Reading another forum (shame on me) the number of dishonest folk got me thinking.
So my question to you: You reverse your car into another car would you drive off if you thought you could get away with it? With the risk of your no claims been lost and your next years premium through the roof.!!
Or would you do the decent thing and own up?
Me id drive off as did the others who did it to my 2yr old car last year!!
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small scratch and i'd drive off but a dent or worse and i like to think i'd own up. but who knows until it happens
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I would (and am) honest.
One day, perhaps, someone will admit to causing the numerous dents, dings and scratches my cars have acquired.
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When I was a company car driver? I would.
Now? I would do a runner, just have people have done to me.
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...One day, perhaps, someone will admit to causing the numerous dents, dings and scratches my cars have acquired...
BT,
Don't worry about it, some marriages are stronger for things being left unsaid.
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I used to be an automatic 'cough it', trouble is over the years I/we have been on the recieving end of all sorts of dents and scratches, some of them hundreds of pounds worth and not one person did the decent thing.
So would I? I'd like to think so.
I have though in the past put a towbar right through someone's number plate when they left sod all room for me to get out...then reported it to the Old Bill to cover my 'arris ...safe in the knowledge that the other party probably wouldn't bother and the Old Bill wouldn't bother writing to then... and they didn't.
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I find it sad that most people who have posted in this thread have said they would not admit to causing damage. The reason given in many cases is that someone has done it to them in the past and has not "fessed up".
I fail to see the logical connection. If you knew that the person whose car you had just damaged had previously damaged yours without owning up, then at least it would be tit for tat. However, you don't know that.
And if you did know that, it would be a case of "two wrongs don't make a right" and you would have sunk to the level of those whom you despise.
It may be tough, but you need to cough.
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>> It may be tough, but you need to cough.
Nope - eye for an eye.
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>> eye for an eye.
This is total moral illiteracy. You can't avenge yourself on one person by injuring another. Be your age.
Perhaps people need to admit that they are toerags who do runners when they have caused accidental damage to someone's car.
I wouldn't deny that it might be tempting to do that especially if the damage is slight. But it is absurd to pretend it's morally justified - or justified in any way at all - simply because someone else has done it to you.
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Oh don't give me that sanctimonious holier than though rubbish AC
You have lived and driven in London. Don't deny its happened to you or you have done it to others.
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You can't avenge yourself on one person by injuring another.
It can work the other way, though. When our children were small, we received numerous gifts of used but usable equipment, toys and clothes from friends and neighbours whose own children had finished with them. No payment was asked of course, and there was no easy way to reciprocate in kind, but we in due course passed these things and our own items on to other parents who could use them. We happen to know that some of them have now done the same.
In any altruistic society there'll always be scope for the selfish opportunist, but it would be a pity to let that colour everything we do.
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The trick is to fill out a piece of paper and place it under the windscreen wiper. Bystanders think you're doing the right thing by leaving your name and address - whereas you either leave the paper blank or put someone else's details on it ;o)
Not that I'd do such a thing, I hasten to add.
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 18 Nov 10 at 18:31
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I'm 100% with CP and AC. I would never cause as much as a scratch to another car and not leave a note. Yes people have done it to me (sadly on the current C5 before it was 6mths old) but what on earth has that got to do with passing grief on to another inocent party?
As it happens I'm careful but a few years back a serious distraction from our youngest at 4yrs old in her child seat while I was parking caused me to do £600 of damage to an unoccupied parked car. No-one about and no CCTV but I left a business card, arranged the repair and coughed up the £600.
It's a standard I'd never let slip and one I've instilled in our children.
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...but I left a business card, arranged the repair and coughed up the £600...
I'm impressed, there's not many who could honestly say they would do that.
Apart from anything else, it wasn't so many years ago I would have struggled to raise the £600.
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Only once (to my knowledge) damaged a car whilst parallel parking. Maybe left foot braking would have helped;-)
I left my name and telephone number on a piece of paper under the windscreen wiper. Never heard anything. I go out of my way to avoid damaging cars at all times but especially when parking. Don't think it's anything altruistic, just my OCD kicking in again.
Now if only the selfish *******s who left a scratch down the side of my previously immaculate 16 year old Merc (presumably from a shopping trolley) felt the same way.
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I think I agree with you Fenlander. I say I think I do because up until now I've not had to put myself to the test. It has been done to me on a few occasions and I can remember being really annoyed that no one had the courtesy to leave a note. I'm pretty sure I would. It's all very well for us to complain about falling standards but we do have the ones applicable to our own lives in our personal control.
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Yep... and there's no holier than thou attitude in this... my grandfather and father were like this as was my wife's father so it's just the family way.
As a matter of interest... in case it sounds a tall story... I was in my Discovery easing into a tight space on hard lock. Distraction from a shouting child took my eye off the ball enough not to realise the arc described by the front bumper was far wider than the steering angle would have suggested and I smoothly put a long deep groove right down a drivers door of an American car. Needed full door skin and expensive trim parts.
Of course the mark on the Discovery bumper rubbed off with the palm of my hand.
