[Matticus91]

I pulled a dumb move and rear-ended someone at about 11mph. Their car had all of $700 in damage - mine? So far the tally is at over $11,000 and climbing... My car is worth (ACV) about $20k so it's approaching the limit percentage (75%) pretty quickly. I'm not worried about paying off my loan as I have GAP insurance.

My concerns are:

1. How much might my insurance increase as a result?
2. Could it be worth buying the car back, if so how much trouble is it to get back on the road/insured?
3. The officer gave me a ticket for "failure to control at high speed", should I fight this? ($130, no points)

I've been driving for 8 years, am now 25y/o, and have a completely clean record other than this accident and ticket.

Also if it means anything the car is a 2013 BMW 135i, with about 67k miles on the clock. Is fully loaded and was in excellent shape before the accident.

Thank you in advance to anyone who can offer some input!

[C1Boston]

1) If its your first accident most companies have accident forgiveness so you should follow up with your insurance company on that before anything. How much your insurance increase will be I have no idea.

2) Personally, I would not buy the car back because I would be happy with getting out of the loan due to GAP.

3)Fight it. Especially if you have an impeccable drivers record.

[Taskmaster]

Originally Posted by C1Boston

1) If its your first accident most companies have accident forgiveness so you should follow up with your insurance company on that before anything. How much your insurance increase will be I have no idea.

2) Personally, I would not buy the car back because I would be happy with getting out of the loan due to GAP.

3)Fight it. Especially if you have an impeccable drivers record.

All of these are correct, but the last one. You can't fight it, well you can, but many states assume negligence on your part if you rear-end someone. Pay the fine and take the class if you want to removes the points, or you could go to court and ask for leniency...

Good luck dude.

[Mr Tonka]

I don't know about DC, but if you set a court date for that kind of ticket in FL, it gets dismissed. The officer involved didn't witness the event and can't attest to actual fault. Cop doesn't show up to court, ticket dismissed.

[C1Boston]

Originally Posted by Mr Tonka

I don't know about DC, but if you set a court date for that kind of ticket in FL, it gets dismissed. The officer involved didn't witness the event and can't attest to actual fault. Cop doesn't show up to court, ticket dismissed.

Its similar in MA. I do not know if the officer not showing up leads to auto dismissal for us but it does increase your chances of a ruling in your favor.

[RickFLM4]

Originally Posted by Mr Tonka

I don't know about DC, but if you set a court date for that kind of ticket in FL, it gets dismissed. The officer involved didn't witness the event and can't attest to actual fault. Cop doesn't show up to court, ticket dismissed.

Agree with this in FL. Plus why is it failure to control "at high speed" if speed was 11 mph?

[Taskmaster]

Originally Posted by RickFLM4

Agree with this in FL. Plus why is it failure to control "at high speed" if speed was 11 mph?

$$$$

[dzvero]

If no points is it worth your time to reduce with $30-50 ?

[Kenny's X5]

WHat jurisdiction did you get your ticket in? DC?

[zx10guy]

On the first question, it depends on your insurance company. I had an at fault wreck under State Farm. I got assessed a 10% surcharge on my premiums. I think the surcharge dropped off after 3 years.

On the second question, it depends on what your insurance company does to the title of your car. If it gets branded as a salvage, you'll need to fix the car up enough to pass MD inspection. Also, if you go that route, expect to drive the car till the wheels fall off. Resale is going to be next to nothing. Also, you won't be able to get full coverage anymore. Just liability.

On the third question, the ticket is probably a moving violation despite no points being assessed. Forget the myth about of zero points no foul. As long as the ticket shows up on your driver's record, the insurance companies will see it. You need to make sure it doesn't show up on your record. If yor driver's record is clean. I would go to court. What you need to ask the judge for is a PBJ, Probation Before Judgement. The judge at his/her discretion can grant this if the defendant has a clean record. The ticket is held internally with the court system. Your insurance won't see it if they pull your driver's record. If you're clean for a year, the ticket drops off like it never happened. I did this for my mom when she blew through a new stop sign at an intersection.

