car crashed---what to do??need advises,plz!

gilbert

hey,guys,my car has been crashed a few days ago.
the story is
i was driving my car from dumdum to Barton road east, I stopped my car in front traffic light(it is amber flashing arrow light all the time, it is huge traffic junction, thus I did pay more attention on it, I looked both sides, (only red, amber and flashing amber arrow lights) no cars were in the middle of junction, thus it was cleared for me to go without any problem, I made left turn into the line, where is close to kerb (two parallel lines ), about 5 seconds, my car suddenly has been hit and pushed onto left hand side of kerb. And I am off the car, I saw the one witness (who is driving behind him),said that I saw him driving through the green light, and left his name and number to the other party. And there are two parallel lines for driving, but his driving line bend into my line.(two line become into one line, his driving line is finished) ,because he is driving though the green light without slowing down into the other line, which lead him bend into my line, he did not pay attention on other road driver,(his girl friend said that her dog just got operation done, and try to explain the condition of his dog to me)

i got a few questions about this?

1, that was the first accident i had, thus i rang the garda to come over scene at that time,the garda ask me whether was anyone in injury,i said no to him,he said"that is no point for them to come over ,just exchange the detail,and let insurance to deal with it,and you can leave ',the driver was very nervous at that time, i was nervous,too,so we did exchange detail, and left the scene without taking any pics. and i believe that it was his fault, thus i rang his insurance and make a claim, and i got call two days ago from my insurance company. and tell me that that guy try to against my policy as well. and i obvious refuse to accept liability, and my insurance company said they will investigate the case,his insurance has accessed my car damaged, and give me write off value 3300 euro for 01 toyota corolla terra(90000miles),i only have this car for 12 mths, and my questions are

1) could insurance company trust whatever he said,cos he got witness at that time ?(cos i had no experiences to deal with this situation before, thus i made so many mistake, such as didnt insist to ask cop to come over,didnt take pics of damage, didn't get witness,didnt clarify the responsibility)

2)i talked to my solicitor,who is so useless in this case(she said that she help me to deal with it, but 3 days after i called the other party's insurance, they didnt even know about the solicitor,i have to explain everyting to them and request the accessor to come over by myself),what should i do with this solicitor?(solicitor is from claim assistant company,how much does it cost?
http://www.motor-assist.ie/)

3)the car will be writen off by insurance company,thus can i refuse to accept this offer,cos i lost too much money on this offer?estate damage from garage is 3200 euro for repairing.it costed me 7000 12 mths ago.
what should i do if i refuse to take the offer?

4)can i insist to ask insurance company to repair my car?

thank you very much!

Berty

My brain hurts :mad:

patrickc

mine too gilbert it's hard to understand your post

copacetic

at least the guards didn't arrive and do Gilbert for driving under the influence of some fucked up shit. Assuming he was driving in same nick as posting.

robz150

Your description is not the best but I know the road and can see what happened from your sketch. Two lanes narrow into one lane. You were on the inside lane and its the outside lane that narrows into that lane. Not clear was the light for you green or flashing amber if it was flashing amber and you turned in as this car was approaching I would if thought it was your fault as the way wasnt clear for you to pass safely. If it was Green perhaps he broke the Red or Amber lights and was going to fast to avoid you or assumed you would let him pass, then again green means proceed with caution not go, Did you not see this car approaching theres nothing blocking your view on this junction?

peasant

lads, be civil.

English obviously isn't gilbert's first language.


@gilbert

Just a remark about the value of your car. Unfortunately it doesn't really matter what you paid for it 12 months ago. The value is set at what it would cost you to replace your car with a similar one today. As the market has fallen a lot, their estimation sounds about right.

Esel

Four smart alecks posting with nothing to contribute. This is not AH guys. It should be obvious to you that English is not the OP's first language. I'd like to see any of you make as good an attempt in French, for example.

Gilbert, the flashing amber arrow means you can turn if it is safe to do so, and usually means that there could be other traffic coming through the junction which would have the right of way. The fact that the junction itself was clear does not mean that you have the right to proceed. You should check all the approaches to the junction as well.

Get an independent estimate of the cost of repairs to your car. You say that his insurance company has assessed the damage to your car. Has the other driver then admitted liability (that the accident was his fault)? Are they offering you €3,300 to get the car repaired or €3,300 and they keep the car?

You should get back onto your solicitor (via e-mail at present due to holiday period etc.) and ask them to clarify everything.

The fact that the other driver has a witness who may say he drove through on a green light does not necessarily mean that he was not at fault. You say the collision did not occur until 5 seconds after you turned? If that is true, the other driver should have had ample time to see your car and avoid colliding with it. Did he collide with the rear of your car, or the right-hand side of it as shown in your diagram?

Edit: I was composing my post while Peasant posted.

Tails142

Looking at that diagram it looks like it was your fault

You turned left at an amber light, when there was a car coming through the junction and merging into the lane you were driving into.

In my opinion this accident would not have happened if either of you were paying attention, you could have either braked and let him merge ahead of you, or he could have stayed in his lane and driven over the hatched area to avoid a collision. How you managed to run into the side of him when starting from stationary and think it was his fault I dont know.

Also, I would reccommend taking the car regs out of the attachment

Esel

Tails142 wrote: »

How you managed to run into the side of him when starting from stationary....

Where did to OP say this???

x in the city

If you looked properly you would have seen the offending car and avoided a collision?

i think its your fault, my 2 cents

bigpinkelephant

Hi Gilbert,
To be on the safe side, maybe take your registration number and the other car's number off your diagram. You're better off remainng anonymous with things like this.

robz150

x in the city wrote: »

If you looked properly you would have seen the offending car and avoided a collision?

i think its your fault, my 2 cents

I think so too. If you didn't see him coming or didn't check your mirrors before the merge its a bit careless. Having said that there are junctions that merge into one all over the country and I don't see much common courtesy by drivers in either lane. Its possible the other driver just thought he could barge his way through and you would stop inconsiderite driving but I think you could of avoided it by paying more attention.

