Had a scary experience this morning.
HI
I would appreciate some thoughts on what happened to me this morning and what I should do.
I was taking my 4 yr old granddaughter to school and was at a junction which has a slight incline.
I was waiting for the traffic to clear and wiping my windscreen as it had misted over.
Suddenly I heard someone shouting 'oy' and as I turned around a man was walking towards my car.
I was just about to wind the window down when he opened my car door. I was really scared not least because my granddaughter was in the back.
He told me I had rolled backwards into his car. I just wanted to get rid of him so said I was sorry and was there any damage.
He said he didn't know and would look later and then asked me where I lived. I was only a couple of minutes away from home so I told him the street I lived in.
He then said 'He would come and find me later!!
I thought it was a bit odd that he didn't want to look there and then but I was desperate to get away.
It wasn't until I went to set off that I realised my handbrake had been on the whole time! I have checked the back of my car and there is not a mark on it.
I am now terrified in case he knocks on my door and I don't know what to do.
I would appreciate some thoughts on what happened to me this morning and what I should do.
I was taking my 4 yr old granddaughter to school and was at a junction which has a slight incline.
I was waiting for the traffic to clear and wiping my windscreen as it had misted over.
Suddenly I heard someone shouting 'oy' and as I turned around a man was walking towards my car.
I was just about to wind the window down when he opened my car door. I was really scared not least because my granddaughter was in the back.
He told me I had rolled backwards into his car. I just wanted to get rid of him so said I was sorry and was there any damage.
He said he didn't know and would look later and then asked me where I lived. I was only a couple of minutes away from home so I told him the street I lived in.
He then said 'He would come and find me later!!
I thought it was a bit odd that he didn't want to look there and then but I was desperate to get away.
It wasn't until I went to set off that I realised my handbrake had been on the whole time! I have checked the back of my car and there is not a mark on it.
I am now terrified in case he knocks on my door and I don't know what to do.
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Comments
If you ever feel threatened, just tell them to follow you to a police station where you will be happy to discuss the situation! If someone comes to your door that you don't recognise, speak to them through the window, if you think it is all a but suspicious, call the police!
I keep looking out of the window everytime a car goes by!
I wouldn't worry about, don't be on edge, just go about business as usual. If the door knocks look out of the window first. If you don't like the look of the person knocking, don't answer! Tbh, without your house number he wont know where you live anyway unless he contacts DVLA with you details, pays a fee and gets the info. Not something you can do in a day!
If he does have damage to his car how can he prove it was me.
That's an argument for your's and his insurance company! Don't get into discussion, pass your insurance details through the window if you don't want to answer and admit nothing.
You should always lock your door using the inside handle when you are in the car. He should not have been able to open your door from the outside.
Is your handbrake effective? Would it have been possible for your car to roll down a slope into this other person's car even if your handbrake was on? Had it been applied sufficently hard considering the incline the car was on?
I was always told not to lock the doors in case of an accident, but I think I will be doing in future.
I have just spoken to my son and he has told me that if he does come round get his name and number and he will call him later.
And yes, lock the doors. If you were ever in an accident siginficant enough to trigger the airbags the doors will unlock anyway.
Very suspect indeed. Sounds more likely it was him who went into the back of you, and he was simply trying to maintain his ego by blaming you. Or trying to pull an insurance scam.
Either way, if he does turn up at your door, then just call the police. If a collision has taken place, he should be taking it up with the insurance companies, not coming to you house, behaving in an intimidating and threatening manner.
That's the advice that used to be given some years ago, in case the car was involved in an accident and people needed to be got out quickly. But todays advice, from the Police, is that you should lock your door from the inside for your own protection from things like theft of your possessions and car-jacking.
Most modern cars, if involved in a serious accident, will release the door locks, anyway, enabling the doors to then be opened from the outside.
I was just about to write something similar.
If your car didn't move it could just be an insurance scam. I would give the local police a call or pop into the police station and report it.
Do you think there was cctv at the junction anywhere?
If you did, or you don't know whether you did or not, I'd suggest the first order of business is to pay more attention when driving in future.
If a child like your grand-daughter had been crossing the road behind your car and you'd allowed the car to roll backwards you could have crushed that child to death.
There was no CCTV as I was still on the housing estate where I live.
Si, I have taken your comments on board but don't see how I could have rolled backwards as my handbrake was on.
I also heard no impact noise at all and there is not a single mark on my car.
Even if I did I still don't think it justifies him opening my car door and scaring the life out of me ands a 4yr old.
If he does turn up I shall just swap details with him and get in touch with my insurance
Fair do's.
You really shouldn't need to rely on assumptions about whether your handbrake was correctly applied and correctly functioning though.
You should be able to say, with 100% certainty, that the vehicle didn't roll backwards because you were paying attention at the time and know it didn't roll backwards.
Having said that, I certainly wouldn't worry about any subsequent claim of damage from the other person.
After all, there's now no proof that any damage to the other vehicle was caused during the alleged collision you were involved in.
For all you can know, the other guy might have spent the rest of the morning driving his car into a wall in order to deliberately damage it.
About the only thing you might have done differently, perhaps, was to take it upon yourself to take a photograph of the front of the other persons car and the rear of yours in case he does decide to damage his own car and claim you were responsible.
You might also try stopping on that same spot (when the road is clear) and checking that your handbrake DOES hold the vehicle in place and then, perhaps, release the handbrake by a notch or two and see if that causes it to roll back,
If it does turn out that releasing it by a notch or two causes it to roll back you'll be more aware of this in future.
Maybe he has thought better of it.
I know I probably shouldn't have given him my address but I honestly just wanted to get away and I couldn't go anywhere because he was holding my door open.
As I wrote earlier I would have a word with your local police. I take it you didn't get his reg number?
All the MOT means is it passed on the day. You could drive out the garage and your brakes could fail but the car would still have a MOT. Could be your handbrake.
I will get my husband to go out in the car tomorrow and take the route I did just to check the handbrake.
It still doesn't explain why he didn't want to inspect the damage on the spot, especially as he had to walk past the front of his car to get to mine.