I've avoided quite a few rear endings...

If you're coming to a quick stop, WATCH YOUR REARVIEW! Stop 4-5 feet before the car in front of you, then watch the car in the back... if you think they're going to need a few more feet, creep up. If you think they need 6-7 more feet, drive off into the shoulder.

 

FYI guys, CarFax is pretty much worthless. I've personally seen cars that were totaled NOT show up on CarFax, and other cars with minor damage (parking lot stuff) show up as major damage.

Take anything you read on CarFax VERY lightly. The reporting all has to do with insurance, but insurance companies are all different, and believe me, lots of stuff slips through the cracks.

 

About a month back, I was on a local highway (speed limit 55 mph) and this genius is driving his BMW at 40 mph in the left lane (there were 4 lanes). He had a queue of patient drivers behind him, but he never cared.

After tailing this queue for about 2 miles, I lost my patience and tried passing him in the immediate right lane. Genius wakes up at that moment and decides to swing into the right lane, right into my MINI. Had it not been for the quick reflexes of the MINI and a couple of empty lanes, I would have been in a pretty bad situation.

Genius then realizes his mistake and reverts back to the left lane again (blocking all the traffic). And this WHOLE time he had a cell phone tucked in between his chin and shoulder. The whole incident was almost 10 minutes long!!!

I really felt like ramming my MINI into him and doing something real bad!!!.

 

At the very least there are these two brackets
that hold your bumper on (can't see them unless you
take off the bumper) that are broken.
There is a metal bracket that also holds the bumper on.
That is now bent in a couple of inches.
The heat sheild for your muffler is now also smashed in.

This is at the very least.

If you are thinking you will be getting some type of diminished
value for now having a smashed car that was new, and now
you have a carfax saying it was crashed, you won't be getting any
unless you: have your own insurance fix it with the idea that
they will then collect it back from the other insurance company,
and then you sue the other people/insurance company in small
claims court for what you can estimate/proove is diminished value.
You will have a hard time getting a mini dealer to give you an
estimate of dimished value for your case because they will
"not want to be involved".

or, you can take the man's check which will be for about
75% of the actual damages, eat the rest, and move on with your life.

 

The best thing I have done, and actually my only "mod" is
here:
http://www.racinglab.com/polarg.html
The mini has two seperate tail/brake light bulbs if you didn't notice.
One top and one bottom, the blinker is in the middle.

I've replaced the top one with the ultra white halogen which gives
a reddish orange hue.

The bottom light I have the ultra red halogen bulb, which gives
a distintive very red hue.

Both are brighter than the original stinky bulbs.

Using the ultra white for the turn signals didnt change the hue but
made them a little brighter.

I have the gominigo modulator (I think that was the site).
(the third brake light blinker)

This has done wonders for people running up on me.

(I got hit when it was two months old, about $1200 in damage,
I get $650 from the insurance company and the kind advice
"you can take the check and like it or sue us")

My next step I will be writing up a DIY for european style
auxilliary safety lights that are not available in the US.
I just have to get my wife's car out of the garage first.
(have stockpiled all the parts)

 

I am also in the process of upgrading the
rear lights on my wife's VW and my CRX.

It just has to be worked in.

It's actually kinda expensive when you consider
the number of bulbs involved.

There is a different site I can find if anybody is
interested for a 27W bulb, but it is only in
white. The normal bulbs are 21W.

If all this doesn't work I guess the next step
is rear facing fog lights with red lenses, rigged up
as brake lights.

I realize this sounds extreme. One day I will be able to
expand on my bmw being totalled by no looking phone talking
monster truck driver.

 

Thank you everyone for your feedback.


I am needing advice how to proceed with this. This is my first accident and I know not of what to do.

I called my insurance agent and she said she didn't need any information because they will be forwarded the police report and go from there.

To make sure we were on common ground, she wanted to know if I had taken the other partys' insurance and license information, a police report, any witnesses, and any injuries.

My friend (passenger) and I both feel fine, but my family and co-workers tells me we should go get a check up just in case.

Questions are:

- Do I bring my car to a body repair shop to get an estimate or the dealership?

- Do I go get a check up for even the most minor of injuries?

- Do I follow up with the other party's insurance company in regards to the accident?

- How to proceed with small claims court?

- Are there other things to be aware of and not to brush off or ignore lightly?


Thank you.

 

I'm interested. I've been eyeballing these additional red led brake lights that goes into the rear fog lights slots in the grille. Are these what you are referring to?

I've thought about this quite a lot before but was never prepared because I was never in such a scenario. I shall know better now with this experience. Thanks for the tip.

 

1) Your insurance company sometimes has a list of "preferred" body shops, or even its own shop that estimates the damage. Check with them about it first... otherwise, go to 2 independent shops and get separate estimates to compare.

2) You could get a check up. No harm in that. If its been more than a few days and you're not sore, I'm sure all is well. Personally I'd skip it if I felt fine 2 days later, but thats me

3) No need to follow up with the other persons insurance, thats what your insurance company does. You said that your agent didn't want the other persons info? That seems strange. I'd tell it to them anyway, even if they think they'll get it from the police report.

4) I don't think you'll need small claims court. Unless the person has no insurance, everything will be paid for.

5) Not much else to the process. The insurance companies shoudl keep you in the loop, and hopefully you'll have a check in the mail soon to pay for your repairs.

