parking lot, I would do everything I could to find the guilty individual (reviewing security footage, etc), but if that proved fruitless, I would pay out of pocket to have it fixed. The fact that you witnessed someone hitting your car changes everything. You pay your carrier for help in scenarios exactly like this. They are obligated to go after him on your behalf, and Liberty Mutual is an industry leader, not some cut-rate player. Be prepared to give an oral statement of exactly what occurred.

[Mr Gasser]

dash cam is a great idea...you will use it...

[champignon]

Originally Posted by Mr Gasser

dash cam is a great idea...you will use it...

Or someone will smash in one of your car windows and then steal it :-)

[ShocknAwe]

Need to get a dash cam. My car has been hit twice in the last couple months in my parking garage. Got a nice puncture in my rear bumper, and scuff all the way to the plastic on my front bumper as a nice "fuck you" from the feckless assholes.

[JimVonBaden]

Originally Posted by Matticus91

Kinda tough since you're now after the fact and there was no one to back you up. Pursuing anything is pretty much pointless. $1500 for a front bumper is fucking nutty. Buy one off any site for around $300, have a shop paint it, and bolt it up yourself. Bumper uninstall/reinstall takes like 10 minutes.

As far as avoiding similar situations in the future, get a dashcam!

I rarely drive without a dashcam. Without it the OP may as well suck it up and either fix it, or leave it. Sucks big, but that is reality.

[JimVonBaden]

Originally Posted by germ

I thought about the dashcam after posting this. My question is, would insurance companies actually bother looking at the footage?

Absolutely they will.

[chris_flies]

This aught to be repairable by a good body shop, the plastic can be formed when heated, it's how they plan to repair my recent boo-boo (rear ended), along with refinishing and repainting, and replacing the damaged crunch pad.

And yes, people definitely suck. It seems we all have to find this out the hard way...

BTW, 4ft is a perfectly decent distance in stop-and-go traffic to be stopped behind someone. It's the other guys' fault, and he should feel horrible for damaging your magnificent car...