Who is liable for this crash

A question about : Who is liable for this crash

My DD was driving to work this morning and was passing a crossroads and the vehicle on the left junction was pulled partly out into the road so my daughter pulled over the line a bit to get round him ( she was going straight on) and suddenly a car on the right junction pulled out and hit her side on and badly damaged her door. She said he only seemed to have damage to his number plate and so they swapped details and she came home. He has now rung and asked for the registration number ( that he forgot to take). She told him she had a large excess (Ј500.00- she is only 22) and so would rather not go through her insurers and he said his excess is Ј325.00. The problem is that she is crap with money and never opens her post and when we looked for her policy details she found a letter to say her policy had been cancelled 2 weeks ago due to non payment of the last months premium. I am going over to see him shortly so I am wondering what to do. He wants her insurance details which obviously she does not have. What shoe she do? Obviously she should be insured but he is liable as he hit her car.
I despair of her as she is crap with money ( spend it all on clothes!) and I am on my own ( recently seperated) and struggling with money and debt issues and there always seems to be some financial scrape for me to get her out of. Should we tell him she is not insured or just refuse to give him the details. I think he may then try to wriggle out of paying. Also should we report the accident to the police bearing in mind she is not insured??

Best answers:

• There seem to be two separate issues here - the insurance which she's legally obliged to have and the accident which is a civil matter. If the other driver accepts liability, lack of insurance doesn't come into it as she can still recover her loss. If the other driver thinks that your daughter was at fault (and we haven't heard his side), that is more problematic and you'd have to deal with that yourselves.
  You are obliged by law to give him insurance details so how you deal with that is up to you. Best hope is to play on his sympathy and hope he's a decent chap.
  Meanwhile, reinstate the insurance.
• Had your daughter crossed the white lines?
  Was she even partly on his side of the road?
  At 22 she should be old enough to deal with her own problems, not opening her mail is no excuse for driving uninsured.
• Quite honestly if I was in an accident and found out the driver was uninsured I would report the matter to the police. There is no excuse for driving uninsured.
  If he has her registration details and gives the information to his insurance company, you are obliged to inform them of any accident even if you do not make a claim, then they will know she is not insured.
• She should own up to him and hope that he only does have damage to his number plate. He may decide to go to the police. The problem that you have is that if your daughter was on the other side of the road, over the line, in any way then it is not his fault. Regardless of what she was avoiding, that is how it works.
  He may be a reasonable man and your daughter may be lucky if she only has to pay for a new numberplate. The damage to her car is also her responsibility.
  Had her insurance been valid then she may have been able to get them to fight her corner in view of the vehicle which was jutting out into the traffic, but unfortunately she has no hope of anyone representing her.
  I would ask her to ring the gentlemen concerned, rather than you. It might not go down well if someone's mother rings up trying to sort things out.
  Good luck with it.
• That's fair enough cogito.
  Without insurance cover though, he can say what he likes and deny everything even if would have been deemed at fault by the insurers (sounds a bit like 50/50 to me anyway).
  Ј300 not too bad damage on her car, it sounded like it would be a lot more.
• We went to see him and the damage to his car is a scratched bumper and cracked number plate. He said he needed to get quotes as he did not know if there was any underlying damage. My oh has looked at the car and we all agree that he hit her and as she was on main road he is liable. Re insurance we have re-instated it and will give him policy number later. Regardless I dont think my daughter should pay ( insured or not ) for hers or his car. If her insurance dont want to know how can we pursue him for payment ourselves. I know there is an issue re her insurance status but he did hit her so he is still liable.
• If he knows your daughter was uninsured and you pursue him, expect police involvement, and big trouble! Luckily for her she just was involved in damage, not injury!
  Even if he doesn't yet know, he will find out she was uninsured if he makes a claim (either via her insurer or via his own).
  Settling up with him will be much cheaper than facing the consequences of driving with no insurance.
• Whatever the "point", you came onto this money saving forum for advice.
  Your daughter risks big criminal trouble for driving uninsured. If she is done for this, then the money involved over the years (fine plus heavy insurance premiums) wll be far more than just paying the guy off.
  She will be worried whether the crime comes to light for a long time, as the third party only has to report the incident with her details to either insurer involved (or the police) for the truth to come out.
  Cut your losses now!
• I'm sure you don't need to be told that your daughter has done something very silly, to put it mildly, and she is now in a Catch-22 position:
  If your daughter does not divulge her insurance details (or lack thereof) to the other party then she is guilty of an offence. Furthermore, what would happen is that the third party's insurers would discover that she was uninsured via a number plate search of the motor insurance database, they would then deal with the third party's claim and potentially take her to court to recover the money if they feel that she was fully or partly responsible for the accident (or her previous insurer may have to deal with it and then recover the money from your daughter). They could also report her to the police for driving without insurance.
  If she confesses that she is not insured then the third party will have her over a barrel, and can effectively force her to repair his car by implying that they will report her to the police if she does not, despite the rather unclear liability for the incident.
  Your daughter could potentially try to pursue the third party for the damage to her car, but if the matter did proceed to court then her credibility would be severely damaged through the lack of insurance.
  IMO the best option would be to offer to pay for the third party's repairs. It is the lesser of a few evils.
  BTW, your daughter will have to disclose the cancellation of the policy by the insurer to all her future insurers, which means that she could face difficulty in obtaining cover at reasonable rates. If you added a conviction for driving without insurance then she may well be effectively priced off the road for the next five years.