I was in a car accident a few weeks ago in which I was driving down the road and a truck pulled out of a parking lot across my lane while making a left turn. I ended up T-boning them and fortunately nobody was injured.
When I got out of the car I made sure to let the other driver know that I had a dash cam, to ensure that he didn't try to change his story about what happened. Yes, I know Reddit has a hard-on for using dash cam videos to catch people in their lies, but that wasn't my intention—I wanted my insurance claim to go as smoothly as possible and if I could convince the other driver to admit fault then that is what I aimed to do.
I showed the police the dash cam video and they cited the other driver a ticket for failing to properly yield. They didn't get a very close look at it since I was showing it to them on my phone, but it was enough to show that the other driver pulled in front of me without checking that the lane was clear.
I called my insurance to sort out the whole mess and asked about having the other driver assume the cost of my deductible. My insurance agent told me that it was extremely unlikely that this would happen, since in my state if a driver is found even 1% at fault then they are liable for the deductible. She said it would be almost impossible to determine the other driver was 100% at fault.
So, with that in mind, I looked more closely at the video and broke it down frame by frame. This helped me call attention to certain details of the event that I had previously overlooked:
- I made note that the other car pulled in front of me only 1.8 seconds before impact, and that I had already started applying the brakes 1.2 seconds before impact.
- I also noted that the other driver failed to use their turn signal (something I hadn't noticed at the time of the accident)
- I finally noted that I initially attempted to swerve to the left of the car to avoid the front bumper, and then changed my direction of travel to the right when the other driver started to accelerate. (I changed direction to avoid T-boning the driver's side door, instead I hit the rear passenger door). I demonstrated that I did everything in my power to avoid and minimize the accident.
With the video and my own narrative calling attention to these details, the other driver admitting fault at the time of the event, and the police report citing the other driver, both insurance companies found the other driver 100% at fault and I was not liable for the 1K deductible.
I doubt that this situation would have ended up in my favor if I didn't have video evidence to back everything up. I spent about $100 on the dash cam and it has been in my car for about 5 years. Turned out to be a good investment.
EDIT: I'm getting a lot of comments on the type of dash cam setup I have. I have a basic camera similar to this one, then hardwired it into the fuse with a kit like this, with a high endurance SD card. I also keep an SD card reader in my car to easily copy videos from my dash cam to my phone. The whole setup cost me about $100. Mods please let me know if I need to edit out the links.
Submitted December 14, 2018 at 06:52PM by Harry_Coolahan https://ift.tt/2A15xPC
