accident report

Nope. If you don't have full control of the vehicle, its careless driving.

Nope, its more like, the cops would get sued if they didn't accurately report the events and issue citations according to the law. Other than that, I tend to agree, small town cops are a PITA.

But the truck isn't wrecked? Wow.... I guess it depends on what *you* want to think whether or not its wrecked. I'm betting there is a cab mount real close to that spot, any guesses as to the damge it took?

Paranoid or not, when dealing with an insurance company (face it, they charge you big dollars to make sure you don't have to spend big dollars) that wants to keep its money, and another party that wants to spend as little as possible... yeah, its a good idea to have a lawyer.

which would further demonstrate his level of negligence.

she an ICU RN and while at work tonight, she plans on getting checked out.

ouch........sorry to hear it. youre lucky she was able to get it in under workmans comp. any dealings ive had with workmans comp (for my employees) has always been like dealing with the IRS.....you can just feel their evil. :-)

im just going by the highway patrols statements that they base on load, skid marks, etc. his estimated speed was 30-35 and my wifes estimated speed was

25-30 which my wife verified.

heh......yup. hiring the devil to fight demons. :-)

many thanks!

i gotta disagree there. its definately wrecked.

every dealership where you go to trade in your truck. when im shopping for used vehicles (bought 3 in the last year alone!) i always use carfax. when a carfax shoes an accident, i always and without exception move on to another vehicle, without regard to any of the details involved.

in 2000 i bought a new jeep wrangler. in 2001 i bought an expedition. in

2002 i bought a new mustang gt. in 2003 i bought 2 new jeep wranglers. in 2004 i bought a used f350, a used dodge 2500, and a new dodge ram (the one that got wrecked). so far in 2005 ive bought a new jeep wrangler, and an '05 bighorn dually diesel. as clearly demonstrated in my vehicle history, i buy a new vehicle more often than many people buy new shoes. yes, this truck in question will also be dumped soon.

for hitting my truck. in fact, the officer in question should have also pistol whipped him. :-)

but to replace it will require a frankenstein job and i know how that shit goes. over time the paint peels, shit starts to creek and moan, etc.

heh.........good point.

certainly.....but i do not believe that the pillar in question can ever be fixed as good as it was before i got hit.

i can be both thankful my family is ok, and angry that this asswipe put them all in danger and in that process smacked my truck.

oh no, not pissed off at you at all.

where would you begin to estimate? seriously....if you were in the market and found two identical trucks in the same price range, one with a damage history and the other without any damage history, which one are you going to buy?

to make things even more interesting, we learned today that the other driver has the same insurance company. different broker, but same national company. this solidifies my need to get an attorney. if insurance company A were fighting for my best interests against insurance company B i would be more apt to trust them. since they would be fighting themselves in this case, i know whos best interest is important to my insurance company and its not mine......its their own.

so........does anybody have any advice on how to handle the issue when you have the same insurance company? thanks,

Actually, it is not a bad thing since they cannot say the other insurance company is not responding. I would wait until you find out your wife condition (if anything) because once you get started, additions will make the insurance company very suspicious and defensive. As for attempting to collect for depreciation due to the accident, good luck with that.

Not by definition. While I will agree that it does look like hell and need some serious body work to look new again, it appears to need no repairs at all to be fully functional. I bet that back door still works as well.

I guess that money just burns a hole in your pocket, huh :-) The problem is that most insurance companies will not pay you for depreciation because the resale value is not their concern. They are only obligated to return the vehicle to pre-accident conditions.

LOL, the problem is that I doubt that he knew the specific summons code for hitting Nate's truck. Like others have said, since he didn't see the accident, he really doesn't know what happened.

Not if it is done correctly. It was welded on to begin with so why should a new one be any worse if done correctly and a good body shop is more than capable of performing this operation. As for the paint, since the factory paint is for the most part shit anymore, I don't see how the body shop could do any worse.

Where do you get the 30% devaluation from? My 2000 GMC Sierra 1500 4x4 took out a 95 Camaro, and a 97 Cavalear in Jan 03, when the kid in the uninsured Z-28 turned in front of me and there was no place for me to go. The Camaro's front end was taken off, and the woman in the Cavalear had to be cut out, the car was too "tweaked" for the doors to open, I had hit her left rear corner at about 50, and launched her over 100' down the shoulder of the road. She wasn't hurt, the kid in the Z-28 wasn't hurt, but I was, mostly from the second impact, when the airbags went off.

