Last month while conducting a lesson, my Panda was driven into. The offending third party was attempting to turn right out of a junction to head in the same direction as us. In his haste to beat the oncoming lorry, he failed to notice my car and pulled out as we were almost opposite the junction. Despite me pulling the wheel over to the left, his car struck the right rear corner of the Panda and caused the resulting damage:



The third party was driving his Mum's company car but fortunately, he was insured to do so. He'd only been passed for 12 months and when I mentioned 6 points for driving without due care and attention, he went as white as his Fiesta [I didn't involve the Police].

The estimate for repair was £2600, which included a new three-quarter panel, axle [which was out by 8mm] and wheel, plus some other mechanical parts [hub, etc.]. Add to that a dual-controlled hire car that I had for exactly one month [counted as an uninsured loss, so not considered in the cost to repair], and the overall bill will have been very high.

A friend owns the body repair centre where it was fixed and they commented on how difficult the bolts were to remove [my Sept. 2007 Panda is currently on 87k miles]. However, this is apparantly common to most Fiats. Also, some rust was developing behind the fuel filler neck. My mate put this down to petrol running down and melting the sealant, allowing rust to develop. This has been addressed during the repair.

I was supplied with a Hyundai i20 to continue teaching and while it was a nice enough drive, it feels so good to be back in the Panda - a car with character

If police where involved he could have been looking at six points for careless and possibly even more if the police felt ansd prooved he was fronting.

With a newer Fiesta like that I would guess it was genuine and it was actually his mum car which he was insured to drive, rather than a classic case of fronting,

It is amazing what damage a minor crash than cause.

I hope the student driving the car at the time has not been too shaken up by it.

Glad it wasn't more serious..,
A valuable lesson to him.. and ONLY an inconvenience to you,

looking at the pics it was relatively light,

did the wheel "polish-out" ? ( away..!!),


Charlie

I was definitely displeased when it happened. Fortunately, the lad was insured [amazingly, Aston Martin were the policy holder for the Fiesta], and I had two witnesses who came straight up to me - the lady who was following us and the truck driver who the lad had emerged in front of.

It looks like minor damage but being the three-quarter panel, it was the worst area to be hit. The wheel and axle took the impact, and as a result, a lot of the repairs were mechanical.

My student who was driving was fine and not shaken-up by the ordeal.

Let's hope that it does prove to be a lesson to the lad. I'm not sure if he just didn't look properly or we were hidden in his A-post blind spot [still no excuse, of course].

On a more positive note, I collected the Panda on Friday evening and had another first-time pass in it this afternoon

Nice bit of toe-out you have there.



Still glad you got it sorted and didn't get shafted (albeit for a lot less money) like I did. That is an expensive repair as it doesn't at first sight look that much damage, but as you say the rear beam got a good pasting.

JD82 said:

and possibly even more if the police felt ansd prooved he was fronting.

Click to expand...

The police wouldn't be interested unless the insurance co decided to void insurance due to fronting.

No offence has been comitted until insurance company has decided Fronting has taken place, and then the driver can be done for no insurance and possible even fraud.

So cannot the police not make that decision? I saw one of the cop shows a few months ago, younger crashed 'mummy's car'. Mummy's car was a lowered Corsa or Clio chav mobile complete with a massive sub in the bass etc. Cop warned he suspected the driver as fronting and he could loose his licence over it.

So I guess the cop suspected it and warned the driver about it, but the actual decision is up to the car insurance firm?

Fronting just annoys me because I am a youngish driver myself living in Manchester and as a result to keep things legal my insurance premium is £1k a year.

Yep. Actual Decision is down to insurance co. Like you say, really annoying. I remember once on one of these cop programme them pulling someone over with none UK lisence. They called his insurance as most insurance co's would be like nope, he's not insured as he didn't tell us that, but turns out the call centre person just said we'll look into it, and there wasn't a lot the copper could do

So he had insurance, but no licence to cop rightly thought his inusrance was invalid but could not seize the car because he technical had insurance? That is bad, they should be able to seize cars if the driver had no licence as well.

JD82 said:

If police where involved he could have been looking at six points for careless and possibly even more if the police felt ansd prooved he was fronting.

Click to expand...

Jeez let's not go overboard! I've had a couple of accidents before and at the time the last thing you want is for someone to call the Police because you made a mistake. If/When you have an accident then you'll understand that unless you were genuinely driving like an idiot and didn't just make an honest mistake it's not really fair to go calling the Police.

I think mentioning the penalty is a good way of scaring someone straight, but calling the cops on what looks to be a bit of a fender bender would just be cockishness.

Glad everyone was OK and the car is now better

306maxi said:

I think mentioning the penalty is a good way of scaring someone straight...

Glad everyone was OK and the car is now better

Click to expand...

Thanks

Yes, I simply mentioned 'driving without due care and attention' as he had only passed 12 months ago [if you get 6 points within the first 2 years, you have to retake your theory and practical tests]. Hopefully, he thought about it for a while and still does whenever he drives.

At least everyone was unhurt and he was insured - a lot of scroats would have driven off or not had any cover.

LeanMeanRacing said:

Thanks

Yes, I simply mentioned 'driving without due care and attention' as he had only passed 12 months ago [if you get 6 points within the first 2 years, you have to retake your theory and practical tests]. Hopefully, he thought about it for a while and still does whenever he drives.

At least everyone was unhurt and he was insured - a lot of scroats would have driven off or not had any cover.

Click to expand...

As someone who had an accident when I was fairly new to driving I would say that he will be thinking of it!

I never said I would call the cops, I wouldn't unless I was threatened or they were not willing to give me their details.

In this case it was a genuine mistake and everything was legit, so the other driver has learnt a hard lesson without having to loose his licence

I would always be sympathetic to any new driver providing they are not trying to screw the system.

I'm not familiar with the term "fronting". Can someone explain? I've only ever had 3 minor bumps in 24 years of being an ADI, although in fairness I haven't done much in the last few years.

2 of them were in my old Uno 60DS. The first was in 1989 when it was only a few months old when a lady overtook me on a lesson and simply cut in too soon clipping the offside front wing. Due to an insurance mix up the damage was never repaired and despite creasing the wing and scraping some paint off the wheel arch, it hadn't corroded at all, right up to the time we parted company 6 years and about 150,000 miles later.

The second was almost a mirror image of Lean Mean Racing's when we were passing a side road on the left where a car was waiting to emerge. The driver looked right at us, but as we passed he pulled out and hit the N/S/F door and as we were moving, the N/S/R one copped for it as well. It received two new door skins which annoyed me as the poor thing had to go back four times before the body shop got it right. It would have been better if they'd just replaced the entire doors.

The Beard said:

I'm not familiar with the term "fronting". Can someone explain?

Click to expand...

Basically it's a young person driving their own car while insured as a named driver on their mum's policy.

As they're really the main driver it's fraud and the insurer won't pay out.

:yeahthat: