It must be the season for bitching. Out of the frying pan and into the fire or so it seems to go.

I’ve been driving since I was eight years old; that’s over 60 years at an easy stretch, with over 50 of those as a a licenced driver. Coming home from Harrington Park, heading west on the Great Western Hwy, I encounter a driver at Faulconbridge drifting into the left lane (about half a car width) on a number of occasions between Faulconbridge and Linden. I decide to keep a safe distance and not make any attempt to overtake on the left in case they drift into me. Passing ‘Martin Place’ on the left and heading up into a series of bends before the run down to Linden Station the driver in question pulls in to the left lane behind another vehicle. I decide to overtake and put some distance between myself and the driver. I pass the vehicle concerned and must have all but cleared it when there’s an almighty bang somewhere behind me. The car is pushed to the right but corrects without too much intervention.

I look for a safe place to pull over to find out what’s happened and find another driver pulling in behind me. We are at the time stopped near or on the driveway to “Linden Manor” 789 Great Western Hwy at Linden.

I exchange my details with the driver of the other car and take photographs of the damage to the vehicles and the other drivers number plate. At that point the other driver has not offered up anything other than their name, suburb of residence and who they are insured with. I take this as a normal shock response. The driver asks for my email. Mindful of where we are parked and that the traffic is getting heavier I suggest the driver takes my phone number and txt’s through their details as soon as they can. Yes’ I’m a trusting soul.

In the light of day part of the damage looks like this (see below) The black marks are rubber from the other vehicle drivers side front tyre. This is how I was able to gauge the drivers angle of turn from the left lane.

Other views.

There’s no further communication from the other driver until the evening of the following day; txt arrives, with all relevant details. So i have roughly what I need to proceed with a claim to get the damage repaired. On the drive home I’m thinking that I’ll have to check the Tesla’s onboard cameras to see if anything was recorded in relation to the impact. As it turns out, there wasn’t, another learning curve for the taking. So my third accident in over 50 years of driving; all of them not my fault. My wife asks me if I have reported the accident, I answer in the negative and find myself thinking that I probably should see what the procedures are.

And so begins my ‘dreadlock holiday’ The website for reporting isn’t user friendly, I can’t enter an acceptable time either in standard format or 24hr format. When I eventually sort the glitch out and submit the relevant details, the following appears.

I was also unable to report the accident.

Because the driver of the other vehicle was neither drunk or under the influence of drugs, both vehicles were able to be driven away etc, I was not eligible to submit an ‘online accident report’

Back to the elephant in the room.

The thought of waiting for hours trying to get through to 1300 108 187 made the drive down to NRMA Springwood a very appealing proposition.

Service was pretty prompt. I explained my situation only to be told that they don’t deal with accident claims and it had to be online or over the phone. I recounted my online experience and the person assisting me said, I can put you through directly. Within 5 minutes I was talking to a very able and proficient and clearly experienced operator.

Story down and done. By the time I got home in my inbox was a message from NRMA with my claim reference, excess waived, repairer assigned and booked. All good until………….Wednesday June 5th.

I receive a letter on June 5th, from NRMA dated 27th May, addressed to someone I don’t know in relation to an accident that happened at an unspecified time simultaneously in NSW and Victoria at Lawson with a NSW postcode. It proceeds with the normal form letter blather until we arrive here.

“Whilst our clients vehicle was involved in this incident, it was reported to Police as stolen. As such, our insured has no liability for the actions of the thief and NRMA are therefore unable to consider your claim further”

Now what has to be remembered is that;

1. I didn’t submit a claim until 4 days after this letter was sent. To whom do they refer..“NRMA are therefore unable to consider your claim further”
   
2. “…no liability for the actions of the thief.” The person I spoke to at the scene of the accident was the driver of the car involved (not an alleged thief ) who later, when I brought this to their attention, said they made no such statement and contacted NRMA to request they issue a correction, which they did, (another story).
3. Clearly no human agency was involved in the drafting of the first letter. It’s not possible for someone to make such glaring mistakes. Are they using AI supported software? I’d put money on it, because clearly an intelligent person would have picked up the discrepancy in relation to having information about the identity of “the insured”, the address of the other driver (me) and the date of the accident and the fact that there was an accident to begin with. What a thoughtful and obliging thief. Fancy going to all the trouble of stopping at the scene of the accident, getting the other drivers details, so that you could pass it onto the owner. How does the thief know who the owner is and where they live, their telephone number and email address as well as their insurer and do the exceptional thing of processing the damage claim for them whilst still in the possession of their vehicle. Only AI can bugger things up to this degree.

