It was a bit of a shock when I realised last year marked the Ruby anniversary of passing my driving test.
I’ve written about the cars I’ve owned, and yesterday did a challenge for Teresa aka The Haunted Wordsmith that involved a dent in a car.
Apart from challenges, I seem to be running out of ideas for posts, so thought I’d come clean about my driving history.
To date and hopefully not tempting fate, I have no points on my licence for whatever reason, but confess I have had a few prangs. I’m a woman, so it’s to be expected right? However, they were not all my fault !!!
My first little encounter was with a metallic silver Capri I think it was, which suddenly turned left with no indication and I went up the back of him. I was driving Gladys, my 1966 anglia, and there was hardly a mark on her. However, both of us got out and exchanged names, addresses and apologies. He was very nice about it actually, and said he had just come back from viewing a body so his mind was elsewhere. My mind was also occupied with something else as Husband and I had been discussing divorce.
We agreed a 50/50 error of judgement, so I gave him a cheque for fifty quid and heard no more about it.
Husband and I went to counselling for six months so we were still together when I had my next collision. I was driving my Renault 12, and a guy just cut straight across in front of me to go into the garage.
I wrote off the back of his brand new car, putting a ripple dent in the bodywork under the offside headlight in mine.
This was not my fault at all, as he’d never driven an automatic before and hit the accelerator instead of the brake. Accepting full responsibility, he arranged to have my car repaired, so again no insurance companies were involved.
Fast forward many years and the buying of Thomas, an Austin Maxi.
Backing out of the parking area when we were living in our one bedroom box, I hit a car that was parked directly across the entrance. I knocked on the owner’s door and told them what I’d done as I felt it was the right thing to do. The guy came out and looked at the damage, saying it would be OK and he’d get a couple of quotes. He opened the driver’s door and couldn’t shut it again. Oops. Now he wasn’t quite so happy.
This turned out to be an interesting scenario.
I saw him a few times and asked if he had any quotes yet, to which he replied he had two so far, one for £500 and one for £600. I told him to go through the insurance companies as I had protected no claims and they would settle the bill.
Some weeks went by and he came scurrying out one day when I got home from work and said the cheapest quote was £500 but if I’d give him a cheque, he wouldn’t put it through his insurance company. I told him to go ahead as mine was ready to settle once the paperwork had been received and processed.
Nothing happened, and again after a couple of weeks, he confronted Hubby in the car park saying he was happy to accept cash and not put it through the insurance companies. Hubby said that was what we had insurance for and if he let us know who his insurers were, we could tell ours.
There never was a claim, we never paid a cent and believe it may have been that he had no insurance anyway.
The dent that appeared in my brand new Hyundai Atoz was caused by a flying parasol that had been uprooted from its stand by howling gales. Our neighbours said they would foot the bill, but when we took the vehicle in, they tried to tell us the whole vehicle needed a respray. That was just ridiculous, and we knew without asking our neighbours wouldn’t pay for it, so Hubby bought some touch up paint, repaired it himself and you couldn’t tell.
The claim that did go through the insurance company was when I was driving Hubby’s Peugeot Partner when we were house hunting. Luckily the caravan was on site and not attached when a young female driver pulled out from a junction in front of me and I clipped the back of her vehicle. She had a baby in the back and I was mortified.
Everyone was OK though, we had witnesses and although it was a bit of a game getting our car repaired as we had to go to a specified repairer, her insurance company paid up.
I reversed into a bollard at the supermarket when driving my Peugeot 206, and when parking in my MIL’s garden when we first started house hunting, I grazed her washing line pole which had a rusty edge and put a nasty scratch in my front wing.
All in all not bad for 41 years behind the wheel.
pensitivity101 
Ah yes ……….. driving (not necessarily accidents) stories! I bet it would not be difficult to write a book about them! 🙂
We passed an accident yesterday with one VW Golf in a ditch, a saxo and another small car, all driven by young people. A transit van had stopped to see if he could pull them out, but it didn’t look like a simple recovery judging by the angle of the rear of the golf.
We were just walking down our road when a car backed out of the driveway, missed us but zoomed across the road straight into the garden wall of the house opposite – into as in making a hole… then she drove straight back out, round the corner and off to the shops!
Someone did that to our friend’s wall, He repaired it himself and never knew who’d done the damage.
That’s a pretty great track record.
Hope I haven’t jinxed it!
Fingers crossed 🤞
I’ve never had a car accident while I was driving. I had gone to visit a friend once and parked in her driveway. She and her partner had a double car garage and a very long drive — they lived in the country. We were all going out and were going in their car. Her partner barrelled out of the garage like he was driving at Le Mans — wasn’t looking where he was going either. Just backed out at high speed. We were both yelling at him but he didn’t hear and wasn’t paying attention. Do I have to tell you what he did to the front end of my car? Do I have to tell you there was enough room there to drive a train by and not come near my car? Well, I refused to put it through my insurance because my rates would have gone up and I wasn’t even in the car. So they had to pony up for the repair, which was more than $1000. Second time I was living in a condo — an apartment. Our garage was just not for residents, it was also available to the public. I came down one morning and saw a long scratch and a dent alone the driver’s side door. And there was a note, with a phone number on the windshield. When I called there was no service on the line. There must have been another driver around and the person who hit my car must have been afraid they’d seen what happened, so decided to look honest by leaving a bogus number. We had security cameras in the garage and as luck would have it, the entire thing was captured on film and the offending driver’s license plate number was clearly visible. I had my lawyer do a search, we tracked down the owner of the car and it turned out it was his teenage daughter who’d been driving and had had a bit too much beer. Again I didn’t have to report it to my insurance and the father had to pay up. As for the daughter I’m guessing she didn’t get the keys to the family car for a good long time.
It happens Fransi. Although my accident in the Peugeot went through the insurance, it wasn’t our fault so our premium wasn’t affected. These days though when insurance firms get involved they say the car is a write off rather than get it repaired.
Wow, wonder if if’s the same here. I got rid of my car years several years ago. Living downtown I can walk or take the subway everywhere. And we have cars you can rent by the hour here if ever I need one.
We’ve thought about the pros and cons of driving, and working out what we’ll do in the future. We have a good bus route, but decent shops are some distance away for what we like to buy. We shall have to see, but for the time being we are both able and can share driving on longer journeys.
You have significant distances to go so a car really comes in handy. I am so centrally located and getting around on foot and subway is so quick and easy a car is more of a nuisance than a help. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I’ve rented a car.
I can understand that.
Yes, I would say that’s a good record! I have my own stories of bangs, dents and scratches as well, fortunately nothing every serious!