I was in a car accident the other day. Just minor damage to my car
nothing to the car that hit me. No one was injured. We were both
traveling in on a 2 lane one way city street in Philadelphia PA. I was
in the left lane, the other guy is in the rignt lane. We were side by
side and i noticed a bike rider on his side between him and the cars
parked on the right side of the road. I have a curb on my side. All of
a sudden, He turns left into my car to avoid hitting the biker. His
front tire hits the rear side of my car scuffing, denting, and
scraping the top rear tire of my tire hull and tire rim. We both pull
over and he was blaming this on me. He then tried to tell me that you
can buff out my damange. It was obvious that you couldn't. I said I
need to get your insurance info. That's when I learned his car was a
company car. He didn't want to give me his insurance card at first, so
I took down his liscense plate and Got his name. He kept insisting
this was my fault, that I came over into his lane. By this time I was
getting fustrated so I called 911. A police officer came by to write
up a report. I knew I needed one for insurance info. The officer got
both of our info, and our stories. He then wrote the report and said
we could get a copy of the report from the district station the next
day. I also called my insurance company to prepare them. The next day
I went to see the police report. I was shocked to see the report.
First it said that the complaint was filed by the other guy. I was the
one that called the police, he didn't want to call the police. Second
it said that his car was struck by my car. I asked the lady at the
station what to do, that I thought the report was wrong. She said to
call my insurance company and they would work it out with the other
guy's insurance. My problem is that I don't want to have my insurance
premium go up because of this accident. This is my first accident. But
according to the report, it's in his favor. The damage to my car is
about $200. My question is should I proceed with calling my insurance
company over a $200 repair. Or should I just suck it up and fix it
myself. I don't want to chance having my premium go up if the
insurance companies think it was my fault. But by the damage, you can
clearly see he turned into me. Please  help me!

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Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 08 Mar 2003 15:29 PST

industry...

What is your deductible? If your deductible is in the range
of $150-200 or more, there is no advantage in informing your
insurance company, as they will not cover enough of it (if
any of it) to offset the very real risk of a higher premium.

sublime1-ga

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Clarification of Question by industry-ga on 09 Mar 2003 01:33 PST

$500 deductible

Have you spoken with the officer that took the report?

Get copies of your cell phone bill and
also his if he has one.  Also, get a 
copy, if possible, of the tape of the
9-11 call or confirmation of it.

Report it to your insurance company even if you don't plan to make a
claim. Here's why...if you don't contest this report or the blame and
he takes you to small claims court, the report and your failure to
dispute guilt will likley cause you to have to pay for his damage too.
Tell your insurance company you are undecided about making a claim
until you can straighten this report issue out.

Call the officer's supervisor. Believe it or not, they are people too
and sometimes make mistakes. I have spent 22 years in this profession
and I can tell you from first hand experience that accident reports do
get changed because someone screwed up. Point out to the supervisor
that you made the 911 call. Also show him your car. If what you are
saying is true, then the scrapes on your car will taper backward. That
is to say that the scrapes will be widest at the point of initial
contact and sharply decrease in width near the point where the damage
ends. This is common phenomenon is caused by the offending vehicle
stopping abruptly when the driver realizes that the collision has
occured. It indicates that you were struck by the offending vehicle
and not the other way around. The offending vehicle will have scrapes
that are opposite in appearance (tapering forward) indicating that you
were passing by at an even speed and didn't have an opportunity or a
reason to react (because you weren't doing anything wrong - like
running into another car for example - see what I mean). I foresee
this officer getting summoned to the carpet if he was wrong.

Finally, fill out a FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT form and get the 911
tape from the police department right away. Most people don't know
this but agencies normally keep tapes only for 30-60 days unless
something on them leads them to believe that there might be a reason
to keep them longer. They reuse them to keep costs down (I was also a
police communications supervisor for about 5 years and I erased tapes
and reused them all the time). If they won't let you have a copy of
the tape, you might have a valid legal issue with them. A phone bill
alone won't prove that the other guy didn't call 911 first, but the
tape will.

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

I have not spoken to the officer since the accident. He was nice but
he really wasn't intrested in the accident. He looked at our cars at a
glance. The other driver didn't have a cell phone, or at least, not
that I could see. There was a woman in the car also and she really
didn't say anything. This guy also had NJ plates, so he was an out of
state driver.

Oh yeah, my deductible is $500

I did report this to my insurance company about 10 minutes after it
happened. I don't think this guy reported it to his insurance company,
yet. It just seemed that he wanted to get out of there, and not even
deal with the situation. My report is on hold untill I give them the
police report number.

Hey tutuzdad, where would I find a FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT form?

I'm not tutuzdad, but I was passing by, and....

You can usually get one right at the police station.

The Pennsylvania State Police puts its form online in PDF format,
through its website:
http://www.psp.state.pa.us/psp/cwp/view.asp?a=4&q=160408