Note that the last two paragraphs are in conflict with each other; are we looking at information from two separate / disparate claims?

1. “……so we can consider your claim further”
2. “……are therefore unable to consider your claim further”

The original letter did not contain an “Incident Description” form so I had to figure out another way to get the accident details to the insurer of the other driver (also my insurer). So I prepare a web document with all the details ie., photographs, diagrams and notes etc. This was emailed to motorclaims@nrma.com.au on 11/6/24 with the insured’s claim number in the the ‘subject’ and my claim number in the body of the email along with the web link to the Adobe document I’d prepared.

I received no acknowledgement or reply to the issues dealt with.

On the 6/6/24 I texted the driver of the other vehicle and sent a copy of the letter I’d received asking if they knew anything about the vehicle they were driving as being reported stolen and the inference being that they were not the driver at the time of the accident.

They replied that they were not aware that NRMA had made these claims on their behalf and that they themselves did not report the vehicle as stolen and despite the inference to the contrary that they were the driver at the time of the accident. The following week I receive an amended letter from NRMA with the part about the vehicle being reported stolen retracted and in typical fashion, written as if nothing to the contrary had ever happened.

However, with this 2nd letter, the accident / accidents (was there another that I don’t know about?) takes place at two locations …….” whose vehicle was damaged on 21 May at Woodford and Hazelbrook WOODFORD, NSW, 2778…..” Now Woodford and Hazelbrook are 2.9 kilometers apart, it’s a bit hard to mistake one place for the other and the letter does not say “between” it says ‘AT’ both places. Good heavens this information is supposed to be coming from a professional organisation; however……

This put the claimed location of the accident 3.5 to 6.9 km from where it actually happened. Outside of the claim that “information presently in our possession would appear to indicate….” blah blah blah that I was the at fault driver, the letter continues in standard form and for the first time contains the ‘Incident Description Form’. It’s not perfect in terms of the purpose it’s meant to serve but it will do. Filled out and posted (Express) 18/6/24.

Coming back to this “information presently in our possession would appear to indicate….” what does this mean? details are? ……well for sure I haven’t been told and most likely won’t. My partner / wife guessed it well, she said they’ll probably try to blame you and say something like you went across in front of her” and then laughed hysterically “F#$k they’d have to be idiots to believe that, the damage to your car wouldn’t look like that”

So for the folks at NRMA here’s what the front drivers side wheel looks like when someone is veering or turning to the right. You can’t get rubber from someones tyre onto the body of your car unless their wheel is turned at least like this. What’s the inference here? Yes’ you guessed it: the driver of the white Mazda was “headed in the ‘right;’ direction 😏”

Because if they are not turning or veering right the wheel is inside the body of the car.

Unless they’re driving Formula One.

Lessons for Tesla drivers, myself, and others

1. As I discovered, all too late, Tesla’s Dashcam (all four cameras) are automatically engaged whenever reverse or drive is selected. In all the years I’ve had the car I’d never even looked at it. So it’s recording whenever the car is being driven.
2. The system only records the last hour of driving and then begins to overwrite the stored data. So in the event of something happening make sure to remove the USB before the overwrite begins, or conversely keep a few formatted USB’s in the car and swap them out whenever something happens that you need evidence for.
3. Dashcam and Sentry files are big, anywhere up to 30GB. Offload them to a computer and then advisably to external storage.
4. Blast your horn and yes, the system will record and store discrete footage, usually only about 10 secs.
5. If you’re not injured and are able, lots of mobile photos, not just of damage to vehicles, but location prompts e.g., street views in both directions, nearby buildings or landmarks visible from where you are standing, the accident site from as many viewpoints as it’s safe to do so because in the event of a dispute, it’s good to be able to prove where you were.