ChrisG
06-13-2005, 07:33 PM
I live in California.
Last week I was in an accident in a school parking lot (I'm 17).
What happened was: I was pulling into a parking space, but I saw that if I kept going I would hit the car in the space to my left, so I stopped, making sure to look in my mirror, I backed up to give myself some room to turn into the space.
After I back out, I stop, and put the car into drive, I still have my foot on the break when I get hit from behind by a girl driving across the parking lot.
She doesn't stop and back up, she just keeps driving through (creating even more damage on her own car). We exchange information (after parking both of our cars).
I am being told that I am at fault, even though I was not even moving. I don't know what she was thinking, I'm assuming that she thought she had enough room to squeeze by my car, but obviously she didn't, and she ended up denting in the left corner of the rear bumper, scratching up the bumper, and bending my left rear tire well out about an inch.
Her damage is a lot worse because she drove all the way through.
Here's an animation I made of what happened:
http://img100.echo.cx/img100/8028/accident9ne.gif
Neither of us wanted the insurance involved, but now the parents of the girl that hit me are asking for 900 dollars for their 1600 repair (my damage comes to a total of 580).
I don't have that kind of money and my dad is expecting me to pay (he's being upset lately) and my mother doesn't have very much money at all, but she says if I report it to our insurance, they'll find me at fault.
But I wasn't moving at all, and she first made contact to my car, which to me sounds like she was at fault.
I really don't know what to do, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Last week I was in an accident in a school parking lot (I'm 17).
What happened was: I was pulling into a parking space, but I saw that if I kept going I would hit the car in the space to my left, so I stopped, making sure to look in my mirror, I backed up to give myself some room to turn into the space.
After I back out, I stop, and put the car into drive, I still have my foot on the break when I get hit from behind by a girl driving across the parking lot.
She doesn't stop and back up, she just keeps driving through (creating even more damage on her own car). We exchange information (after parking both of our cars).
I am being told that I am at fault, even though I was not even moving. I don't know what she was thinking, I'm assuming that she thought she had enough room to squeeze by my car, but obviously she didn't, and she ended up denting in the left corner of the rear bumper, scratching up the bumper, and bending my left rear tire well out about an inch.
Her damage is a lot worse because she drove all the way through.
Here's an animation I made of what happened:
http://img100.echo.cx/img100/8028/accident9ne.gif
Neither of us wanted the insurance involved, but now the parents of the girl that hit me are asking for 900 dollars for their 1600 repair (my damage comes to a total of 580).
I don't have that kind of money and my dad is expecting me to pay (he's being upset lately) and my mother doesn't have very much money at all, but she says if I report it to our insurance, they'll find me at fault.
But I wasn't moving at all, and she first made contact to my car, which to me sounds like she was at fault.
I really don't know what to do, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.
