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Clipped someone's wing mirror and drove off

Is anything likely to come of this? She beeped at me but didn't follow my car, she turned off afterwards.

Basically I tried to pass to the left of her in traffic as she was waiting to turn to the right and clipped the wing mirrors. Mine went back. Hers stayed in place. I could see, because I was going at 5mph at the time. I needed to go to work so I drove on. I have a tiny dot on my mirror with chipped paint, so I don't think her mirror will be damaged. As it was towards the outside of my mirror, which would have not hit if it was bent back in the first place.

I'm hoping not. A woman rear ended me once in traffic because she was on her mobile. She seemed desperate for me to drive on and I drove off too because I was terrified of saying anything to the insurance.
(edited 6 years ago)

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Original post by oldboy2007
Is anything likely to come of this? She beeped at me but didn't follow my car, she turned off afterwards.


Maybe she didn't follow you because she had a dash cam which had clearly recorded your numberplate and the fact that you drove off after having had a collision (yes, this counts as a collision) with her.
Original post by oldboy2007
Is anything likely to come of this? She beeped at me but didn't follow my car, she turned off afterwards.

Basically I tried to pass to the left of her in traffic as she was waiting to turn to the right and clipped the wing mirrors. Mine went back. Hers stayed in place. I needed to go to work so I drove on. I have a tiny dot on my mirror with chipped paint, so I don't think her mirror will be damaged. As it was towards the outside of my mirror, which would have not hit if it was bent back in the first place.

I'm hoping not. A woman rear ended me once in traffic because she was on her mobile. She seemed desperate for me to drive on and I drove off too because I was terrified of saying anything to the insurance.


Depends if their is no damage then no problem. But if she got your details and there is any damage.

She could report this to the police. They would look at it as fail to stop and fail to report accident.
Reply 3
Original post by Reality Check
Maybe she didn't follow you because she had a dash cam which had clearly recorded your numberplate and the fact that you drove off after having had a collision (yes, this counts as a collision) with her.

Won't that be Mutually Assured Destruction a la insurance if all the end result was 2 dots of chipped paint?
Original post by oldboy2007
Won't that be Mutually Assured Destruction a la insurance


:lol: I really like that. So accurate! :smile:
Original post by oldboy2007
Is anything likely to come of this? She beeped at me but didn't follow my car, she turned off afterwards.

Basically I tried to pass to the left of her in traffic as she was waiting to turn to the right and clipped the wing mirrors. Mine went back. Hers stayed in place. I could see, because I was going at 5mph at the time. I needed to go to work so I drove on. I have a tiny dot on my mirror with chipped paint, so I don't think her mirror will be damaged. As it was towards the outside of my mirror, which would have not hit if it was bent back in the first place.

I'm hoping not. A woman rear ended me once in traffic because she was on her mobile. She seemed desperate for me to drive on and I drove off too because I was terrified of saying anything to the insurance.


I'm sure it will be absolutely fine. Just take this as a learning this time round and be more careful in the future.

Wing mirrors are generally pretty resilient because this kind of thing happens a lot! I can't imagine the other driver will bother to go through insurance, that's potentially a lot of money down the drain in excess charges, especially if it looked still in place.

Re: speaking to insurers. In my experience, they're all nice people, you just have to give your side of the story and let them deal with it. They won't shout at you or tell you you're a bad driver. It's not their role to judge, they just need to hear your opinion.

Hope this helps :smile:
Original post by oldboy2007
Won't that be Mutually Assured Destruction a la insurance if all the end result was 2 dots of chipped paint?


Maybe, but it could be classed as minor damage. If she goes to insurance they would deal with it as damage.
Reply 7
Original post by Reality Check
:lol: I really like that. So accurate! :smile:


I feel like a scrote for not stopping but I was going so slow and didn't see her mirror fall off.

A transit van went past at more twice the speed and got through so I thought I'd have a go too and clipped it at a crawl :frown:
Reply 8
It is a fail to stop, regardless. To cover you on a legal basis, ring 101 and leave your details - that way, if the other driver does report you, you followed due process and can't be charged for failing to leave information.
Reply 9
Original post by IWMTom
It is a fail to stop, regardless. To cover you on a legal basis, ring 101 and leave your details - that way, if the other driver does report you, you followed due process and can't be charged for failing to leave information.


