[vattyboy]

I was driving out with my buddies and a tempo traveller from the below-mentioned T-intersection arrived and crashed with my car. In my 8 years of driving, I never got a single dent on the side profile of my car.



While I was navigating towards the intersection, I saw the tempo traveller also approaching to join the main road.
Later arriving at the spot tempo traveler applied brakes and came to a halt, believing

1. I had RIGHT OF WAY.

2. He had used the brakes so I assumed he saw me and he would let me pass.

I decreased my speed from 40 kmph to 20 kmph and I resumed driving, but the moment my car reached the tempo traveller, I saw that he was looking at his mobile phone and out of nowhere he started accelerating. My instinct at that moment was not to abruptly brake but rather to steer to the right, forge ahead and avoid a crash.

If I had braked on the spot then both of my doors would have been destroyed.







Mercedes is Build Like a Tank
A simple Rear Fender caused so much damage to the Big and Bulky tank like Tempo Traveller.
Which clearly shows the safety and build quality of Mercedes.



Argument and Police Station

I gave the Tempo Traveller driver piece of mind, and he did not accept his mistake. I called the owner of the tempo traveller, he denied giving a single penny. He said he was not responsible and told me to take the money from the driver.

After 30 mins of argument, The owner of tempo traveller sent 2 local guides who were associated with his company. I took all of them along with the tempo traveller and its driver to the nearby police station.

And to my surprise, the police supported the tempo traveller guy, because the local guides had some good connections with the police as they go to the police station frequently due to some or the other work. I think this is the regular work of the their drivers to crash their vehicles into other literate and innocent people who drive in rules and regulations. OF COURSE, you all know how sensibly and carefully an owner of Luxury German Car owner drives in India.

The police inspector told me
1. "SIR you must have the insurance, claim it. Generally, these tempo traveller guys don't give any money. You are so rich and how much this poor driver can give you !".

I was shocked by hearing these words, this incident made me lose confidence and believe in the Indian police system.

2. " Sir, It is not the work of the police to tell the tempo traveller driver or owner to give compensation, It is your mutual understanding".

If decent people stop raising their voice on the right things, then the number of bad people will start increasing. If they get away so easily from the situation then it will only increase their confidence to repeat such acts in the future again, instead of improving their acts..

From the very first moment after the accident my goal was not to get compensation from the tempo traveller people but to teach them a lesson so that they don't repeat these things on other citizens.

This is why I made them stay inside the police station till the evening and I gave them mental tension and pressure. After realizing on day 1 that the police were with them, I contacted my family friend who is a high-ranked police officer. With his help on day 2 again I called the guides and driver at the police station and made them stay inside till the evening and I didn't go to the police station on day 2. After these 2 days, they said sorry then only I let them go.

Now I think they will respect others on the road and will drive carefully.

[vattyboy]

Insurance Claim Process

I have in-house insurance of Daimler i.e. Mercedes Benz Star Protection Gold Icici Lombard Zero Depp..

I went to the Mercedes Benz Central Star ASS Surat the next day.



SA after having a look at the damage told me that the rear quarter panel and bumper needed to be replaced.
I told him that my car is CBU unit and cbu parts have great quality,according to me the locks of the bumpers are still good so repair the bumper, don't replace it but still he told me since I have zero dep. Insurance claiming a new bumper is better because the finishing will not come properly if the old bumper is repaired etc. so I agreed with him half-heartedly.





SA collected all the documents from me that were required to raise the claim and informed me it would take 1 month to repair the car. He told me that he will order all the parts in advance

[vattyboy]

Service Center Wanted to Make More Money

The first 5 days after giving my car to ASS went smoothly. SA informed me that the insurance surveyor had approved my claim.

Then on the 6th day suddenly I got the news that Body Shop SA (who was handling my case) had left the job and joined Jaguar Land Rover. This was informed to me by the new SA.

NOW DRAMA STARTED

Now the insurance surveyor (ICICI Lombard) called me and asked me to share the on-the-spot pictures of my car after an accident. I sent him the same pictures which I have uploaded here.

( I didn't notice that time but there was something fishy here because, when the approval was already given without asking me for the picture then suddenly why did the surveyor ask for pictures again after the old SA had left the job).

Now after 2 days, the New SA called me and told me that the claim for the new bumper was rejected and he blamed me for that. He told me that I made a mistake by sending the Insurance surveyor on-the-spot pictures of the accident.

