Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Probably best to avoid motorways in a new car.

The insurer of the van, assuming there was one. My son had a similar with his first ever new and slightly flash car - an Audi TT when they first came out. Parked it day 2 in a vertical to the kerb bay in London and went into a cafe. Sat down and heard a crunch as an 80 year old lady drove into the back of it. She hadnt bothered to renew her licence and was driving on her sons company insurance. Felt sorry for the lad - early 20s, decent job in London, first nice car and that happens.

The insurer of the van, assuming there was one. My son had a similar with his first ever new and slightly flash car - an Audi TT when they first came out. Parked it day 2 in a vertical to the kerb bay in London and went into a cafe. Sat down and heard a crunch as an 80 year old lady drove into the back of it. She hadnt bothered to renew her licence and was driving on her sons company insurance. Felt sorry for the lad - early 20s, decent job in London, first nice car and that happens.

I was even more pi55ed off when Elephant honoured his protected NCB on renewal and doubled his gross premium on the excuse he must be accident prone. Most insurance companies are fair but there are crooks like Elephant.

Without knowing all the details of this incident, I am not prepared to pass comment except that anyone who has ever suffered total electrical shutdown in 'Lane 3' would not leap to rapid judgment. And hi-tech modern cars certainly make it even more difficult than my experience of this, in 1981 in a mid-engined Renault 5 Turbo, as mentioned in Chapter 13 of my book, The Good, The Mad & The Ugly (not to mention Jeremy Clarkson). The Lamborghini driver may have come to a sudden stop and the van driver may have been unsighted and unable to avoid the collision.

Not long after we took over the Coupe from being the factory demonstrator it did exactly this to me.

To some extent I was lucky as it did a total stop/start reboot in the outside lane at 80mph or less. Dash went black and all electrics stopped dead. Engine went dead, it has an autobox so massive deceleration and I could not just de-clutch which was instinct. I hit neutral so managed to retain some speed/coast. All the dash went dark then a needles-around-the-clock restart and it came back so I was able to continue, sitting half an inch higher. It was one in the morning in pi@@ing down rain on the A34, had it been rush hour I would have been looking at a least an insurance claim from hell.

It did it one more time after that before it went back to the factory. Windscreen poorly fitted and water getting in behind the dash board. As they always say adrenaline is brown, matches the leather.

Starting to regret choosing Magnolia leather ......

No excuse in the eyes of the law Peter....van driver is at fault.

If only that were true in it's entirety..!

From a criminal law perspective, the basic premise commences from this standpoint. The actualities and the circumstances will all have a part to play however, which is where fact needs to be separated from allegations, and even camera footage can be simplistic in its appearance. The ultimate test of course is whether the actions of the driver believed to be at fault are beyond reasonable doubt, and simply being the one at the rear in the collision isn't as clear cut as to be a black or white scenario. When it comes to civil liability the laws talk about degrees of culpability from those involved, and a fuller picture is required. Often, the state of mind of those involved is needed and what had happened for the time preceding the collision in terms of hours or longer can be brought into play. You may feel you're entirely innocent, but the civil liability will apportion degrees or percentage of blame because their burden of proof is on the balance of probability, and many are those who enter the claim game believing they are fully in the right.

The best piece of advice anyone gave me was never to go into a courtroom on principles. Always go in thinking how much will this cost me on the way out.

While on a commute years ago I was on the M4 near Swansea. Early morning, dark, doing 70 in the outside lane passing a car doing about 50. ( 2 lanes only). There was a wooden pallet in the middle of the lane. Emergency braking, couldn’t swerve left to avoid it due to the other car. Just made contact square on and came to a halt. Hazards on. Cars flew past inside me so waited to pull onto hard shoulder. Got there, brakes and steering appeared ok. Quick check showed no clear damage apart from a bend in the tow hook. No fluid leaks visible. I was by an emergency phone so phoned it in. Cars were flying past and hitting the remains of the pallet but not stopping. Bits of wood flying about. Scary! I carried on as no apparent damage, brake or steering issues.and apart from the tow hook all was ok but at a lower speed in lane 1.Luckily the impact speed was so low. Did a better check when in work. Two more incidents on M4 commute. Throttle cable snapped so hard shoulder temporary fix done. Other was scary. In a pool car on raised Port Talbot 50 mph section and cam belt snapped. Scary as hell!!! Hard shoulder with a 4’ wall and big drop the other side. Boy was I glad when the tow truck arrived! 20 minutes of waiting a few yards away near a tree just over the wall for escape!

In my case, that Renault went from high-performance to no performance in an instant. It was extremely difficult to navigate through the traffic to the hard shoulder without power, indicators, wipers (it was raining) or even the ability to open the window to give a desperate hand signal. I was very relieved that no one hit me up the chuff but I don't think I would have been as judgmental as you if they had done. These things can happen very rapidly and can catch out even experienced drivers.

Motorways are supposed to be the safest roads but they are actually quite dangerous as this thread proves. I've had a few incidents in my long driving career, none of which I could have avoided.

I had a piece of metal punch a hole in the car under the drivers seat in a Vauxhall Viva, and also a large flying remould tyre tread hit the front of my nearly new XR3 requiring a new bumper. bonnet headlight and grille.

The potentially worst was a large suitcase coming off the roof rack of the car in front and landing in the road in front of me. I couldn't swerve because of traffic on either side of me so could only brake hard and hit the suitcase and thankfully I wasn't travelling too close in which case the suitcase could have gone through my windscreen at 70mph.
I did claim off the car in fronts insurance for the suitcase incident but couldn't claim off anyone's insurance for the other two.