Minor fender bender -- need some "street-smart" advice

[gale]

My son was in a minor fender bender in his e34 this afternoon as a result of a road rage incident.

He's almost home & a seemingly total stranger a few blocks away sees him drive past their house & the perp does an immediate y-turn & follows him, 1-2 car lengths from his bumper. My son has no idea who he is or what his problem is but instinctively knew to lose him thru the back streets without leading him to our house & then go to a populated convenience store down the street where there's too many witnesses for the perp to try to pull anything. It's raining, my son is stopped at an intersection with the perp only a few feet from his rear bumper, didn't see an on-coming car from his left & pulled out into it. Their front wheels & bumpers met at 10 mph max, very little damage to either car. The perp then gets out of his truck, gets into my son's face & starts ranting all kinds of obsenities about how he saw him almost hit his daughter in front of their house some days/ago. My son has no recollection of the incident, doesn't know him from Adam's dog, and had his sister and a friend in the car at the supposed time this happened & neither or them recall anything.

Turns out the perp lives in the neighborhood. He left his business card with the driver of the other car & says he'll be a witness if she needs help, & left. My son called the police to have a report made but the officer only wrote up the specifics of the 2 vehicles that actually collided & said he would have to look into what to do about the perp & completely left that part out of the report. Thanks to Google I know where the perp lives & I have his address & phone number. On the advice of a police friend, I can have my son file a supplement to the initial report and he feels the perp is not without blame even tho his vehicle never made contact.

1. Do I passively let my insurance take care of the girl's car (mid-90's Honda Civic) & forget about it?

2. Do I call Ron Bell (local shyster auto accident attourney/ambulance chaser) & let him go after the perp?

3. Cut a deal under the table & fix the girl's car out of pocket & keep the insurance co. out of it?

If #1, my son insurance gets dropped for 3 years or his rates go thru the roof.

If #2, the perp will be pissed and won't be long until he knows where I live. As hot as he was, if I go after him & piss him off all the more, I'm thinking it would best to get a restraining order on him.

If #3, insurance co. has no record & everything is forgotten. The expense to fix her car out of pocket is way cheaper than sky high insurance rates for the next 3 years & I never have to deal with the perp again, or do I???

Any suggestions?

[CharlesAFerg]

your son should have had pepper spray in the car, or something for defence - he would have been more likely to act normal instead of having to evade, because if the perp approached the car (even if your son didn't get out) the perp would have been in fr a nasty surprise followed by a police visit.
Why didn't your son call the police?

[gale]

He did call the police but the perp had already left. The officer wasn't particularly interested in going after him at the time. In the meanwhile, we'll be going down to the substation tomorrow to file the supplimental report. Guess we'll have to wait & see if the cop's have anything they can cite him for.

[BigKriss]

Good luck with it Don. Sounds like trouble.

[big535]

My son was in a minor fender bender in his e34 this afternoon as a result of a road rage incident.

He's almost home & a seemingly total stranger a few blocks away sees him drive past their house & the perp does an immediate y-turn & follows him, 1-2 car lengths from his bumper. My son has no idea who he is or what his problem is but instinctively knew to lose him thru the back streets without leading him to our house & then go to a populated convenience store down the street where there's too many witnesses for the perp to try to pull anything. It's raining, my son is stopped at an intersection with the perp only a few feet from his rear bumper, didn't see an on-coming car from his left & pulled out into it. Their front wheels & bumpers met at 10 mph max, very little damage to either car. The perp then gets out of his truck, gets into my son's face & starts ranting all kinds of obsenities about how he saw him almost hit his daughter in front of their house some days/ago. My son has no recollection of the incident, doesn't know him from Adam's dog, and had his sister and a friend in the car at the supposed time this happened & neither or them recall anything.

