School Pick Up Car Mishap. How Would You React?

[mikehn]

You handled it about right. I would have requested insurance info from the other driver.

 

[TwoMisfits]

It took a small sliver of paint but I bet dh can work some magic. It still is small. I have to let it go. In the scheme of life it is really nothing.



...and don't you love how I am bitter in the last post but letting it go in this one. I will eye roll myself on that!

Sometimes you have to vent to let things go. We're always here for the venting.

 

[TwoMisfits]

As for how I'd react, I've come to believe fully in karma for all things cars. If you ding someone and don't leave a note/pay for it, I guarantee at some future time, someone will do that to you at the worst time for you possible.

So, I always pay for the damage dings I do (out of pocket, with an agreement with the other driver, so for them, it's probably Christmas b/c I bet few repair, but I did do the damage, and at trade in time, that will still matter). And if someone dings me (and leaves no note), usually I don't repair my own dings anyway, so it's almost a relief that I don't have to worry about the new car looking new anymore. I know - weird mindset - but when it comes to cars, when my future and still current spouse got spun around on all lanes of traffic on 95 in my car (which my dad still insured and with the driver who did it driving away), with his car totaled but no one hitting him a 2nd time as he spun all 4 lanes and ended up facing the wrong way in the shoulder, my dad told my spouse that day "cars don't matter, people do, and we're all really glad you're okay. We can replace the car, we can't replace you." And I've lived by that - the cars don't really matter, except to keep the people inside them safe. So, if they get a few dings, oh well, at least your kid didn't scratch them cleaning ice off with a snow shovel or hitting them with a basketball miss.

 

[motherof5]

Well, I am putting myself out here for the wolves.

Today I was picking up dd from school. The drill for pick up is you text your kid the parking spot number you're in and they meet you. No biggie. I typically park in the same area and today was no different. I wound up head first today because the spot in front of the one I usually take was open, making leaving easy. (FWIW, I am not a back in gal. I am not good at it, but if I can pull forward to be head first I will do it.) At the time of my pull up, the car to my left was an unoccupied car (staff or someone visiting school) and to the right, an open spot. About 4 minutes later a mom with an elementary school child pulls into the empty space on my right, going in head first so her trunk was at my front.

When she pulled in, I noticed how close she was to me. However, those spaces aren't wide so this is nothing new.

Fast forward...

I am still waiting for dd.

I see 3 girls getting into the car with the mom and child. Two of the girls get into the backseat on the other side of the car, the third one on my side. She SLAMS the door HARD into my car. She makes a gasp, then laughs. The laugh ... a laugh ... just why? So seeing that didn't make me pleased. In fact, it made me mad. How is that funny? Ugh! So I unrolled my window with a loud and stern voice and said, "How bad did you just hit my car!?" And I got out to assess the damage.

Naturally, the mom driver (who is not of relation to this kid) got out when she saw I got out. No problem with that, I would have done the same. The issue? She defended the kid! Told me there was no need to yell at her. Did you not see and hear what just transpired? Did you not want to check your own car for damage? She opened that door like there was no car within 10 feet. And yet, still no apology. So I looked and said, "This, this is why I yelled!" and I showed the dent in my car. And her response was, "Well, what do you want to do about it?" Still, no apology.

All I really wanted was an I'm sorry. Some accountability. At 15-16 years old, you know to watch when you open a car door. I got a half hearted one eventually, but seriously I was made out to be the bad guy because I raised my voice to this teenager I didn't know.

Are you kidding me?? I'm dumbfounded my raised voiced (which wasn't even a true yell) was the considered the true offense.

My kid came after all this was done and over, but she saw the girls and knows who they are, sophomores.

Am I bummed about the dent? Yeah, but at the end of the day it is just a car.

Do I think I could have handled it better? Maybe. But really is a raised voice to get a girl who laughed at damaging my car a horrible thing? IMHO, no. Hopefully, my yelling will make her think next time before being so careless. I don't know.

But it is now coming up on 9pm, six hours after, and I am still irritated at how that mom made me out to be the villain. What the ...

So here I am, putting myself out for the slaughter. WWYD? Thoughts.

You did nothing wrong. This happened to me with a grown adult who hit my car with hers. She didn't apologize and had a attitude. I called the cops and did a police report. Normally I wouldn't but so mad about the attitude. She ended up paying for it to be fixed by her insurance. She was upset, maybe she learned a valuable lesson.