But does that mean the police will report to insurance? And also, I already drove off?
Original post by IWMTom
It is a fail to stop, regardless. To cover you on a legal basis, ring 101 and leave your details - that way, if the other driver does report you, you followed due process and can't be charged for failing to leave information.


That might not stop a charge of fail to stop or fail to report.

Depends on how long ago,and have you pasted any open police station. Since the rtc took place.
Original post by Rooster11366
That might not stop a charge of fail to stop or fail to report.

Depends on how long ago,and have you pasted any open police station. Since the rtc took place.

Well what's done is done. All I know is when people have bumped into me before and it was absolutely their fault, I didn't report to police or insurance either.

Lets hope she is like me.
Reply 12
Original post by oldboy2007
But does that mean the police will report to insurance? And also, I already drove off?


No. The control room just logs your details down incase the other party rings up to report it.

Original post by Rooster11366
That might not stop a charge of fail to stop or fail to report.

Depends on how long ago,and have you pasted any open police station. Since the rtc took place.


Going to assume it was fairly recent. Logging details with the control room is sufficient for such a minor scrape. No judge in the land would convict a fail to stop when details were recorded with the appropriate authority in a reasonable time.
Original post by IWMTom
No. The control room just logs your details down incase the other party rings up to report it.



Going to assume it was fairly recent. Logging details with the control room is sufficient for such a minor scrape. No judge in the land would convict a fail to stop when details were recorded with the appropriate authority in a reasonable time.


That might be true but you forgot the fail to report
Reply 14
Original post by Rooster11366
That might be true but you forgot the fail to report


For what reason would CPS decide to prosecute if OP reported the accident a couple of days late? By the sounds of it, the other party didn't particularly care. It's not as if OP is going to hide from his responsibilities!
Original post by IWMTom
For what reason would CPS decide to prosecute if OP reported the accident a couple of days late? By the sounds of it, the other party didn't particularly care. It's not as if OP is going to hide from his responsibilities!


Good luck with working out how cps work.
For fail to report only need to prove time was unreasonable.

If you drive past open police station then hard to explain why not reported. Or call police asap after accident.

It is a easy offence to prove,
Reply 16
Original post by Rooster11366
Good luck with working out how cps work.
For fail to report only need to prove time was unreasonable.

If you drive past open police station then hard to explain why not reported. Or call police asap after accident.

It is a easy offence to prove,


It's an easy to prove copyright infringement when someone downloads a movie online, that doesn't mean CPS prosecutes every minor offence!

The Crown has more important things to do than prosecute someone who reported the incident a day late when all they did is clip a wing mirror!

Don't be such a scaremonger.
Just say you didn't realise you hit them. Honestly. People get away with far bigger things than tapping someones wing mirror
Original post by IWMTom
It's an easy to prove copyright infringement when someone downloads a movie online, that doesn't mean CPS prosecutes every minor offence!

The Crown has more important things to do than prosecute someone who reported the incident a day late when all they did is clip a wing mirror!

Don't be such a scaremonger.


I take you work with the cps as I do. I can tell you this they are after results. Public say we need results,so a simple mistake by someone. They report the accident later on for what ever reason.

The them find out other person reported just in case. You have all the evidence you need in both reports.

Public are after convictions like it or not. That is the reason police and cps have targets to meet.
Reply 19
Original post by Rooster11366
I take you work with the cps as I do. I can tell you this they are after results. Public say we need results,so a simple mistake by someone. They report the accident later on for what ever reason.

The them find out other person reported just in case. You have all the evidence you need in both reports.

Public are after convictions like it or not. That is the reason police and cps have targets to meet.


Oh do hush up; the only reason they'd even consider prosecution is if the other party was left at the scene - both parties drove away. Targets aren't going to be met if the judge throws the case out of court because all OP did was clip a bloody wing mirror!

It'd be a waste of public resources to even consider prosecution - the law is open to interpretation. You're unnecessarily scaremongering.

Police resources are stretched enough as it is - they're focussing on serious cases rather than minor crime, especially when it comes to road policing where funds and numbers are being cut the most.

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