Car Accident (frustrating)

[emujo]

My wife is sitting at an intersection, light turns green, but there is a cyclist that seems to be confused and she's not sure he is gonna stay out of the intersection, so she waits to see what he is gonna do. He finally decides that he should wait so just as she takes her foot off the brake, she gets slammed from behind by a F150 pulling a trailer. He denies it but I'm sure he was on his phone, or distracted or whatever, but the cops show up, and with the statement of the cyclist, he gets ticketed for causing the accident. Of course he's screaming at my wife about "why didn't you go, the light was green" and so on, but bottom line he failed to control his vehicle. My wilfe's car is a 2004 Audi that she absolutely loves, great shape and only 75K miles, and we just dropped $2400 to repair an AC problem, transmission seal leak and timing belt water pump replacement. Insurance company gets the case and calls us back with all the good news

1. Your vehicle is totaled
2. Driver has no insurance
3. Driver doesn't own the car
4. Owner's insurance is not sure he is covered

So my insurance says they will handle everything (which they have, and have done a great job). Here's my problem, I will never find a replacement vehicle of the same quality that is now being held for salvage, and I will be back into a car payment again. Insurance says car value is around $6300, and I agree with their assessment. Turns out Audi has super expensive parts and it would be around 8K to repair it. I just think it sucks that through no fault of ours we are gonna need to come up with another 3-5K to get her another car. Just looking for anyone with the same kind of experience and what, if anything, you did to make the end results better. Pisses me off that the driver will get a ticket for maybe 150-200$ and get on with his life. Emujo

[SwisSeV]

Glad your wife is okay, being hit by a f150 with a load is scary.



Bad timing on those repairs, but at least you have a good insurance company working for you.
I don't know what car you had, but around here 6300$ would buy you a good 04 VW passat.

Just think of this as a opportunity to treat your wife to a great new car. I recommend something american made and cheaper to repair!

[CompyTech]

IMO I think it's difficult to find a decent car under 10k these days. Unless you luck out and find one for sale by owner that's taken well care of, and low miles. Going through a dealer can be a bit more expensive with sales tax etc. but often can be more choices. I know cause I bought a car last year, ended up researching for months before finally finding something in my budget range. I started with 10k but ended up around 13-14k.

[nmfaxman]

Sue his ass.
He hit her, not the other way around.
If he is not the owner of the truck, sue the owner for letting a dumb ass drive his truck.
I would throw in a whiplash claim while I was at it.

[NeoMatrix]

We had our vehicle insurance company pull the same escape reduce payment crap on my wife and I. The old vehicle was worth around $4500 to buy off the used car lot, and the front end damage to vehicle was going to cost the insurance company $4500 to repair. The insurance company offered us $2000 as payment on another vehicle. I said to the insurance assessor bloke. "I don't know why your insurance company is trying to beat me down on price, we've paid insurance for the last 30 years. It's not my monetary problem dude, fix the vehicle. We've paid for decades worth of insurance for this exact reason."

Stop trying to rip us off by forcing us into new loan repayments on another vehicle.
SO.... FIX THE DAMN VEHICLE!!!.

And the insurance company fixed the vehicle. (Bless their little hearts bank balance.)...

[slimslob]

The owner of the F150 if fiscally responsible for any damage done by the vehicle, even if the vehicle has been stolen. Suing is the only way to insure that you are fully satisfied. Do not sign any releases until you are.

[blackcat4866]

Sorry to hear about your wives misfortune. She obviously handled it properly. Me? I would get an attorney and sue the driver for the cost of a suitable replacement vehicle and attorney fees. =^..^=

[JR2ALTA]

If he doesn't have insurance, can't we assume he's irresponsible and broke? You may win the lawsuit but you'll never see any money.

Hope your outcome not as bleak, though

[KenB]

Glad she's OK.

That's the most important thing by far.

I would definitely go after the vehicle's owner.

If he was towing a trailer, is there a chance that the vehicle is owned by a business?

If so, there's your target. That "not sure he's covered" BS is one of the oldest lies there are. Pure crap.

I had had a similar problem some years ago. The 20 year old @sswipe who was driving played dumb, saying he had no permanent address, phone, or insurance. He sideswiped me at a traffic light.

Turned out the landscaping truck (unmarked) was owned by his boss.

The rest fell into place quite well after that. I did not sue, but they were all over getting my almost brand new (5 month old) car fixed properly.

[Iowatech]

Sorry to hear about this, but glad your wife is OK!
Before I signed up here as Iowatech, I actually lived in Illinois for a couple of decades and ended up in Peoria frequently for work. I'd swear they let blind people drive there, as when I was driving a bright red minivan for work then, it got t-boned once and rear ended three times (I'll cut the last guy that rear ended it some slack as the roads were pretty icy then, and I had just narrowly avoided buying a stop sign before he crashed into the back of the thing (heh, that one's kind of funny now, I was sliding towards the stop sign going nuts with the steering, brakes and accelerator, and the van finally came to a stop mere inches from the sign - I had just enough time to say "Whew" before there was the BOOM from the back, and then it was like "Aw, crap.")).
As I like to lean forward when I drive, my head traveled rather rapidly backwards a couple of those times, and while the seat headrest prevented dire injury I did get my bell rung. Also it caused me to have a stiff neck, too. I found that getting the last swig out a twelve ounce beverage can was a decent stretching exercise for that, but that won't work for everyone.
I don't suppose you work on any machines at body shops, do you? That's what saved me with the van. Of course that shop was about a forty mile drive from my place then, but it was just that good. It's probably around 150 miles from my place now that I live in Iowa, but I would still strongly consider getting body work done there.
One other thing, I don't know how the tax laws there work there, but here in the U.S. if you suffer dire losses, if properly documented you can apply that to your yearly taxes to get a break there. I've done that a couple of times.