 

[motherof5]

You handled it about right. I would have requested insurance info from the other driver.

Definetely.

 

[sam_gordon]

Yes, hence saying "one" and not "you."

Then why not quote the person who used the term?

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

SOUTH TO DROP OFF MORON!!!!

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

You did nothing wrong. This happened to me with a grown adult who hit my car with hers. She didn't apologize and had a attitude. I called the cops and did a police report. Normally I wouldn't but so mad about the attitude. She ended up paying for it to be fixed by her insurance. She was upset, maybe she learned a valuable lesson.

To be fair though you could have filed a police report regardless and filed a claim with the insurance company regardless. As a general note you can't actually trust people to not file later on and sometimes it's about finding out the damage was actually worse later on and sometimes it's about injuries that crop up and sometimes it's about people advising you later on what you should do. How many threads do we have on this type of stuff.

On another note I know just about no one will agree here but it doesn't really make someone look good when they are merely retaliating against someone because they didn't get an apology owed and coped an attitude. If you want to file a report file a report, if you want to file it through insurance do so. Once you start doing these things because you didn't get an apology you start to sound entitled, even if society advises us it's the courteous thing to do once you cross the line of retaliating you cross a different line...yourself.

 

[Stratman50th]

If The dent was something significant I’d want it fixed -and would have took pictures got the drivers info and/or file A police report for insurance purposes.

Calling the police is a waste of your time and their's. It wasn't criminal, no intent. It wasn't an accident. Also it wasn't on a public road but in a parking lot- private property. At best its a civil problem. Sure, exchange insurance info, but insurance companies probably see this a million times a day. Not sure how they handle it. The only legal recourse, providing the other vehicle owner wouldn't just pay for the repair is to sue. Probably not worth it as the legal costs I would assume would be greater than damage repairs.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Calling the police is a waste of your time and their's. It wasn't criminal, no intent. It wasn't an accident. Also it wasn't on a public road but in a parking lot- private property. At best its a civil problem. Sure, exchange insurance info, but insurance companies probably see this a million times a day. Not sure how they handle it. The only legal recourse, providing the other vehicle owner wouldn't just pay for the repair is to sue. Probably not worth it as the legal costs I would assume would be greater than damage repairs.

It sorta depends on the police report thing. You don't necessarily file one all the time for criminal charges. A report can be made with diagrams, witness statements, etc for the purposes of mostly insurance reasons.

I looked a lot of police reports as my time as an underwriter for determination of if an accident/incident would be considered chargeable. These losses can come through the MVR (meaning an infraction occurred) or through someone's C.L.U.E. report (losses through insurance) or both. Generally we'd look at what coverages were used if it was through C.L.U.E. for determination of fault/not at fault. We'd use a police report for things like citations although they would have to be relevant citations (things like seatbelt violations were never looked at).

Let's say a customer came for New Business and was disputing a chargeable citation or accident. If it came from the MVR we'd need the police report. If it came from the C.L.U.E. report you'd need a LOE (Letter of Experience) from the prior insurance company's claim's department disclosing the information of what occurred.

Police reports aren't just legal recourse.

 

[AppleDumpling]

Does the school have security cameras? Not sure they’d get involved, but if you were to notify the school of the incident and they have it on video, perhaps they can identify the student and call her out with at least a mild reprimand. Something like, “we saw what you did, it’s not cool, don’t do it again” could impress upon her to think and act differently the next time.

 

[Stratman50th]

It sorta depends on the police report thing. You don't necessarily file one all the time for criminal charges. A report can be made with diagrams, witness statements, etc for the purposes of mostly insurance reasons.

I looked a lot of police reports as my time as an underwriter for determination of if an accident/incident would be considered chargeable. These losses can come through the MVR (meaning an infraction occurred) or through someone's C.L.U.E. report (losses through insurance) or both. Generally we'd look at what coverages were used if it was through C.L.U.E. for determination of fault/not at fault. We'd use a police report for things like citations although they would have to be relevant citations (things like seatbelt violations were never looked at).

Let's say a customer came for New Business and was disputing a chargeable citation or accident. If it came from the MVR we'd need the police report. If it came from the C.L.U.E. report you'd need a LOE (Letter of Experience) from the prior insurance company's claim's department disclosing the information of what occurred.

Police reports aren't just legal recourse.