Turns out the perp lives in the neighborhood. He left his business card with the driver of the other car & says he'll be a witness if she needs help, & left. My son called the police to have a report made but the officer only wrote up the specifics of the 2 vehicles that actually collided & said he would have to look into what to do about the perp & completely left that part out of the report. Thanks to Google I know where the perp lives & I have his address & phone number. On the advice of a police friend, I can have my son file a supplement to the initial report and he feels the perp is not without blame even tho his vehicle never made contact.

1. Do I passively let my insurance take care of the girl's car (mid-90's Honda Civic) & forget about it?

2. Do I call Ron Bell (local shyster auto accident attourney/ambulance chaser) & let him go after the perp?

3. Cut a deal under the table & fix the girl's car out of pocket & keep the insurance co. out of it?

If #1, my son insurance gets dropped for 3 years or his rates go thru the roof.

If #2, the perp will be pissed and won't be long until he knows where I live. As hot as he was, if I go after him & piss him off all the more, I'm thinking it would best to get a restraining order on him.

If #3, insurance co. has no record & everything is forgotten. The expense to fix her car out of pocket is way cheaper than sky high insurance rates for the next 3 years & I never have to deal with the perp again, or do I???

Any suggestions?


For sure go with option number 3 for several reasons.
Firstly, the fact will remain your son can keep on the insurance and not have a claim down.

#2, dont even bother with this. For a start you only know one side of the story (your sons), you dont know if a restraining order would actually stop this guy if he got really p#ssed off...and its just not worth the risk or stress for a minor incident.

If I were you, I would tell your son to

1/ AVOID the part of town where this guy lives (the road) no matter what

2/ Tell your son to drive more carefully!


3/ If this guy still presents a problem (very unlikely, things like this get forgotten really fast usually provided your son keep out of his way) then consider your options as a seperate factor to the car incident and call the cops to report it.

good luck

[Boone.Msi]

thats aggressive driving and borderline stalking. You could take him to small claims court and have a judge make a decision, i gaurantee he will at least have to take an anger management class. If he touched your son, his car or verbally threatened his life, he has a chance at jail, especially with the girl witness and his friends.

In my opinion i would talk to the girl about the incident and ask about cutting a deal under the table, as well as asking her to be a witness if you take him to small claims court.

[Ross]

Gale, Bummer.
If you foot the tab for repairs to the girls car I say do so rather than have the insurance co gouge you forever after. I would also seek the advice of an attorny regarding a getting a solid release of liability from her once paid so she doesn't decide to be injured later.
Regarding the hothead neighbor you may wish to call him and hear his story, there may be some truth to it. Given a chance to vent he may just go away.
If you feel he's got a valid point then sonny needs to be humble and appologize, that's probably what the guy wants.
Good luck

[ryan roopnarine]

i've never met you or your son, so i hesitate to offend you by saying this...

but if you honestly, truly believe that your son, not even accidentally, did anything to precipitate this in the past....

most states have provisions for some manner of non-felonious "change lanes flip off tailgate" charge. you don't want that, don't let the policeman consider it that. if you are going to go through the trouble of having your son telegraph your home address to a psychopath by filing a police report, find out what NM ennumerates felony road rage as, and tell them you want it pursued as such (if you aren't going to hire the shyster). personally, i'd choose option three, but that is because i have no family living with me, and because i have the resources to respond to any follow up attack in the car with overwhelming force, if you understand my meaning. your 16-17 YO son is too young to have access to such things if you aren't around.


ps...after reading ross's contribution..i wouldn't have the stones to call the guy, but that would be the middle class thing to do. sometimes people see a roundel and hear a car at 2.5-3k and think that you are trying to run their kid over in the street. doesn't excuse his behavior, but still....most people aren't entirely unreasonable at their core.