[Unknown_Car]

Originally Posted by Matticus91

I pulled a dumb move and rear-ended someone at about 11mph. Their car had all of $700 in damage - mine? So far the tally is at over $11,000 and climbing... My car is worth (ACV) about $20k so it's approaching the limit percentage (75%) pretty quickly. I'm not worried about paying off my loan as I have GAP insurance.

My concerns are:

1. How much might my insurance increase as a result?
2. Could it be worth buying the car back, if so how much trouble is it to get back on the road/insured?
3. The officer gave me a ticket for "failure to control at high speed", should I fight this? ($130, no points)

I've been driving for 8 years, am now 25y/o, and have a completely clean record other than this accident and ticket.

Also if it means anything the car is a 2013 BMW 135i, with about 67k miles on the clock. Is fully loaded and was in excellent shape before the accident.

Thank you in advance to anyone who can offer some input!

At 11mph you can't do that of a big damage that will be 11k +. There is more to your accident story lol.

[Matticus91]

Thanks for all the input guys. This happened in MD and yeah the road is considered a highway so they called it a "high speed incident that contributed to the accident", look at the pictures it's a fucking joke, it's literally a shopping center.

Originally Posted by zx10guy

On the third question, the ticket is probably a moving violation despite no points being assessed. Forget the myth about of zero points no foul. As long as the ticket shows up on your driver's record, the insurance companies will see it. You need to make sure it doesn't show up on your record. If yor driver's record is clean. I would go to court. What you need to ask the judge for is a PBJ, Probation Before Judgement. The judge at his/her discretion can grant this if the defendant has a clean record. The ticket is held internally with the court system. Your insurance won't see it if they pull your driver's record. If you're clean for a year, the ticket drops off like it never happened. I did this for my mom when she blew through a new stop sign at an intersection.

This is exactly what I'd like to do, I don't even care about paying the ticket I just don't want my insurance to have another reason to bomb my rates. Have you dealt with MD courts at all?

Also, this makes PBJ's much less appetizing.

[Maynard]

years (OK, decades) ago, I used to hang out at a body shop that would occasionally see a very desirable car come in from an accident, and upsell the repair estimate purposely to try to get it totaled, so that the mechanics there could buy it from the insurance company and rehab it themselves. They preferred ones that took lots of modest damage in low speed runs, so there were many panels damaged, but frame wasn't tweaked too bad and major mechanicals were intact. If you really think the estimate is too high and would want to keep it, might get a second opinion. And I'd double up on recommends that you try to avoid a conviction, points or not. IF it matters, it will matter a lot (insurance premiums are just the tip of the iceberg).

[Matticus91]

Originally Posted by Roma_335i

At 11mph you can't do that of a big damage that will be 11k +. There is more to your accident story lol.

There actually isn't more to it, and it's been recorded by my dashcam. If you look through my posts you'll see I'm pretty big on transparency.

Originally Posted by Maynard

years (OK, decades) ago, I used to hang out at a body shop that would occasionally see a very desirable car come in from an accident, and upsell the repair estimate purposely to try to get it totaled, so that the mechanics there could buy it from the insurance company and rehab it themselves. They preferred ones that took lots of modest damage in low speed runs, so there were many panels damaged, but frame wasn't tweaked too bad and major mechanicals were intact. If you really think the estimate is too high and would want to keep it, might get a second opinion. And I'd double up on recommends that you try to avoid a conviction, points or not. IF it matters, it will matter a lot (insurance premiums are just the tip of the iceberg).

I'd think that might be the case if the shop wasn't working with me to prevent it from being totaled. My adviser has been extremely good about keeping me in the loop and asking where I don't mind sourcing my own parts to keep the cost down. He asked me flat out if I'd prefer to let it go or keep it, and I told him keep it. Definitely agree on the ticket, I'm going to go for a "PBJ" as zx10guy suggested.