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Car crash on the doorstep

June 15th, 2005 · Posted by Skuds in Life · No Comments · Life

It all kicked off here this afternoon while I was away at work. Apparently we had two fire engines, an ambulance, four marked police cars and the special unmarked pursuit car they have, but everyone knows its a police car because its an Evo 7 like in the film Fast & Furious and it gets noticed.

What happened was, apparently, that a Peugot hatchback (untaxed, belonging to a 19 year old over the road) came out of the little T-junction opposite our house just as a car was coming up the hill towards it. The driver of the other car swerved to avoid the Peugot and went into the garden of the house opposite us, and embedded itself in the porch/bin cupboard of the house.

This is where it all gets complicated. The owner of the Peugot was not driving. He was in the back seat and a couple of his mates were in the front. He says he told them not to drive the car. I would be surprised if the car was insured, and even if it was it would not be insured for all and sundry to drive. When the crash happened the two boys in the front jumped out and legged it. The car which crashed, a new Fiesta, was being driven by a woman who had only just passed her test and was a bit nervous. Fortunately that car was insured.

Southern Housing had their contractors out to inspect the damage fairly quickly and make the house safe. Currently the porch is jacked up and the heavy concrete bin store top is propped up with bits of four-by-four. There are cracks in the brickwork and it doesn’t look 100% safe to me – maybe I am just distrustful of the cowboys who threw these houses up one Friday afternoon.

Jayne reckons that as soon as the crash happened everybody in the street called 999 at about the same time. That might explain the scale of the response – when the dispatchers got 20 calls within 5 minutes all talking about a huge bang and a car going into a house they might have been imagining something a bit more spectacular.

I don’t know what is going to take longer to sort out: the repairs to the house or the legal proceedings.

Our neighbour should not have to worry about how to claim for repairs as the landlord will sort that out for her. Southern Housing ought to be able to claim from the woman’s insurance as a third party. The owner of the wrecked car will be getting a new one from the insurers, and currently has a courtesy car, but if the insurers feel it was not her fault they might be trying to sue someone to cover their losses.

And who would they pursue? The car’s owner who is unlikely to have any money – or he would hot have had his parents’ cast-off banger? The driver who fled the scene and is also unlikely to have a spare few thousand? The police are after the driver and have taken the Peugot off for fingerprinting and everything, the two boys have been phoning the car’s owner threatening him and telling them not to grass them up.

To my mind, the issue of blame for the accident is none too clear either. The Fiesta lady swears that the Peugot came out of the side street at speed, but it has been parked in a lay-by only a few metres from the junction and I don’t see how even the most reckless, determined, joy-riding chav could get up any speed in a few metres. And how fast was the Fiesta going to cross 3 metres of garden, which is on a steepish incline upwards, and still have enough speed to demolish a brick-built bin store? Maybe she was going too fast up the hill – she would not be the only one to reach a fair speed on this road, even though its a small residential close with dozens of children playing out all the time. Maybe she was going slowly but, as a new driver, panicked and jumped on the wrong pedal and shot forward?

With one driver being possibly unlicensed and almost certainly uninsured, and also fleeing the scene I imagine the Police will want to find out exactly what happened. Just to pile on the misery for the boy’s parents they are also tenants of Southern Housing and they take a dim view of us having untaxed vehicles on their land. (Mine is only there until I clear it out and call the breakers yard. Must do that soon) And the vehicle is probably still in the name of the parents anyway, so they might be targets for claims, unless their son claims that it was technically stolen as he told his mates not to drive it.

The shame is that only yesterday the boy’s dad was asking Jayne about how to get a SORN notice like we did for our Astra. When she told him he said he was going to do that and move it to his drive. Shame he didn’t know a bit earlier. Maybe the boys would not have been tempted to move it then. The Police can’t have failed to notice two things; no tax disc and the car was on the road, so whatever else happens there will be a £1000 fine for whoever has their name on the paperwork.

I don’t want to sound like Mr Daily Mail reader, but I hope the Police do catch these other boys, and I hope our neighbour is not afraid to name them. If they had not managed to cause an accident within 3 metes of where they were parked they would probably have continued and caused one elsewhere, and if they didn’t it would have given them the confidence to go out tomorrow for a spin up the motorway or the A23. Its no surprise that our local newspapers carry a story about teenagers getting killed on the A23 nearly every week. The only shame is that the ones who get hurt are often not the wreckless drivers themselves but just someone who wasn’t expecting to see a total arsehole coming the other way.

Thats why I always get Jayne complaining about me being too cautious (ie slow) when I drive: because I always assume that every other car is driven by an arsehole just to be on the safe side.

Lessons learnt:

  • When you sell a car, or even give it away, make sure you fill out the forms!
  • Don’t assume everyone else on the road is responsible
  • Actually, just assume everyone else is irresponsible. Just in case.

And Jerry Springer-style, a thought for the day:

One little slip, whoever made it, has had effects which could be long-lasting, maybe even life-changing for at least four families.
1) The Fiesta driver and her passenger have whiplash injuries, and the driver might have more expensive insurance in the future but at least looks to be getting a replacement car quickly. So not too bad there as long as the injuries don’t become serious and nobody decides that she was at fault in any way.
2) The family who live in the damaged house are going to have some disruption from builders at the very least. They may get moved out while work takes place, depending on what structural damage is found.
3) The Peugot-owning family will have a no-tax fine, might get pursued by the housing association’s insurers or the Fiesta’s insurers. There might even be criminal charges against the son. If he gives his friends’ names to the Police he might get some trouble there.
4) The driver of the Peugot will, if caught, face charges of fleeing the scene at the very least. Driving an uninsured vehicle is another likely charge. There could be fines, points on licences, action from insurers. Whoever the boy is, that sort of thing is unlikely to relieve whatever pressures turned him into such a little shit in the first place.

It seems like every week there is a small piece in the Crawley papers about a car going into a house or another parked car or whatever. Often its only a column-inch or two, which this one might get, but sometimes a bit more space. We see the story and pass on, but each of those tiny stories will have behind it a similar set of ruined or impaired lives.

And we have to remember that kids who see a car as a toy, and driving one up and down the road as a bit of harmless fun, probably exist in half the streets in town. Now thats scary!

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