I'm such an IDIOT!

[phyco126]

Okay, about a week - 2 weeks ago, someone hit my car and never told me about it. That makes it a hit and run. Fortunatly, it didn't actually dent anything, and it appears on the bottom portion of my bumper, front right hand passenger side. Who ever hit my car, drove a yellow car because all the damage caused is some black smears, scratchs, and a bunch of yellow paint. So, totally makes me look like I hit a pole or something, heh.

Now then, I have a choice. Do I file a hit and run report with the police and file an insurance claim? I think about it for two days and decide against it. Does this make me an idiot? It has too, because if I end up finding the person who did it, there wouldn't be anything I can do about it, is there? Is it too late to file a report? ARGH! I keep making stupid mistakes!

For the record, I'm not mad that they hit my car. I'm mad that they hit my car and didn't have the courage to tell me! I'm a nice guy, I have full insurance, or even just a heads up would have been nice. But nooooooo.

Edit: Okay, no clue how it got here, but when one of you admins see this, can you move it to the AAGF please? So embarrising.... aye...

[GhaleonOne]

I think if you report it, your insurance will pick up the repair of it. In fact, they usually just send you a check, and if the damage isn't worth fixing in your opinion, you can just use it for other things. That's what happened to my grandpa's truck. Someone rear-ended him and the insurance sent him a check due to the damages. Since it was an older truck, he didn't feel it was worth fixing the body damage, and put the money in savings.

[Dragonmaster Lou]

One thing to be careful though -- depending on the policies of your insurance company, you could still get somewhat screwed on the hit and run even though it wasn't your fault.

Double-check your policy on this one, but if you file a claim and your insurance company pays it, your premium could go up, even if it wasn't your fault. Now, you could get that corrected if you track down the person who hit you and get his insurance to pay for the damage. However, if you never find him, you could be stuck paying the inflated premium.

[GhaleonOne]

Yeah, that's true. In my grandpa's case, it was another insurance companies payment, rather than his, as it wasn't a hit and run incident.

[LuNaRtIc]

If it makes you feel any better, I just had my first car accident two days ago. I went into a ditch! And my parents are upset because the insurance company is going to raise my premium...

[phyco126]

Yeah, my premium is waaaay too high. I already pay 240 a month, thats as low as it gets for me (trust me, I looked.) Heck, thats even with discounts and the such. Well, anyway, the damage isn't really worth a bother to fix, but I really do wish to catch the person who did it. I mean, they could have left a note or something. Oh well, chances of me finding the person is slim, and no evidance to back it up that they did it (I think I might have found the person, but I have doubts.)

[Alunissage]

I've left notes for that twice. The first time was when I dented someone's fender backing out of a driveway, with my grandfather's car. We were lucky; his rates somehow didn't go up even though his insurance paid for the repair. The car owner really appreciated my leaving the note. The second time I think I just scraped a little paint off a side mirror. Didn't get a reply to that one, possibly because I said I didn't have much money, which I didn't -- I was only working about 12 hours a week then.

Regarding accidents, it's been my experience that the insurance company always saw it as my fault even when it wasn't. One instance was of a driver who had been about to exit the freeway suddenly changing his mind and swerving into my lane going about half the speed of traffic. But because I was in back, I was considered at fault even though the only way I could possibly have avoided it was to swerve into the right lane just as they moved in front of me, and there might well have been a car there, too. I'm still mad about that one, especially since they didn't have insurance, didn't speak English (so their son was translating and possibly embroidering), and tried to claim damages for a dent on the SIDE of their car and a doctor bill, when I was the one who blacked out after hitting them.

[phyco126]

Yeah, we have similiar laws here, some not fair at all. If I hit someone in the back, I'm at fault, no matter what usually.

Fortunatly, I've been in no "real" accidents, but I have done stuff before. I've gone into a hidden ditch (trust me, it was hidden) when I was still going with a permint. I've knocked my wheels out of allignment by hitting curbs, sometimes with snow, sometimes with just me being stupid. That was really the worst of them. But my car is little over a year old. It's a 2005 ;-; . It's really the thought that counts, you know, that they didn't attempt to contact me.

However, in the event I find out that they did leave a note, and perhapes the note was blown away, then I could understand that.

[Kale]

its days like this i'm glad i dont drive (18 years old, no liscense ;;)

[Werefrog]

Yeah, I was in one of those accident things a month or two ago when I was still working at Taco Bell. It was late at night, and I was on a horribly narrow country road with no lines. The person on the other side of the road was in a huge (pickup) truck and was brighting me. Nice guy, huh? Well, I'm still not sure what happened either he went a little left of center or I did.

Whatever the case, the front of my car collided with the back tires of his boat trailer. A few days later my parents read that the other guy was arrested for pulling out a gun on someone a few months ago. And get this, this is the best part, one of the cops at the scene of the accident that night was the arresting officer that night. The cops and the other guy blamed me. The "journalists" wrote about it in the newspaper. Wow! I just realized how upset I still am about the ways the cops treated me that summer.