Scooter and motabilty car - Whiplash scam best way forward advice needed | Legal matters | Back Room Forum

Wed 2 Jan 2013 12:50

Scooter and motabilty car - Whiplash scam best way forward advice needed - jb1968

I need some advice after my daughter had an accident it was minor and we thought it would be straightforward but then got a claim for whiplash today.....here is roughly what happened. Sorry it's long I'm just annoyed! Oh and new to this.

Accident occurred 12:45pm on Friday 21.12.12 We have mobile telephone records for evidence of timing of the accident.

Our daughter was driving a small scooter she is 16 has done her CBT and is a confident rider. She braked in relatively slow moving traffic after the car in front of her made a sudden stop, she lost grip, skidded, and collided into the rear left hand bumper of a stationary car at the time of impact. Speed at time of impact less than 10mph. This stretch of road is notoriously stop start and slow moving so the sheer weight of traffic rarely flows fast. My wife and son had encountered exactly the same traffic flow 5 minutes earlier as they were also headed to the the same destination.

No one sustained any injuries in the car. Both myself and my wife spoke to the driver and the 2 passengers and no-one stated any injuries. An ambulance attended but no one from the car requested any form of medical attention. The ambulance stayed at the scene for well over 40 minutes. The paramedics checked several times to see if anyone from the vehicle needed medical attention.

Our daughter fell off and sustained grazing to her lower back, heavy grazing to her right knee, and a minor scrape to her left foot. My daughter was thoroughly checked over and given advice on treatment of the minor injuries and advised to attend the hospital should any concerns arise once it was agreed she could be released into our care.

The scooter front end fairing and lights were significantly damaged as they are a flimsy plastic. The ignition key also snapped off as it is part of the front fairing. The engine and handlebars and levers and seat appear unaffected including the seat and top box. There are minor scratches in a number of places. The damage is consistent with a front end impact followed by the vehicle falling to the ground.

A young man was also present at the scene we presumed him to also be in the car however the claim form states there was only one other person in the vehicle.

Only damage I noticed on the vehicle was that the rear bumper had been dislodged on the left hand side and had 2 small holes. I clipped the bumper back into place leaving only the small holes as the visible damage. The vehicle was driven from the scene to continue their trip. This was confirmed by The car owner but passenger on the day when I spoke to her The very next day.

No acceptance of liability was made. The police did not attend the scene. The police were not called. No witness details were collected by either party.

My daughter did not have her insurance details with her so we agreed to call with those the following day.

I rang the next day to discuss matters. I did not accept any liability or agree it was my daughters fault but I was willing to make remedy totally at my own expense and would pay for all repairs to her vehicle and my own myself. She said this was fine and would get Motability to pick up the car and call me to sort repairs. As this would only be a bumper plus labour I was expecting a straightforward fix. This was the first mention it was a motabilty car.

I did not provide my daughters insurance details believing them not to be required.

No mention was made of any injuries to anyone in the car during this conversation .

No further contact was made until Wednesday 2nd January 2013 when a letter arrived at our home address stating a claim for whiplash was being made and that our insurers had received the claim. The letter states the were only 2 people in the car- I believe this to be incorrect. The claim document is dated 28th December one week after the accident. The claimant states she has been in pain since the accident and taking the (prescription only) drug Tramadol, despite not having visited her GP or sought any other medical advice.

Frustrating as I was happy to fix the problem as our daughter will be learning to drive soon I really wanted to avoid an insurance claim. Especially annoying that the first port of call was the claim company not the GP. My doctors tell me tramadol is prescription only.
Any advice on this would be welcome.

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Wed 2 Jan 2013 12:57

Scooter and motabilty car - Whiplash scam best way forward advice needed - Rachaelink

Raise your concerns to your insurers, they will do their upmost (or should do) to avoid any opportunistic injury claims. If the damage was to the bumper only, i.e no structural damage to metal structures behind the bumper, then you will have a good chance of raising causation. That is to say that whilst you accept a collision happened, you do not feel that the impact would have been sufficient to cause impact.

It might result in your daughter attending a court to give evidence, so just ensure she sticks to the facts and tells everything as it happens. Do not be tempted to embelish anything in order to strengthen your argument.

If there are phantom passenger claims then hopefully the claimants have a colourful claims history, something that can be investigated in full by your insurers. Ultimately with these claims it comes to one persons word against the other, so hopefully the third parties have some previous claims and that may discredit their story.

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