Well, as a retired police officer, I stand by my comment. We really didn't care what the insurance companies had to say about an incident. We didn't work for them. Sure, they would come in and pay for reports in bulk making us their investigators, but if it was civil and not criminal we didn't get involved.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Well, as a retired police officer, I stand by my comment. We really didn't care what the insurance companies had to say about an incident. We didn't work for them. Sure, they would come in and pay for reports in bulk making us their investigators, but if it was civil and not criminal we didn't get involved.

Of course you as a police officer don't really care about the insurance companies, it's not supposed to be in your prevue of responsibilities. Your role would be just to create the police report and what happens after the fact isn't even your business. But what I was discussing was the idea that a police report is only for criminal matters as if people can't get a report if it doesn't arise to criminal manners. A particular police department may not have a policy for this but not police in general. As a person who looked at a lot of police reports there were plenty of them that had no citations listed and I was making my decision based on diagrams. It only made my job easier if one person was cited. In addition the police are often the ones who are authorized to look at security cameras. In general it's a toss up here if a business will allow someone other than police to view the footage.

I'm not asking you to not stand by your comment, just giving you the viewpoint from the insurance side where my job was often to look at police reports to determine if I would accept someone, charge them for an incident or not charge them for an incident.

 

[motherof5]

To be fair though you could have filed a police report regardless and filed a claim with the insurance company regardless. As a general note you can't actually trust people to not file later on and sometimes it's about finding out the damage was actually worse later on and sometimes it's about injuries that crop up and sometimes it's about people advising you later on what you should do. How many threads do we have on this type of stuff.

On another note I know just about no one will agree here but it doesn't really make someone look good when they are merely retaliating against someone because they didn't get an apology owed and coped an attitude. If you want to file a report file a report, if you want to file it through insurance do so. Once you start doing these things because you didn't get an apology you start to sound entitled, even if society advises us it's the courteous thing to do once you cross the line of retaliating you cross a different line...yourself

I have had this happen before where I sucked up the damage cause the person was so nice. When they are mean it makes it so you don't go the nice route. It's not always about retailation. My car isn't brand new so a small dent would have aggrevated me a little but I sometimes hate to have their insurance go up for something that is still usable. I didn't ask for an apology but they were quite rude. Honestly everyone is entitled to have their property fixed when someone damages it that's not something wrong with our society. People having no respect for others property is what is wrong with our society.

 

[HopperFan]

OP ~ unfortunately the one liable was not the car owner's child and I doubt any of the witnesses would cooperate. You could file a police report since you know the child's name, that would allow you to contact your insurance company for repairs. It would be on those two entities if they wanted to pursue but at the least her parents might be contacted about the complaint.

Or you could just tell the school administration what happened and perhaps there would be some kind of announcement made on the importance of taking care in the parking lot. Maybe a bit of embarrassment (you know kids will talk about what spurred it) might be enough.

Nope, I just did the same thing yesterday. One of our neighborhood girls (probably 10-11 years old) ran up into my yard after a squirrel, picked up a rock and threw it at the squirrel. Except it missed the squirrel and hit my car. I was putting in windshield wiper fluid into our other car at the time and it flew past my head, almost hitting me before hitting just under the window. I said, "That just hit our car!" and she ran over and said sorry and did it dent. I said, I don't know but DO NOT EVER THROW ROCKS AGAIN. I repeated it, again and she took off the same way she came on her scooter. I was furious, never yelled just had a much more stern voice than normal.

What kind of mini psychopath throws a rock at a squirrel? Not the first time she's hit our car with a rock, either. Luckily this time I was outside to confront it.

You know what they say about children who like to harm innocent animals??? And at 10-11 years old not knowing better is not an excuse. I know for sure that child would not be allowed anywhere near my children at all.

 

[sam_gordon]

Does the school have security cameras? Not sure they’d get involved, but if you were to notify the school of the incident and they have it on video, perhaps they can identify the student and call her out with at least a mild reprimand. Something like, “we saw what you did, it’s not cool, don’t do it again” could impress upon her to think and act differently the next time.

Didn't the OP say their DD knows the girl in question? Getting the school involved seems an extreme reach to me. If you really want to "send a message", you contact the girl's parents, explain what happened, and go from there. IMO however, based on follow up posts that it was a minor ding that's not worth repairing, that seems a little over the top too.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I have had this happen before where I sucked up the damage cause the person was so nice. When they are mean it makes it so you don't go the nice route. It's not always about retailation. My car isn't brand new so a small dent would have aggrevated me a little but I sometimes hate to have their insurance go up for something that is still usable. I didn't ask for an apology but they were quite rude. Honestly everyone is entitled to have their property fixed when someone damages it that's not something wrong with our society. People having no respect for others property is what is wrong with our society.