I was like what the hell is going on here, How can a claim be approved one day and rejected on another day?
The SA told me that we have to fight with the insurance company for the new bumper as the old bumper repair is not possible.

Fighting with Insurance Company Starts

I called the Insurance Head of Icici Lombard of Surat and discussed the whole matter with him.

And to my utter surprise, he told me- " At present during the survey, all the locks of the bumper are destroyed in your car while in the spot pictures just after the accident the bumper condition and bumper lock condition both were good. So this is the condition of a false claim. So we rejected it"

After the telephone conversation with the Insurance Head, he sent me pictures of the current condition of the bumper. It was visible that the Service centre staff deliberately destroyed the all locks of the rear bumper and also pulled it outside to raise a claim for a new bumper while keeping me in the dark.

Who is at fault?

1. Mercedes Central Star, Surat- rather than repairing the bumper, deliberately destroy it to claim a new bumper which costs approx 70k to earn more money while keeping the customer in the dark.

2. Icici Lombard- 1 year ago, I got a scratch on the front bumper. As my car is a CBU unit and CBU parts have better quality, that time also conveyed to the ASS that only repair and repaint the front bumper but still, they pressurized me to go for the new bumper. Maybe at that time, ICICI LOMBARD had some good relations with the service centre so they approved my claim for just a small scratch without asking me for the pictures.

3. There may be a conflict between Old Body Shop SA and Central Star Surat because he was leaving the job and I got trapped between them.

At the end Of the fight, The Mercedes ASS told me don't worry Sir, we will repair the old bumper and give it to you in almost new condition and you will not notice anything.

After installing New Rear Quater Panel

[vattyboy]

Delivery Day

When there are some negatives then there are some positives too.

I would like to praise the workmanship and the quality of work Mercedes Central Star, Surat has and does is just outstanding.

The repainted door, rear quarter panel, rear bumper, and alloy wheel were matched just like new, it didn't look as if any work had been done on my car

As you can see in the last repair picture, the rear seats, rear music system and many other items were removed to do repair work but still, no rattling noise is coming inside the car.

We told ASS that we will take the delivery on the special occasion of my birthday, so they pre-planned some celebration.

Cake Cutting Ceremony arranged by ASS

Beast is ready to roar on the roads again

[GTO]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

Going to our homepage this week

[Civic_doc]

Hey Vattyboy.... It's a painful experience to see your car go through such horrible time .but all is well that ends well ... Wish you happy time ahead with your beloved ��

[supertinu]

Originally Posted by vattyboy

The police inspector told me
1. "SIR you must have the insurance, claim it. Generally, these tempo traveller guys don't give any money. You are so rich and how much this poor driver can give you !".

I was shocked by hearing these words, this incident made me lose confidence and believe in the Indian police system.

2. " Sir, It is not the work of the police to tell the tempo traveller driver or owner to give compensation, It is your mutual understanding".

Vattyboy not trying to be a critic about it, but living in India needs some level of pragmatism as well esp when it come to road incidents. High confidence in Indian police system to begin with for such kind of incidents is not accurate .

Secondly there's a reason you have insurance. Its to have that peace of mind and not having to haggle and argue on the road with cabbies and then at a police station. In no situation you could have gotten away with money from the tempo guy. Things can actually get worse with road rage incidents etc. UNderstand you were not in the wrong but its not always a fair play.

Btw the car looks like new. Enjoy many more happy miles.

[OffRoadFun]

Originally Posted by vattyboy

I was shocked by hearing these words, this incident made me lose confidence and believe in the Indian police system.

2. " Sir, It is not the work of the police to tell the tempo traveller driver or owner to give compensation, It is your mutual understanding".

Sorry to hear about the ordeal you had to go through, both on the road and later with repairs.

Welcome to real world. I have had couple of cases where someone hit me from behind. Once when my car was stationary and other time, some one T-boned the rear bumper slightly when I was going straight, had a right of way.

In India, things are not formal, proving that you are right is pointless exercise to be honest if one has to take a pragmatic view. At worst, yes, we have semi-lawless roads.

I just see any such incidents as bad luck now. I did not even chase the guy who hit my stationary car (stuck in traffic) from behind (he ran away seeing an Audi). Got the bumper repaired for ~6k. I just keep dashcam for proof to show so that some of these idiots do not start blaming me. That's about it. If it is a monetary loss (insurance NCB), I just tell myself I should be thankful that there is no injury etc. May be given the hopelessness of our police and law enforcement, I have given up.

