what to do??

[ragansrcobra99]

heading up to the SCMC gingerman event this past weekend the following incident happened:

fast lane merged into the middle lane, gradually marked by about 3ft cones with reflectors on top. this bonehead in an astrovan blows by me (i was leading a caravan of 4 others) and tags one of the cones. the reflector at the top shattered and tossed the remnants down the side of my car, and across the hood of the cobra behind me. me being the redneck i am, i chase after him to kick his arse. my better sense was riding shotgun and she calmed me down. i got the tag number for the van just in case. after arriving in benton harbor MI, found that i had a couple of gashes in the paint on the front fender from this, and the owner of the other cobra asked me if i had info cuz his hood had several bad scratches across the top of it.
i work with the metro officer in my apt complex, but we're on opposite shifts, so it'll take a while to run the tag # and contact the driver of the van on these damages. i'm hoping that not making a report doesn't hurt on this...

any help? i have the tag and i need to get a hold of this moron (peaceably, of course :gt: )

 

[aj0538]

This is a tough one. We get calls all the time of rocks, debris etc falling off of trucks and damaging cars. The truck companies always say "it came off the road" and "the damage on the car was already there, our truck didn't do it".

You can try to contact the van driver but unless he realizes he did it and is honest about it you face an uphill battle. The driver will more than likely say that he has no idea what your talking about or that whatever happened to your car was not his fault. It will probably come down to a civil suit against the van driver.

Either way you should start by getting a police report for the damage and have the other guy get one too. Get an estimate of the damage and contact the court in your area to see what will be involved. It will take a lot of your time and will probably cost some $. In other words you probably would be better off taking care of it yourself if the van driver gives you the runaround, I know it sucks. Maybee someone else has some better info for you.

 

[ragansrcobra99]

oh, the driver knew he hit it, and knew i knew. when i got up beside him to spew forth various obscenities that uncle sam taught me, he and his passenger were looking back and laughing.

shoulda filed a report up there, unfortunately, the civil suit would probably cost more than the friggin repairs... (god bless lawyers...NOT)

 

[quick01snake]

Man, I'm sorry to hear about that Steve. I'm glad I don't carry my Beretta around, that would be a bad situation.

 

[sohowcome]

Originally posted by ragansrcobra99
oh, the driver knew he hit it, and knew i knew. when i got up beside him to spew forth various obscenities that uncle sam taught me, he and his passenger were looking back and laughing.

shoulda filed a report up there, unfortunately, the civil suit would probably cost more than the friggin repairs... (god bless lawyers...NOT)

Uncle sam eh............... learnedmine from watching George Carlin.......

 

[quick01snake]

Originally posted by sohowcome

learnedmine from watching George Carlin.......

LOL, me too.

 

[ragansrcobra99]

lmao @ george carlin, funny