After $11,000+ of repairs, my Sierra still had issues, mostly electrical, related to the crash, and after taking it back to the bodyshop about a dozen times, I pretty much had had enough. I was going to buy another Sierra, but the dealer played games and I went to Dodge, that was what I really wanted anyway.

The trade in was the same at both dealers, $15,000, about $500 less than a friend had received for his 2000 Sierra (They stickered about a hundred apart, mine was more) that had never been wrecked and wasn't "doggy smelling", like mine was. They knew about my wreck, it wasn't all that hard to tell anyway. His truck and mine were pretty close, milage and wear wise, in fact we had both just replaced the driver's seat, under warranty due to it splitting. Both were midlevel trim, mine was black his was blue.

If your claim was true, I would have only expected to get about $10K. I expected to take some sort of hit, but the salesman shook his head, and said it was fixed right, and they had no problem giving me 15K on it. The list of parts replaced on mine was three pages long. The entire drivetrain and suspension on the front drivers side, quarter panel, driver's door, front bumper, wheel and tire, were all replaced with new stuff. State Farm insurance was great, no complaints, but the body shop was a joke( I picked it, not them). When I got it back, I basically had no front brakes, and nearly went out onto a busy highway when I pulled out of the dealer's driveway.

By the time I was done with the body shop, I wouldn't have believed me if they told me the sun was coming up the next morning.

BDK

the amount they offered him was roughly 30% less than the kbb trade in value. this was consistant at more than one dealership.

Yup, get a lawyer.

Hmmm.... vehicle #1 was progressing down a street, vehicle #2 was coming out of a driveway. #1 has side-impact damage, #2 has head-on damage. #2 tried to stop, as evidenced by skid marks. It's pretty obvious #1 didn't slide sideways from across the street into #2. It's also obvious #2 was travelling at a certain rate of speed to make those skid marks - clearly moving too quickly to safely turn 90° into traffic.

Those are all facts easily verifiable by looking at the scene. Now - is it possible that #1 was travelling in the left-lane, and changed into the right, striking #2 as he was pulling out into the right-hand lane? Possible (don't know if it was a multi-lane road, but say it was).... but still, why the skid marks from #2, indicating (as Nate stated) an initial speed of

30-35MPH when the brakes were applied?

So you won't mind if someone crashes into the side of your truck, then offers to pay a body shop to fix it, right? I mean - it'll be good as new, so it really shouldn't make a difference?

See, but here's the deal. The family DIDN'T get hurt - so that's out of the equation. Now, it's just as if someone rammed his truck in a parking lot (hey, wait.... that DID happen :). His truck is messed up, it's someone else's fault, and he has every right to be pissed. This notion that, "well, as long as no one got hurt" is bullshit. Obviously, if he had a choice: let my family get hurt, or destroy the truck, it's not even a question. That isn't the case. The two here aren't mutually exclusive.

I can understand exactly where he's coming from. It's different if they were driving home, and a wind storm blew a tree over that hit the truck. That's when you say, "well, metal can be fixed - as long as you're all OK". That's an accident. It falls under the "shit happens" clause. The damage to his truck is a DIRECT result of someone else's negligence. Plain and simple. Yes - Nate's fortunate that his family wasn't hurt.... the moron driving the other truck is even MORE fortunate. But, like I said, that's a closed issue. Now it's about fixing the damage, and fixing it in such a way that it doesn't hurt him financially down the road.

And lots of liniment :)

I used to do insurance..... if the idiot was coming off a private lot, onto a public street, you should have him by the short hairs

hold his insurance company's feet to the fire

Funny how you questioned the speed in your initial post in this thread saying with the minimal damage that vehicle 2 could not be going all that fast and are not whining to me about vehicle 2 going to fast to make the turn. You really need to back off on the noise level and make up your mind.

Really??? Were you there? Did you see the scene?

Perhaps the skid marks were from another vehicle or perhaps vehicle 2's brakes were not functioning properly and only the rear wheels applied significant braking force. Skid marks from the rear wheels only will cause much longer skid marks and you did know that, right? And thinking of that, unless the driver was operating a Yugo or similarly sized vehicle, the skid marks for a vehicle traveling at 35 MPH would be of a significant length so where exactly did driver 2 apply these brakes. Then again, perhaps the officer was using the density of the skid marks to determine speed but that would be influenced by the weight of the vehicle and if he estimated it incorrectly.... Perhaps it was just the position of the sun blinding driver

2 and he couldn't see her and the officer decided not to make driver 2's day even worse than it already was since he was not driving carelessly. Like I said before, there are just too many variables.

LOL, please show me where in the above comment that you retained that I said that he shouldn't mind or that it shouldn't bother him?