Last Wed. night I was on my way to pick up my wife from work. It was snowing like crazy and I had pulled into the driveway of where my wife works. I was doing about 10mph because of the snow and the fact they had not plowed yet. I'm about 10 feet from the intersection when a car drives though the intersection. When the driver sees me she stops in the middle of my lane. I tried to stop but because of the ice and having no where to go I clipped her rear quarter panel.
Just got done talking to her insurance company and even though she had a stop sign and i did not they are saying it is my fault. My insurance will do nothing since i do not have collision. The reasoning is that since I hit her in the rear she had already pulled out and I should have been able to avoid the accident.
God I love the f....ing laws in New York. It does not matter that she ran a stop sign. Quote from my insurance: "if you had hit her in the front of the car then it would be her fault". Huh? Because i tried to miss her and hit her in the rear of the car all of a sudden it is now my fault? On top of that my insurance is telling me that I am now partially responsible for the damage to her car.
Right now it looks like my only recourse is going to be small claims court. My only witness is my 9 year old daughter so it is pretty much going to be her word against mine. Since the accident happened on private property the Sheriffs department would not file a report.
The best part of all of this is that the lady that hit me is my wifes boss!

 

OH Boy.......good luck!.....this sounds a little sticky!

 

Should be fun. All she had to do was keep going and everything would have been fine. Since she stopped though with the rear of her car in my lane i had no place to go. The estimate for my repairs is almost $2100. According to kelly blue book the car is only worth $1800.

 

not the best of all worlds.. Hopefully your boss is an OK guy and understands. Your best to take some time and discuss the occurence with your boss rationally and make the best of it.

was a ticket issued?

 

It was not my boss but my wifes boss. No ticket was issued as the Sherriffs dept. would not even file a report since it was on private property.

 

does she have collission? if yes her ins co takes care of her car, and goes after your ins co for the $ and her deductible.

stand tough with your ins co. since there was no accident report, and with the weather being what it was they are going to have a hard time saying she didnt blow the stop sign. they have to take the position that she stopped at the stop sign, which is ridiculous since she would have seen you and not proceeded. since it was icy you had to obey laws higher than NYs, the laws of physics. try following that line with the ins co and see where it goes. good luck.

 

The thing I don't understand is even if she had stopped at the stop sign she still failed to yield the right of way plus she stopped in my lane. Where was i supposed to go?

 

Ouch, sounds like a no win situation. Good luck with it.

 

Ijust got off the phone with the sheriffs office and they may go ahead and let me file a report even though the 10 day grace period has expired. Since i did not recieve the estimate until Friday and because of the holidays they might waive the time limit.

 

Yeah, this is all going to end in tears.

 

That sucks man. I'm sorry. but hey, $2,500 is'nt a lot of money (as compared a new car like a 951) but it will hurt the wallet if the claims don't work in your favor. good luck man.

 

stress in the report that you tried to stop but couldnt. had you not tried to avoid the accidient you would have been farther into the intersection and gotten hit in your door. had she stopped you would have continued on your way with your right of way. stress you had right of way.

stress she did not stop. it is not what you say, but how you say it.

you had right of way. she did not stop for stop sign. you tried to avoid accident but couldnt. she stopped in intersection after blowing stop sign.

change your paradigm and present the facts the way the insurance co wants to see them. at first glance it is assumed the broken front bumper had the last chance to avoid the accident. prove them wrong and stress you tried to avoid the accident.

 

Agreed. I clipped someone in the rear earlier this year because of a blind corner and poor road conditions as she was stopped in the travelling lane in the absolute worst possible spot and even though I wasn't travelling more than the speed limit, I had little chance to do anything in my lil Saturn. I did manage to drive off the right side of the road rather than crash into her fully in the rear and ended up on a bank and had to climb out the passenger side. Damage was about the same estimate as you got.

This was on a public road and at least she did admit to the officer that yes, she was stopped in the lane of travel (and she got a ticket for impeding traffic) and her insurance had to pay for my car. My insurance started to tell me that since I was behind her that it was my fault. They sent an insurance investigator/adjuster out when I told them how I felt about that and we went through the accident at the site and although he refused to agree with me there on the spot, I found out that sure enough they had sided with me (she had the same insurance company as me and the same company still had to pay and even with the officer issuing her a ticket instead of me when I managed to make a probably $6000-8000 accident plus possible injuries into a sub-$3000 one avoiding her, they were trying to shift the blame onto me).

Make them come out to the site and prove it to them. Take it up with your insurance company and make them send someone out to look at the site and SHOW them what you did (well, not literally). But being on site is sometimes a big help as they can visualize the accident better. Your insurance company doesn't want to have to pay out money. Help them see that they don't have to.

Good luck!!!!

 

My roommate got clipped going through an intersection when a guy decided to go around cars (on the shoulder i might add) stopped at a stop light going the other direction. The insurance company said the accident was 10% his fault for not looking behind him going through the intersection and that he could have avoided it.

I say try and settle away from the insurance company, maybe your wife's boss is cool and will admit to the accident being his fault and pay for it.

 

Now this is the rear side? Not the rear rear? Sounds like they are blowing smoke if it's the rear side.