Every morning, during commute, I see at least a few road rage incidents, people fighting over scratches/accidents that I have stopped driving to office altogether, taking company cab. Drives are only for weekends mostly. Believing you are enjoying driving your German car in BLR traffic is nothing but a hallucination.

[Strider24]

Congratulations! All is well that ends well.

Such inconvenience at any company's ASS is always caused by Service advisors only in my experience so far.

A while back my father's Tata Tiago was scratched slightly on right rear door. looking at the pics it was a clear repair job. however on phone their SA advised to go for full door replacement as its covered under insurance. when I insist why it can't be repaired, he said the scratch is on the creased part of door and it will not give a proper finish. under this pretext he got the claim approved.

I had my doubts that why for such a small scratch, an entire door has to be replaced. I insisted to speak to the body shop mechanic first before parts were ordered. when I went in detailed discussion it turned our that door is easily repairable and matching the crease was not that difficult. I tried to speak to SA again but now he refused to take call and just gave 1 word reply that "ok Sir, we will repair the door."

In the end repair was done brilliantly and door was just like new. Workmanship of Tata body shop was very good. however my insistence and due diligence with mechanic resulted into less bill for Tata ASS and SA wasn't happy for sure. perhaps he lost some of commission from repair bill.

[Raghu M]

Congrats on the new (new again) car! Glad to hear there were no injuries in the first place. Like many others mentioned, there is no point in fighting with cabbies/auto wallahs and these tempo drivers. Sometimes, the argument quickly transforms into a fist fight which you do not want to get into. Stay calm, you have insurance, get it claimed. Agree the insurance experience was not great, in fact I was shocked as to how they dealt it. But Merc has done a neat job and you are happy. At the end of the day, a man seeks peace of mind and that is exactly what has been delivered in a nice package. Forget the whole incident, enjoy your drive like nothing ever happened. Good luck!

[vattyboy]

Originally Posted by supertinu

Secondly there's a reason you have insurance. Its to have that peace of mind and not having to haggle and argue on the road with cabbies and then at a police station. In no situation you could have gotten away with money from the tempo guy. Things can actually get worse with road rage incidents etc. UNderstand you were not in the wrong but its not always a fair play.

Btw the car looks like new. Enjoy many more happy miles.

Originally Posted by OffRoadFun

I just see any such incidents as bad luck now. I did not even chase the guy who hit my stationary car (stuck in traffic) from behind (he ran away seeing an Audi).May be given the hopelessness of our police and law enforcement, I have given up.

Believing you are enjoying driving your German car in BLR traffic is nothing but a hallucination.

Originally Posted by Raghu M

Congrats on the new (new again) car! Glad to hear there were no injuries in the first place. Like many others mentioned, there is no point in fighting with cabbies/auto wallahs and these tempo drivers. Sometimes, the argument quickly transforms into a fist fight which you do not want to get into. Stay calm, you have insurance, get it claimed.

If Decent people stop raising their voice on the right things, then the number of bad people will start increasing. If they get away so easily from the situation then it will only increase their confidence to repeat such acts in the future again, instead of improving their acts..

From the very first moment after the accident my goal was not to get compensation from the tempo traveller people but to teach them a lesson so that they don't repeat these things on other citizens.
This is why I made them stay inside the police station till the evening and I gave them mental tension and pressure. After realizing on day 1 that the police were with them, I contacted my family friend who is a high-ranked police officer. With his help on day 2 again I called the guides and driver at the police station and made them stay inside till the evening and I didn't go to the police station on day 2. After these 2 days, they said sorry then only I let them go.

Now I think they will respect others on the road and will drive carefully

Originally Posted by Strider24

Congratulations! All is well that ends well.

Such inconvenience at any company's ASS is always caused by Service advisors only in my experience so far.
A while back my father's Tata Tiago was scratched slightly on right rear door. looking at the pics it was a clear repair job. however on phone their SA advised to go for full door replacement as its covered under insurance. when I insist why it can't be repaired, he said the scratch is on the creased part of door and it will not give a proper finish. under this pretext he got the claim approved.

When the customer has zero depp insurance, then all the ASS push to claim the new part. I was the owner of one of the first batches of Tiago's and my experience with TATA ASS was very bad. They can't match the colour after repainting and make high bills.

Originally Posted by Civic_doc

Hey Vattyboy.... It's a painful experience to see your car go through such horrible time .but all is well that ends well ... Wish you happy time ahead with your beloved ��

Thanks man !!