Anyway best of luck with getting back on the road:)

Oh yeah and I'd accept the cash offered and get another car. Put it all down to experience.

gilbert

peasant wrote: »

lads, be civil.

English obviously isn't gilbert's first language.


@gilbert

Just a remark about the value of your car. Unfortunately it doesn't really matter what you paid for it 12 months ago. The value is set at what it would cost you to replace your car with a similar one today. As the market has fallen a lot, their estimation sounds about right.

Berty wrote: »

My brain hurts :mad:

sorry about that

yea,thanks!you got me!hah,it is not my mother tongue

Tails142 wrote: »

Looking at that diagram it looks like it was your fault

You turned left at an amber light, when there was a car coming through the junction and merging into the lane you were driving into.

In my opinion this accident would not have happened if either of you were paying attention, you could have either braked and let him merge ahead of you, or he could have stayed in his lane and driven over the hatched area to avoid a collision. How you managed to run into the side of him when starting from stationary and think it was his fault I dont know.

Also, I would reccommend taking the car regs out of the attachment

sorry,my bad,i took it off from pic!

esel wrote: »

Four smart alecks posting with nothing to contribute. This is not AH guys. It should be obvious to you that English is not the OP's first language. I'd like to see any of you make as good an attempt in French, for example.

Gilbert, the flashing amber arrow means you can turn if it is safe to do so, and usually means that there could be other traffic coming through the junction which would have the right of way. The fact that the junction itself was clear does not mean that you have the right to proceed. You should check all the approaches to the junction as well.

Get an independent estimate of the cost of repairs to your car. You say that his insurance company has assessed the damage to your car. Has the other driver then admitted liability (that the accident was his fault)? Are they offering you €3,300 to get the car repaired or €3,300 and they keep the car?

You should get back onto your solicitor (via e-mail at present due to holiday period etc.) and ask them to clarify everything.

The fact that the other driver has a witness who may say he drove through on a green light does not necessarily mean that he was not at fault. You say the collision did not occur until 5 seconds after you turned? If that is true, the other driver should have had ample time to see your car and avoid colliding with it. Did he collide with the rear of your car, or the right-hand side of it as shown in your diagram?

Edit: I was composing my post while Peasant posted.

Thank you for your replies!sorry about that confusion.my english is very poor and hard to be understood.sorry about that anyway.

Tbh,I just try to explain the whole story,it is nothing to do with the flashing amber arrow, because i was on the main road already,he came from the downhill, he drove through the green light too fast, the guy has been stay in pet hospital for the whole night(he told me that his dog just finished the operation.)in my opinion that he might be too tired to drive the car,and he did not pay attention on other road user.) please check new attached.


no, the guy did not admit liability,but the insurance company has got engineer to assessed my car already.and they said that my car would be written off after once the liability has been distributed. and they also ask me to send my car log book and offer acceptance to insurance company.

and i got a letter from the solicitor,she said that she would follow the case.

robz150 wrote: »

Your description is not the best but I know the road and can see what happened from your sketch. Two lanes narrow into one lane. You were on the inside lane and its the outside lane that narrows into that lane. Not clear was the light for you green or flashing amber if it was flashing amber and you turned in as this car was approaching I would if thought it was your fault as the way wasnt clear for you to pass safely. If it was Green perhaps he broke the Red or Amber lights and was going to fast to avoid you or assumed you would let him pass, then again green means proceed with caution not go, Did you not see this car approaching theres nothing blocking your view on this junction?

the road condition was green for him and flashing amber arrow for me,but the whole point is that he try to cut into my line. i did not see his car approaching the traffic light,i drove my car on slow speed,he was on high speed to go though the green light form downhill.actually his passenger side wheel hit my car driver side wing panel.

gilbert

bigpinkelephant wrote: »

Hi Gilbert,
To be on the safe side, maybe take your registration number and the other car's number off your diagram. You're better off remainng anonymous with things like this.

THX,my bad

gilbert

robz150 wrote: »

I think so too. If you didn't see him coming or didn't check your mirrors before the merge its a bit careless. Having said that there are junctions that merge into one all over the country and I don't see much common courtesy by drivers in either lane. Its possible the other driver just thought he could barge his way through and you would stop inconsiderite driving but I think you could of avoided it by paying more attention.

Anyway best of luck with getting back on the road:)

Oh yeah and I'd accept the cash offered and get another car. Put it all down to experience.

i do not try to against you,no offense.just wondering that if you drive on the main road and you see a car behind you,are you going to stop your car and wait for other car coming up and let them cut into your line?

robz150

gilbert wrote: »

i do not try to against you,no offense.just wondering that if you drive on the main road and you see a car behind you,are you going to stop your car and wait for other car coming up and let them cut into your line?

No offense taken, am I right in saying you had just pulled onto the road, It would be my opinion that it was not safe to do so as there was a car approaching you at speed. Is it possible you saw him but thought that if you got to the single lane first he would have to slow down/stop. If this is the case in my opinion thats dangerous driving on your part and contributed to the accident.

Not saying the other guy is blameless either he was probably doing some speed saw someone pull out but thought he could overtake before the lane narrowed.

Thats how I imagine it would look from both sides anyway, could be completely wrong. Am I?

Don't mean to be blaming anyone but I see the same scenario at this junction all the time. Two cars fighting for one lane one usualy backs down.

But unlike in your case its usually a race by from the 2 lanes at the traffic lights opposite into that one lane.