OverSoft

Here in Holland, if you report this type of offence to the police, the damage will be payed for by the government (it's actually a foundation of which every insurance-company must be a member).
Don't you guys have something like this in the UK?

CWS530

Really? That's amazing.

OverSoft

Yeah, it's been around for about 10 years now.
But it's only applicable if it's car-related damage (so someone hit you and left without leaving a note). Vandalism isn't covered.
Everybody who has car insurance pays about €1,-/month for that "service".

/edit:
I've looked it up, it's called "Waarborgfonds" which translated roughly means: "Guarantee fund"
You have to do 3 things to apply for this:
- Report the offence to the police
- Find a witness or somebody willing to testify that you parked the car in good condition and when you got back it was damaged.
- You have to prove you did your best to find the identity of the person who damaged your car.

It's definitely more trouble than just getting hit and exchanging insurance details, but still, it's better than paying for it yourself.

Tunbridge

An update on the story for those who are interested?.

I was in town again on Saturday and parked in the same car park I did last time (yes I haven?t learnt my lesson). Anyway, as I was getting out of the car guess what pulled into the car park, a light blue Peugeot 206 (the same shade as the paint I had found on my front bumper). I hung around for a bit till the driver went and had a closer look, sure enough the rear bumper was damaged on the back right hand corner, a perfect match for the damaged caused to my car.

This was just far too much of a coincidence so I got my phone out and took some photos?



As you can see the damage is to the right rear corner of the Peugeot where it caught the front left of my car as he drove/turned right out of his parking space. The damage was also constant with the severity of damage to my car. The owner had clearly polished it up to remove any of the silver paint from my car but the scrapes are clear to see.

Unfortunately as I was taking the photo?s the driver returned, this caught me slightly off guard but regardless I confronted him about the damage to his car. He was very defensive and denied everything (as you would expect). After a short argument I realised that I was clearly going to get nowhere and left, threatening to ring the police.

As soon as I got home I gave the local police station a ring and explained the situation, the police were very helpful (for a change) and seemed happy that I had enough evidence for them to investigate the situation but then came the killer blow, when I told them where the incident took place the police explained that because my car was parked in a private car park (owned by the university) and not a public car park then the road traffic act did not apply and that they wouldn?t be able to do anything about it as the law had not been broken. As you can imagine I was less than impressed with this. The police said that all I could do was to pursue the claim through my insurance company.

In the end I?ve decided not to bother, I really don?t want the insurance company involved as I already pay a small fortune for the privilege of driving a nice car and I can only see the claim resulting in a 50/50 blame being attributed as it is effectively my word against his. Although I have a fair amount of evidence pointing to the offending driver it is all circumstantial. I know other people that have been involved in claims with insurance companies where the other driver is clearly to blame and they have failed to win the claim as it boiled down to the word of 2 people against each other or a lack of evidence.

At the end of the day there is only about ?200 worth of damage to my car and it simply won?t be worth the hassle of taking this any further. I just need to resign myself to the fact that what?s done is done and forget about it cos all this is doing is getting me more angry every time I think about it. It?s just really annoying that people get away with these things.

Kryptus

aw man its such a shame to see you giving up just as you found the culprit. Are you sure a phone call to your insurance company isnt worth that 200? Honestly I would have kicked the shit out of that guys car when I found it.

Tunbridge

Very tempting but that would just have meant lowering myself to the same level as these scum bags.

Kryptus

A very noble attitude to be sure... but

Their level involves hurting the innocent. The level of which I was speaking involves hurting the guilty.

JW-BENZ

Tell me about it... Today was our first snow fall in Toronto, and it was just heavy slush type snow. This is the first time driving the XI in winter, I had a Mercedes 4Matic before. I drive over the plow left overs into my drive way because my snow blower had flat tires and I had to use my cigarette lighter plug in tire inflator on it.

Anyways, that little drive over the plows snow at the end of the driveway costed me a chunk of my under pannel on the car. It was sitting in the drive way.. I don't know where it was from on the car I couldn't tell looking under it..

Sad..

SIDE NOTE: So far the XI isn't at good as the 4Matic system when going through thick snow/slush. But time will tell.

Ellicit

that does suck man.. hope everything works out... i feel like taking a walk to my work parking lot jus to make sure nothing is up w my car lol