[Cresterk]

Hilarious how insurance fraud was exposed and there was zero consequences for anyone involved. Meanwhile, everyone else's insurance premiums are going up because of some dealerships doing these kind of things.

[sudeepg]

Originally Posted by vattyboy

The police inspector told me
1. "SIR you must have the insurance, claim it. Generally, these tempo traveller guys don't give any money. You are so rich and how much this poor driver can give you !".

I was shocked by hearing these words, this incident made me lose confidence and believe in the Indian police system.

Why didn't you insist that the third party insurance of the tempo traveller pay for your damages? This is often an overlook point that no car on road should ply without third party insurance and in the event of an accident, the one who caused the crash should use the third party insurance to pay up for the victim's loss. You should have asked for an FIR and have the tempo traveller insurance pay up for it. If they don't have valid insurance, then it is criminal liability and they would be on the hook for not having valid insurance.

Clearly, police and the traveller folks knew you didn't know about it and they played their game.

[Redline6800]

Originally Posted by vattyboy

The police inspector told me
1. "SIR you must have the insurance, claim it. Generally, these tempo traveller guys don't give any money. You are so rich and how much this poor driver can give you !".

I was shocked by hearing these words, this incident made me lose confidence and believe in the Indian police system.

2. " Sir, It is not the work of the police to tell the tempo traveller driver or owner to give compensation, It is your mutual understanding".

I have had two instances where my 2000 Honda City 1.5 EXi was damaged for no fault of mine. In both cases, the Police were of absolutely no help and vehicle did not have insurance. I ended up spending just over INR 70,000 for both cases for the accident repair.

Being over 15 years old at that time, the City was on 3rd party insurance.

In the first case, my car was properly and safely parked outside my house. An accident at the road intersection resulted in a Maruti school van, colliding with an Alto and then rear ending my City. The boot lid and bumper were damaged.

The cops came, agreed it was the van drivers fault but were unable/unwilling to do more than that at the station. I walked out after an hour at the station and declined the van drivers offer of INR 2,000 for repairs.

The repairs cost me approx INR 20,000.

In the 2nd instance, I was driving back home after getting the car serviced at Whitefield Honda, near KR Puram, BLR. I was parked at a red signal, when I saw an Indica taxi approaching in the mirror, realised he was getting too close pumped my brakes to flash my brake lights but to no avail, he hit my car and I hit the car in front due to the impact. It was heartbreaking to see the damaged bonnet of my City and rear bumper broken.

I was furious and pulled over to the side with the cab guy, the person who's car got hit from behind said he knew the cops wont help and since it wasnt my fault, he said he would claim his insurance and left.

The cop at the signal said essentially, there is nothing he can do and if I wanted I could go the station. The cab driver acknowledged his fault and said he hadnt slept in a while. The owner of the vehicle called and did offer to fix the damage at his garage, which I declined.

He finally agreed to pay INR 9,000 towards damages but eventually paid only INR 6,000, saying he was a young businessman starting off in the cab business, so pls help me sir and accept this amount.

The repairs cost me approx INR 40,000.

My trusted FNG conned me big time on this one and months after the repair, when I was cleaning some bird poop from the bonnet the paint came off ! Ultimately, the guys at Whitefield Honda felt bad seeing the car in such a condition, that they repainted my bonnet, roof and boot lid and offered me a goodwill discount for the work.

My expectation was not for the cops to extract money for me but to atleast penalise the person who was at fault with some kind of fine for unsafe driving and put some sense of fear in them.

As per my understanding and experiences in a variety of fields - the Indian system is heavily biased in favour of the rich, connected, powerful or corrupt and good experiences for the common man, with the system are more of an exception rather than the norm.

Atleast for those who are financially fairly well off, such instances can be shrugged off, but for the many who are financially fragile, these instances and lack of support from authorities can be a cruel twist of fate.

[SinghBHP]

@vattyboy : I totally agree with the steps you took. I think I would have done the same. However from my experience here are my 2 annas ......

Once I was in similar situation like yours, a guy hit my car from back. It was Innova owned by some company in Noida and driver was alone. Upon some hot argument with him - I realized that he cannot afford to pay for complete repairs and what use is the insurance for if I have to take so much of stress in arguing with the person. However I lose my NCB when I claim insurance so we came to a middle path - asked him to pay me the loss of NCB. In rough calculation it was around 3000 for my 6 years old car (obviously not luxury like yours). He paid happily and went away.