 

The above are replacement bulbs only.
I wish I had that icon
THIS POST IS WORTHLESS WITHOUT PICS
I will try to get some pics of my upgraded
dual-hued brakelights this weekend.

To clarify more, I have replaced the factory bulbs,
in the stock tail lights, with upgraded halogen bulbs.

I have not changed the fog light into brake lights.
It's a good idea, but, I really find my foglight used
as a back-off no warning shots fired light is very handy.
It has an upgraded bulb also.

My DIY I am planning to add auxilliary bulbs in
my lense, where the reverse lights currently reside.

___
Your insurance company will handle the damage to your car.
The problem in the modern world is
1. it is hard to get a written estimate from people now.
2. if you can get a written estimate, on a modern car, there
is about equal to that much in hidden damage, once you
take the car apart.
3. the body shops now for the most part want you to drop
the car off, they provide an initial estimate to the insurance company,
then provide an adendum for hidden damage once the car is taken
apart.
4. its fine to use their preferred repair shop (I think).
being a new, fairly rare car, your insurance company will probably
agree to having it fixed at the mini or bmw place.
any billybob will be able to fix the physical damage.
the trick is to find somebody that you are really sure can do the
best humanly possible on the paint job. you will still be able to
tell it was repainted because the refractive index of the
clearcoat will be different. But, with a true professional this
can be minimized so you can really only barely tell, and only
if you the person looking at it knew it was repainted.

you will have to check the local rules for small claims court.
you would not be going to small claims court for the property damage,
as the insurance is taking care of that. you would be going to
court for other damages - your deductable (which eventually might
be returned by the other insurance company), and diminished value.

small claims court is much more complicated than on TV, and will
most likely eat a tremendous amount of your time. That's why
I ended up going the eat the other $600 i'm out route. That $600
didn't include diminished value by the way, it was hidden damage.

If you are not having pains by now you are probably OK.
I'm not sure what the doctor will say to you if nothing is broken.
(just not sure, can't offer up good advice)

 

When I said rear facing foglights I now realize
that implied those wimpy little things on the back.

No, if I can't get people to stop smashing me, I will
be installing lights, like that are on the front of the
car, in my hatch window. So like, front facing
lights, just with red lenses.

 

You may never look at your cooper the same again...

 

I narrowly avoided getting rear-ended in my brother's BMW (R.I.P he put it in a tirewall after his brakes failed - not totaled but sold nonetheless - that was an unecessary tangent) on a blind hill at a yield sign with lots of traffic. There was plenty of time to stop but he wasn't paying attention. It was a big pickemuptruck (veeery poor brakes) and I had to high-tail it into the shoulder to avoid being hit at maybe 20-30 miles per hour. That would have hurt a lot.

 

I just thought of something.
They made these strips of LEDs.
You could put a couple strips of them
across the hatch window (making it
look not ugly). So a couple hundred
LEDs blink when you hit the brakes.

I've done all my ideas in incriments, then
waited a month or two to see if i noticed
a change in the maniacs' behaviours.

one set of halogen bulbs not much of a difference.
Then, upgraded the lower bulbs, different hueness.
The maniacs backed off.

I noticed a HUGE back off increase when I added
that blinking circuit to the third brake light.

 

1) Get an estimate from a MINI dealer. They should know the ins and outs to be able to tell you what it will take to fix the damage. As long as the other party's insurance is paying, make sure you get it done right.

2) Go to the doc to get checked out. It can take a while for symptoms to surface, better safe than sorry. Can't cost much out of pocket, and think of it as making sure you don't have worse problems down the line.

3) Your insurance company should be doing this for you. That's why they're there. It's one of the reasons I dropped Progressive, because they wanted me to do all the foot work and then just tell them if they needed to write a check. Geico actually dealt with the other party, which made for a better situation.

4) Don't worry about small claims. You should be fine with the insurance.

5) Just take it easy and realize that things happen. It's a learning experience, but also note that this accident, although it's not your fault, can cause your rates to increase. Also if you look for other insurance, they will ask how many accidents you've been in within X years, and that includes not at fault accidents.

Good luck with everything and hopefully your MINI will be back in tip top shape soon!

 

I didn't realize your rates can go up when the
accident is not your fault.

Very interesting.

All the more reason to bump up my lighting situation.

 

Keep in mind I was not advocating the poor guy spending
100 hours of his time trying to figure out how to get
a small claims judgement for $500 in diminished value.
I was only saying that an insurance company will not pay
diminished value unless you sue them. Well I guess technically
you would sue the person that hit you.

But funny, if The Man goes to pay out on a totalled car, he
is the FIRST to insist that the value is diminished if
it has a carfax for even a small bump up.

Funny that, eh.

WELCOME TO THE NEW WORLD ORDER

 

Oh yeah, and if you have rental coverage on your
policy that is great.

But if you accept The Man's offer for a rental car
(meaning the other insurance company) you will then
be accepting every ridiculous demand they make.

No matter how uncomfortable it makes your personal life
DO NOT ACCEPT THE MANS RENTAL CAR
YOU HAVE NO CONTROL OVER THE SITUATION FROM THAT POINT

There is no legal statute that says they have to give you a rental.
They are not giving you a rental because they are nice people
and feel bad. IT IS A BUSINESS MODEL
THEY MAKE MORE MONEY IF THEY GIVE YOU A RENTAL

WHICH ALSO MEANS YOU LOSE MORE MONEY

If you are that hard up stuck for a rental, rent it yourself you
can name your own price on priceline, and just sue them for it.