Someone bumped into my car but won’t accept fault, what do I do?

You can be a really safe and cautious driver but at the end of the day there are things which are not in your control. On an unfortunate day, someone might just bump into your car no matter how careful you are. However, not everyone will accept their mistake and you could have a hard time proving that the other person was at fault.

If you're wondering why you need to bother proving your innocence, it's because first you are not to blame and second and most importantly, you don't want to be paying for any damages which have been caused to your car. You can claim on your car insurance policy but that will affect your no claims discount (NCD) and why should you do that when somebody else caused all this trouble?

My story of being hit whilst stationary in the car park

As an example, you could be sitting in your car, probably waiting to pick up someone and somebody bump right into you while trying to park their car next to yours. This actually happened to me and I could feel the car shake from the collision and I immediately got out to see what damage was done. I saw a very faint mark at the back of my car and this made me really angry. I went to the driver of the car who was behind me and told her that she had just bumped into me. However the woman was in complete denial and told me that she has sensors in her car and it was impossible for her to have hit my car. Of course sensors tend to make it hard for you to hit other cars but on its own, it doesn't make you an expert driver and cannot stop you from collision unless you react in good time to the sensor's alarm.

Anyway, I showed her what I thought was the damage and she still didn't accept her fault although I said I was in the car and felt the move car (shake) when that happened. I know what I felt and I was just angry that she wouldn't accept the blame. So I started writing down her car's licence number on my phone and when she saw that she ran to her car, grabbed her camera and took pictures of my car. I was astonished and didn't know how to convince her to accept the blame.

There was no one who saw what happened; how can you blame them though because you wouldn't actually notice if someone lightly bump into another car unless there was a really loud noise or it was in your field of vision. So, without any witness, I know I cannot make a claim to my insurance company as I would lose my hard earned no claims. I assessed the damage and since it was nothing really noticeable, I ignored it partly because it wasn't worth it and partly because the woman told me she was having a bad day since she received a call informing her that her friend just died. Well actually, it's more because I couldn't do anything due to lack of proof.

Your word against theirs!

Later I discovered that there was no damage at all to my car and that the mark that I thought I saw was just some white stuff which went away when rubbed. However this made me realise how difficult it can be to prove you're not at fault when involved in any kind of incident when the offending person is not willing to cooperate. Under such circumstances, here's what you need to do:

• Mark down the licence plate of the car
• Take pictures (most phones have got camera nowadays)
• Try to get the name and licence number of the person at fault (if they don't want to give you this information, don't worry)
• Call the police immediately (if it's serious, they will come immediately)
• Call your insurance company (they will tell you what you need to do next)
• Try to get the names of independent witnesses (these are people who saw what happened but are not related to you; they cannot be people who are travelling with you)
• Do not move your car! This is precious evidence and you shouldn't have to move your car until the police comes.

Do not be intimidated by other drivers; they can be very verbal and scare the hell out of you. However if they are at fault in a car accident, they should bear the consequences, not you!