Reversing Accident

I could hardly believe my eyes, the cost of the reversing accidents in the UK last year came to a staggering £409,000,000 :omg:

According to the new research quoted in the February TopGear magazine over 200,000 reversing accidents were recorded last year, each costing £2,100 on average.

An average cost of £2,100 - for goodness sake how fast are these people reversing. If they can do that much damage reversing they sound like a real danger to everyone on the road. They should be made to retake their driving test. :rant:

It makes me feel sick to read things like this, £2,100 average cost from a reversing accident just does not make sense. There must be a lot of people getting very rich on our ever increasing insurance premiums.

There is either some serious skullduggery going on or there are a lot more Ferraris, Lamborginis, Maseratis, Astom Martins et al on the road than I see around my area to create such enourmous repair bills.

So how come I can't afford one of those, or 2 or all of 'em :nonod:

Little story from a long time ago....

The managing director of the company my Father worked for bought a 2 year old Rolls Royce in the early 70's. 2 weeks after geting his pride and joy he 'touched' the wing against a wooden post whilst reversing (hadn't got used to the size of the car yet).

He contacts RR to arrange for a 'touch up' of a very minor scratch, with no bodywork damage, and they quote him £1k for the repair!

When he questioned the price they said tat to ensure a perfect colour match they would have to respray the ENTIRE car and would not entertain just fixing the scratch or even respraying the wing alone!

His local garage did it for a pittace and you couldn't see a thing once it had been done.

It does make you wonder what percentage of the figure accounts for actual vehicle damage. I suspect some of the figure also goes on personal injury claims and probably a large amount on 'paperwork'.

Very good point :yesnod:

I wonder what the average 'administrative' cost is before you add on the cost of repair etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if the insurance companies charge as much as solicitors - money grabbing SOBs

£2,100 ha You should go to any supermarket at say 2:30 when she is late to pick the kids up in her Q3 etc. in reverse and out. did you not see her revesing lights on. YOU should have stopped. It's YOUR fault that was a conversion I over heard

A relation was quoted £2500 to do a small dent in the rear bumper on his Porche Boxter, the repairer said that the bumper needed replacing!! (it was a shallow dent about the size of a saucer) he took it to my local bodyshop (i have known the owner for 20 years) and he said he would heat the plastic bumper , pull out the dent and repaint the entire bumper for ? wait for it >>>>>> £250 :woohoo:

I know insurance companies tend to repair on a 'like for like' basis ie brand new parts...perhaps there should be two classes of fully comprehensive whereby for a lower priced premium you could opt to have second hand parts and good quality 'patch' resprays rather than brand new parts and total car sprays- it may save a few cars being unnecessarily written off for dented bumpers, scratched doors etc

Actually that's a brilliant idea - i'd go for that.

Very good idea, but they wont go for it. its the labour charges and the paint costs that kill it, did you know that some of these "fancy" paints are £500 a litre :omg:

That theory sounds much like the system we have here. In BC we have government run insurance through the "Insurance Corporation of BC", a Crown Corporation. ICBC supplies basic liability insurance to every driver in the province, and supplies most of the optional coverage, such as collision and comprehensive (Glass breakage, vandalism etc. Private companies are allowed to compete on the optional coverage which helps keep ICBC's rates down. As ICBC control the bulk of the market they are able to control body shops' repair costs. If you want your shop to do ICBC work you toe the line on pricing . The shops use used parts when available, if you want new parts you pay the difference in price. As ICBC does the bulk of write-offs they also sell the scrap cars back to the market. We don't have the C and D etc designations like the UK, but if you want to have a written off car re-registered for the road it must be tested and meet a standard. For the most part ICBC leaves modifications alone unless they are a factor in an accident, then they hold you to account. The police are generally the ones who will nick you for too wide tyres, loud exhaust or overly tinted windows. The co-operate with ICBC and can have your insurance cancelled if you fail to comply. That said, I have never been picked up for anything worse that a missing front license plate in spite of all the mods I have done to various cars over the years.
ICBC insurance isn't cheap, as they are required to insure every driver in the province, good and bad. It costs me about $1000. a year(600.GBP) to insure my F including collision and comprehensive. As I have a good claims record I am allowed one "Free" repair every 3 years which won't affect my rates. Drivers with a bad claims record pay through the nose. ICBC is also tied in to the Provincial traffic ticket system so multiple tickets affect your rates as well.
In spite of the benefits people complain about ICBC like they complain about any government organisation but after reading about what you in the UK go through I am pretty happy with their service. BTW; In spite of having to insure everyone they make money. (Which the governmet generally appropriates for general revenue!)

Just to add another little anecdote to the list.....


I remember when I was 17, many moons ago now, and My girlfriend had her F reg Fiesta "knocked" in a car park, just some paint work to the wing and possibly pulling a dent.

The car was about 4 years old at the time. The first question from the body shop was "is this to go through the insurance?" a quote through insurance was £1150, Her Dad decided that it would be too much on her already expensive premium to make a claim even back then so said they would probably pay for it themselves, the quote therefore was £500!

I suspect a lot of work quoted is simply inflated as it is going through insurance, not because it needs it or that the garage want to rip us off they are trying to get as much out of the insurance companies - which of course in turn increases our premiums so they are ripping us off at the end of the day.

Perhaps some sort of compromise on the ideas above where the owner can select to have a repair with new panels, full respray etc or just to have a local repair of the damage, pulling a dent etc rather than replace the whole panel.

Then the renal premium can be adjusted according to the cost of the claim.
Or an idea which springs to mind as I type, to have a repair allowance within the Full comp premium for a repair/claim. If you stay within the repair allowance you have one level of increase at renewal or none at all (you will have a Excess after all, so if a repair is £500 and you have a £250 excess you only have a £250 claim.
If you are over the claim allowance then you suffer the potential write off or larger increase in premium come renewal time that we have at the moment .......of course you will need to think about how to handle protective NCB, but I'll let the insurance boys wangle over that, after all I'm am not about to do all their work for them....!

Mandatory rear parking sensors ~simples~