Oh I totally get where you're coming from, I think we all have these moments. It's where the phrase "catch more flies with honey" comes into play. That said it absolutely is retaliation. If you're calling the police or turning it into insurance because you didn't get an apology and/or you didn't like the person's demeanor/interaction with you you're being spiteful. I get it, I do. I'm just saying that doesn't make you (general you) look good. You can't really say "I'm teaching them a lesson" when the lesson you're also teaching is if you don't interact with me the way I want I'm going to up the ante/response on your end. My comment was about turn it into the police and/or insurance if you want to, that's totally your choice (and certainly understandable if you have damage to your property you need or even just want to be fixed), just that it means something different if it's being done because you didn't get the response you felt was owed to you.

 

[motherof5]

Oh I totally get where you're coming from, I think we all have these moments. It's where the phrase "catch more flies with honey" comes into play. That said it absolutely is retaliation. If you're calling the police or turning it into insurance because you didn't get an apology and/or you didn't like the person's demeanor/interaction with you you're being spiteful. I get it, I do. I'm just saying that doesn't make you (general you) look good. You can't really say "I'm teaching them a lesson" when the lesson you're also teaching is if you don't interact with me the way I want I'm going to up the ante/response on your end. My comment was about turn it into the police and/or insurance if you want to, that's totally your choice (and certainly understandable if you have damage to your property you need or even just want to be fixed), just that it means something different if it's being done because you didn't get the response you felt was owed to you.

Honestly people should get compensation for damage property, that's my first course of action. When I change to letting them go is when their attitude is so nice and you feel bad. Mistakes happen and I hope if I treat someone with kindness I get the same. Since I wasn't treated that way I never considered letting them go. Instead of saying retailate. First response is getting compensated and fix your property the exception is not filing, the exception like you said "more bees with honey" is having someone say mistakes happen and let you go. No one should ever feel bad about getting compensated. And people should learn a valuable lesson of respecting people's property and being kind. The OP was more upset with how she was treated then the mistake with a child hitting her car door. The lack of respect and laughing is what upset the OP. Same as when a grown adult was rude after hitting my car. It's a normal response and not something that makes me look bad.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Or you could just tell the school administration what happened and perhaps there would be some kind of announcement made on the importance of taking care in the parking lot. Maybe a bit of embarrassment (you know kids will talk about what spurred it) might be enough.

But is this really what you'd want your schools (private or public) to be used for? The property wasn't the school's property. At most the only reason I could see school cameras could be used is if there's a safety or pattern involved where the school needs to tweak things. We've had that happen here on a few schools. Some of it was related to city's adjusting the lights outside of a school so traffic doesn't back up quite as much. Some of it was related to rerouting the pick up and drop of lanes or areas. I know one school it was supposed to be a specified route that was one way but they had too many cars that basically ended up cutting the line just because it wasn't as clear as it could be so the school installed traffic islands to help direct where they wanted the traffic to go. Relevant to the OP's situation would basically be should the school look at widening the parking spaces even if that meant a reduction in overall parking spaces? But that's about as much interaction that the school should really have IMO.

 

[Stratman50th]

@fly girl, as previously stated there isn't anything the police can do. There is nothing to "file a report" on. It isn't criminal as there wasn't any intent. It was a civil issue and the only recourse is to sue civilly, which would cost more than the damage to the car. You would have to go after the child who actually did it, therefore her parents. The liability is stretching really thin at that point.

All that being said, I am 100% with you. I prefer my vehicles to look the same way they came from the factory, without any extra body or paint changes. I would probably have said something to the driver as soon as she pulled in, like "hey, if someone needs to get in there you're kinda close. Hopefully they'll be careful and not hit my car. That would be really a bad thing for all involved, don't you think?"
I had a new car. I always parked away from the crowd. I don't mind walking a few extra feet to the doors. Well wouldn't you know, somebody parked right next to me. She got out and the wind caught the door. Hit my car and dented it and took out a sliver of paint. She just looked at me with those "OMG I'm sorry" eyes. It wasn't intentional but yeah, I was pissed! Whatchya gonna do? She shouldn't have parked so close but that was in 2011. Twelve years ago. The car is gone now.