The £600 was plenty to me at that time but it didn't change how I viewed the responsibility.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Thu 18 Nov 10 at 19:26
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>> I'm 100% with CP and AC.
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I agree.
I didn't reply to this thread earlier as I feared it was another one of Bigtee's tricks
www.car4play.com/forum/post/index.htm?t=3531&m=72306&v=e
In the last two months, my car has been damaged three times in car parks, by drivers who must have taken lessons from Bigtee as they took the "drive off" stance of Bigtee. It is not minor dents and scratches damage, as it will cost over £1000 to repair the split bumper, the big dent in one door, and a deep long gouge in another door. But because the three incidents happened in rapid succession before I could get the first and then the second repaired, now with the third incident, I have decided to let it be and live with the damage.
I always take great care not to damage other people's property. If I do any damage, I offer to pay for it.
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>> its happened to you or you have done it to others.
Yes, people have dinged my car and done runners. I've had cars purposely vandalised too.
I was careful to avoid seeming holier than thou. I didn't say I hadn't done it or wouldn't do it. I may have done, but not for a serious crunched panel or broken headlight. And I have left a note for someone when I marked the rear valance of their Megane with my scuffed Escort. It wasn't a big crunch and may have been buffable. Anyway they didn't answer.
The point of my post wasn't to pose as virtuous (surely people must know me better than to believe that), but to underline the moral idiocy of regarding something like that as an eye for an eye. It's just slightly shabby behaviour, quite common but that doesn't justify it.
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I once pranged a car when I slid down an icy hill. I waited for the driver to appear, and exchanged details. Turns out he was driving a company car and I think they could not be bothered to claim for a dented sill as it would have meant the car being off the road. So I got off having a claim against me. On another occasion I scraped against the bumper of a car, leaving some red paint on the rubber. The car was an old banger, so I drove off.
I've a noticeable dent in the side of my door, which appeared overnight. And a large dent in the wing, which appeared overnight, probably due to someone using my car as a step up to their van. And there are lots of small dings in the paint work.
I suppose you have to realise that ownership of a car is the step between manufacture and the scrap yard, and not get too prissy about minor damage.
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When attempting to extract my old 306 from a parking bay at the local hospital I caught the front bumper of a (too big for the bay) Hilux next to me. The bumper was chrome, my car was silver, he probably didnt even notice the scratch. I noticed the dent in my door. :(
I didnt leave details, needless to say.
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There's some been raised proper and some that aint.
We try to do the right thing, seems rather quaint and old fashioned these days and we'll never be rich in the financial sense, but maybe richer in other ways.
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I just asked er indoors this question (she's watching the idiots lantern)
Her reply was "Mmmmm, I wouldn't like to say"
In a previous life, somewhere in S.E. London, I would have hit the gas pedal, but now I'm a Cornish Vulcan,
Mmmmm, I wouldn't like to say.
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I'd 'fess up and did when my gardening trailer stopped being a trailer, tried to undertake me and set off on its own to put a £2k graze in a parked A4 estate.
Still costing me in lost NCB but I did the right thing and, apart from the horror of knowing that the trailer had crossed an area where schoolchildren get off the bus a few minutes earlier, I could sleep at night.
I would hope the rest of the family would fess up to any wrongdoing as well.
Yes I've had cars scratched by others and no note left but I prefer to set my own standards.
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Well Thank you for been honest and telling the truth you would drive off too.!!
But if this was more serious than a scratch on the bumper like you stoved in the front or rear quarter then the damage to your own will be noticable too so then yes id exchange.
But if i clipped a door then off i go!!
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It really depends, if I caused any damage I would fess up. If it was just a 1mph touch of bumpers without a scratch I would probably drive off, I have seen people do that to my Panda anyway! There is already damage on it caused by what assume was the bin lorry.
Thankfully it is on the lower bumper and polish sorted it.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Thu 18 Nov 10 at 22:10
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I'm with Fenlander and others. It's the start of the rot if we think that it's acceptable to run off from some relatively minor damage. What's the difference between that and the burglar who takes £300 worth of your property?? Applying your own arbitrary standards of one's OK and the other isn't, just doesn't wash. Right is right and wrong is wrong.
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If you leave 300 quid in the street, It's going to get nicked.
You have to accept that a car is going to get minor parking damage,
It's inevitable if you live in a crowded isle like ours
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I'd claim off my insurance for the damage to my car. I'd give them details of the accident (time and place; the make, model, and registration number of the other car) and let them decide what action they should be take regarding damage to the other car. My policy says I should not accept responsibility for an accident, so I would not try to contact the owner of the other car.
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I did the decent thing years ago when I scraped the side of a parked van. Honesty is the best policy in my opinion.
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How many of you have squeezed past a car when walking and knocked the wing mirror? Yes i have and your jean studs may have scratched the paintwork (not sliding across the bonnet dukes of hazzard style) lol,
It happens yes it has to be accepted to a point cars can't be wrapped in cotton wool & the supermarket trolley seems to have a mind of there own and bump it finds it's way into my rear bumper before now!
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Be Honest and admit it can you? - nyx2k
