Filtering - broken mirror

[neilwgtn]

Hi
i have just received a letter from AMI stating that they have a claim for a wing mirror from a car that supposly i hit when going down the gorge last week....
They are asking if the bike was insured and my name,etc...


I dont recall hitting any wing mirrors "very" hard last week.. and there is no damage on my bike....


What if i deny hitting the car.. well actually i dont remember hitting the car..
anyone had this experience before and what was their outcome.?

Thanks.

[Disco Dan]

Did you hit a mirror? If yes then write back saying so. If no, write back saying so.

Why start a thread on that?

Sounds like another 'if I can get away with it I will' thread.

[Mystic13]

your word against there's. Unless they have a witness and even then they'd have to be pretty sure of the number plate etc.

I'd go with deny first. After all that's where insurance company's start.

Also;

- a mirror can be expensive.
- and if you have insurance you can't admit liability. It can void your insurance claim.

Cheers

[The Baron]

Hi Neilwgtn.

Do not reply to the letter.

They are just playing mind games with you to see if you will take the bait.

[Burtha]

If in doubt, deny deny deny... at least thats what your insurance company will want you to do, but run it by them first before all else.

Edit: do you have insurance? And do they mention anything about filing a report with the police?

[neilwgtn]

yeah i have insurance but i really doubt i caused enough damage to a wing mirror for someone to claim insurance against.. else i would have felt it and it would have damaged my mirror?

maybe they were just pissed off cause they were sitting in traffic and i was not...

[imdying]

Just do what you'd want to happen if the situation was reversed. Anything less is simply cowardice.

You don't actually have to hit a cages mirror very hard to damage it, they're almost always painted these days (the old black plastic molded ones, a bit like they use on bikes still, didn't mark very easily) and are thus easy to chip.

The owner obviously knows who you are, you'd probably be upset if they 'accidentally' scratched your tank whilst walking buy it in retribution.

[Devil]

How often do you hit mirrors? It doesn't sound like this is a one off.

As stated, they're pretty easy to damage and i'd be pissed if you did it to me.

[Burtha]

First thing you need to do then is take the letter to your insurance company, don't reply to it or respond in any way to it directly yourself.

Your paying insurance premiums for a purpose plus, they would have dealt with this sort of stuff before and will advise you what to do.

[Duc]

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

(Karma can bite real hard when you ride a MC)

[Mom]

Years ago during a violent storm, my swing seat was lifted off my upstairs deck and flung over the fence into my neighbours car, doing a fair amount of damage, also wrecked the seat really. Anyway, I contacted my insurance company about it and they said I could not claim against my policy for the damage done to the car. They had to make their own claim agaist their insurance, which they did. If their insurance company came at me for the damages I had a personal liability cover inside my policy I could claim on.

I got a letter saying I was at fault and telling me I would be responsible for the repair costs. After getting advice from my insurance co, I rang them and said, nope, was nothing I did that caused the damage, it happened in a bad storm, I was not negligent leaving the outdoor swing on my deck tucked under the soffit. Basically told them to get lost. They repaired the damage to the neighbours car ( I had offered to pay the excess so this young couple were not out of pocket) and waived the excess and called it an act of God.

So, yes you can tell them it was not you and see what happens but...


The real question is did you clip the mirror, you will have a good idea you did, albeit softly. If you did, fess up and pay up, if not tell them to prove it.

[Katman]

I dont recall hitting any wing mirrors "very" hard last week.. and there is no damage on my bike....

As has already been asked, how many wing mirrors did you hit last week?

Pay up and stop riding like an arse.

[MarkH]

What happened?

Did you:

a: hit someone's wing mirror & break it

or

b: go past a fuckwit, maybe even tapping his mirror, he decided to note your number plate and tell his insurance company that the mirror that he crunched into the power pole the other day was actually broken by you.

If the answer is 'a' then you should admit it and pay up. But if the answer is 'b' (or likely to be from what you recall) then it would be morally wrong to pay up and let the jerk get away with it.

No matter what happened in this case you should probably be more careful in future when lane splitting.

[munterk6]

ditch the rego plate...or at least put a false one on.
Ya see, there's a solution to every problem

[vifferman]

I hit someone's mirror filtering at less than walking pace yesterday. I was amazed that I hit it barely hard enough to misadjust the VFR's mirror, yet the van mirror folded back. I stopped, leaned my bike away so I could carefully get past, and put the van's mirror back how it was. No harm done.
I hope whoever was driving appreciated my care.

A few years ago, my VFR's mirror fell off after hitting too many things while lanesplitting. Oops...

Once - due to the bad influence of those crazy aggressive KBers - I punched some mofo's mirror really hard, so it folded back. Hope the fucking thing broke, and cost hundred's to replace. Hope the crazy fwit driver realised what it was for. If not, too bad. It sure didn't make me feel any better.

As for the OP - tell the insurance company you have no recollection of any such event (which is true), and they must be mistaken - probably the wrong rego number. If they come back with conclusive proof (e.g., a photo, independent witnesses, etc., then you can think about accepting liability. Don't blithely accept responsibility for something you don't know for sure happened. Surely if you hit another mirror hard enough that it's done enough damage to claim on, it would've registered? I'm sure m'cycle mirrors are generally more flimsy than car mirrors. Filtering one day with real skill in the car, I judged a gap so finely that my wife's car's left hand mirror folded back. Didn't leave a mark on it, even though I was doing about 40km/h at the time and it's a body-matched painted one. Dunno about the other car - but it's obviously their fault for parking in the wrong place....