[ryan roopnarine]

and something else....

if you are going to have the police follow this up by having your son file a police report, do some research and find out what the felony option is. if you want to pursue the felony option, make it abundantly clear to the police officer that anything less is unsatisfactory. if they attempt to poo-poo your concern, attempt to file charges with the sheriff's department if applicable. if they aren't interested, do it with the state police/highway patrol. take it from someone who just got federal law enforcement involved in (a matter) that could have been dealt with by the locals (if they didn't blow me off first)--funny story, they're clamoring to help me now. you lived through the clinton administration, know that the guy at the bottom ALWAYS has oversight over any government agency, it isn't a matter of whether or not your story piques a policeman's interest, they are obligated to look into your matter if you swear testimony to something. though the individual involved probably "didn't mean" to cause a car accident, he did. if you are going to put your neck out on the line by going to the police, go heavy, or don't go at all.

[Elekta]

Let it all go. Pay the bender out of your pocket and get on with your life. The ******* probably feels as though he got his pound of flesh with the wreck and all ('that'll slow that punk down a bit')

You don't ever want to be involved with people like this...none of it is worth it. Pepper spray in the glove box isn't that bad an idea, but this event is best left as a memory. Today's paper trails are infinite. No one needs to remember this, least of all the *******.

my .02

[Robin-535im]

Hi Don,

Sorry to hear about that whole ordeal! Very frustrating situation... especially with family members involved.

Take my advice with a grain of salt - you've been on this earth longer than I have and certainly know your way around people. If it were me... trying to imagine one of my little ones behind the wheel is scary enough as it is... I would go with option 3 above to start, to try to get the car dealt with without raising your rates.

Regarding the perp, I would try to smooth out the anger from the perp if possible. Legal / strong arm is always an option but there's no going back after that (and if it comes to that give me a call - I'll stand there with my terminator glasses and look mean :) ). It's worth a shot to knock on the guys door and listen to what he feels so emotional about to get some steam out of his system so you don't have some guy out for your son. It's hard to stay calm with some creep who threatened your kid but it might be worth it to get him back to earth, then to just do some fact finding. Why is he mad, what happened, etc. and after he's vented, calmly let him know that chasing a kid and screaming obscenities is not appropriate and is not how adults solve problems. If he's the least bit reasonable he will feel sheepish for over reacting after seeing your adult attitude. You'd have to play it by ear while you're there, and there's a chance he'll stonewall and just be a jerk. At that point you could get a restraining order put on him, which will probably cool him off but could drive him over the edge... hard to tell with people. I'd just hate to have a crazy dude out there with unresolved anger toward a family member.

Maybe that helps - tough situation any way you look at it.

[repenttokyo]

Let it all go. Pay the bender out of your pocket and get on with your life. The ******* probably feels as though he got his pound of flesh with the wreck and all ('that'll slow that punk down a bit')

You don't ever want to be involved with people like this...none of it is worth it. Pepper spray in the glove box isn't that bad an idea, but this event is best left as a memory. Today's paper trails are infinite. No one needs to remember this, least of all the *******.

my .02


this is the best advice. life is too short, why give yourself a heart attack at an early age with additional, avoidable stress?

[tim s]

that way if he would someday do something it looks bad for him since you already made a complaint about him.
just my 2 cents.
what do i know, i have 2 laywers that give me free service.
tim s.

[Blitzkrieg Bob]

Contact a lawyer

file a police report depicting the event as being instigated by the neighbor’s actions. (Some unknown in a truck aggressively following your son, and as he tried to go to a safe place to call the police and accident occurred.)

Pay for all the repairs on both cars

Now sue the bastage for the repairs on both cars and legal fees.

[gale]

follow-up: not much to report. We did go to the substation and file a supplement to the accident report. Seems it's not much more than a CYA formality which could eventually get forwarded to the insurance co. further detailing the events. The police weren't much interested in taking any further action as of this afternoon. At best, he could be an accessory to the accident and since he left the scene prior to the officer arriving, they suggested I contact their hit & run unit which I will do tomorrow.

I'll keep you posted. Thanks for the broad spectrum of advice!

[632 Regal]

what a scene, following with deep interest.