Hello all

Someone hit our mini today. My wifey was driving on the very far right lane of three lanes and was about to take freeway ramp by turning right. About 10ft before the intersection, someone on the second lane suddenly came into our car and scratched the wheel, scratched plastic cover of wheel well, and took off the cover of side mirror of the driver side. no damage on the metal panel

Obviously this person tried to make a sudden lane change and its all her fault, and the damage does not seem that much, The offender's car(expredition) is clean with scratch on the fender which contacted with side mirror. and the offender first said she would be responsible for it, and all of sudden she says my wifey came into her side and they want to go through insurance to fight.. what the hell?

My wifey took the pictures of the damages on both cars, but we do not have the pic of where it exactly happened because offender passed intersection after the contact and my wife followed her to stop.

So far I have put on a claim to offender's insurance. Is there anything to do to make this go smooth? Will my insurance company be needed to fight this case in case they keep lying? Its really stupid because there seems to be really minimal damage and the offender shouldve just offered cash settlement or something.. oh well.. I dont want to use my insurance to settle this stupid case with such a small damage in case they cannot fight properly. It just raises my insurance premium.


Any Advice is greatly appreciated, Thanks.

 

If you really want to make it go as smoothly as possible, just turn in a claim to your insurance. Let them do what they do.

 

Trust me you want to file a claim with your insurance company. I hope you also got the police involved and filed a police report.

 

I responded to a question similar to this in another thread yesterday.

Without a witness to testify which car merged into the other's lane, this will LIKELY turn into a Word vs Word situation. How can either insurance company determine which car moved into the other's lane just based on each driver's version and the damages on the cars ?? We can't. And if the Police do a report (not likely they would in this type of accident), they usually leave it up to the insurance companies to sort out the liability.

So with no witness, it's very likely each insurance company will hold the other liable. Which means each will pay for their own policyholder's damages (and your deductible will apply) but neither will consider their insured to be at fault.

Hopefully, the other drive does come clean and admit she came into wifey's lane, but don't hold your breath. I see this happen nearly every day on the job.

 

It seems to me that wifey had "the right of way" and was hit by the other vehicle.

 

This isn't a question of right-of-way. It's a merging accident, they were both traveling on the same road in the same direction... not a question of who had the right of way.

 

It seems CR&PW&JB has the problem nailed in that it's a he siad/she said argument. Possibly getting some video footage of the area the accident happened in so that you could visually explain what your wife was trying to do (take an exit ramp to the right) would make it obvious that she'd have no reason to suddenly attempt to get into a left hand lane.

 

Not that simple, Deviant. We often send our Task Reps out to the field to get photos of accident scenes. But when it's a case of one car merging into another, even in a case like this one where it seems odd that one might try to merge from an exit lane back onto the main roadway, it's still not proof that it happened in the way we feel most logical. After all, how many times in a day do we all witness someone doing something illogical on the roads ?

When you get into an accident with someone who merged into your lane, you really have to hope one of two things happen: The other driver is honest. Or you have a witness who stops at the scene.

Merging accidents are one of our most frustrating scenarios as Claim Reps... you have a feeling one person is telling the truth over the other person but you can't do anything about it because you know if it goes to arbitration, it will still come out as Word vs Word.

 

A similar accident happened with my daughter as she was exiting the highway, another car hit her just as you described, there was no problem with her insurance company as the other driver was clearly at fault.They paid the claim and subrogated the other persons insurance company. As your wife was in the right lane and another vehicle merged in to her and caused damaged to her vehicle on the drivers side, it's clearly the other drivers fault.

 

Clearly ?

Ummm... no. I've worked maybe 75 such merging claims and only a dozen or so of them are resoved this way. The vast majority are ruled Word vs Word as I've mentioned. You were fortunate.

 

Thank You for your really helpful answers.

Yes, It could be ugly since there is no clear "proof" We draw diagrams and took pictures of where it happened, we are just waiting for their insurance to call us back.
In worst case scenario, I at least hope they call it "draw" and fix our own cars ourselves without insurance involved. damage is so minimal it is laughable anyways, and I can ebay for parts Thank god for those plastic moldings!!
And it is not likely that the offender is going to admit her fault. I talked to her on the phone, and she and her husband were the most ignorant people. I mean, don't they even have conscience? I really don't understand those kinds of people.

Again Thank you for all the help!!!!