cpo
Member
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2016
- Messages
- 57
- Reaction score
- 53
- Country
- United States
So, this Christmas I installed a dashcam in my wife's van... and to be honest, I don't think she fully appreciated the effort as much as I hoped, but she accepted the fact that it's my role in our home - doing nerdy things for us. However, today, just three weeks later.. that gift just paid for itself!
She was driving along our favorite winding two-laned tree-lined road this morning taking our son to the bus stop when all of the sudden there was this fallen tree protruding into the lane enough to take out her passenger mirror and do some nice paint damage along the way.
She didn't see it until she was right on top of it (that road is very dark at night) and there was an oncoming vehicle in the other lane. The only way to avoid the tree was to cross the center line into oncoming traffic.
I'm thankful she and my son are okay... but unfortunately the insurance company has a position on vehicles hitting inanimate objects in the road.
They automatically and always consider it to be the fault of the driver because they assume that if you are alert and driving defensively, then you can avoid objects in the road. So, they cover the damage as an "at fault collision". That means basically that we have to pay a deductible, and it's a ding on her record because they consider the accident to be her fault. And... the end result is an insurance rate increase. BOOO!
So, that little dashcam that I installed in her van gets called into action and I reviewed the footage. It records all the time, and she doesn't even notice it's there because it's out of sight from her and doesn't require any user intervention. It just records, and records, and records, and will do so until it's footage is called upon. Today was that day.
Long story short, I showed the video to a hesitant woman at Progressive who was ultimately very impressed with the footage. She came to the conclusion that my wife did everything she could given the circumstances because avoiding the tree would require her to cross the center line which would have put her into a head-on-collision scenario! She happily re-coded the accident as a "no fault collision". We still have to pay the deductible, but it won't affect our insurance rates or status.
Dashcam = 1
Inanimate Object = 0
Oh... and it looks like the county will possibly be reimbursing our deductible costs. Thank you Lord!
Dashcam: A119 with GPS
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
She was driving along our favorite winding two-laned tree-lined road this morning taking our son to the bus stop when all of the sudden there was this fallen tree protruding into the lane enough to take out her passenger mirror and do some nice paint damage along the way.
She didn't see it until she was right on top of it (that road is very dark at night) and there was an oncoming vehicle in the other lane. The only way to avoid the tree was to cross the center line into oncoming traffic.
I'm thankful she and my son are okay... but unfortunately the insurance company has a position on vehicles hitting inanimate objects in the road.
They automatically and always consider it to be the fault of the driver because they assume that if you are alert and driving defensively, then you can avoid objects in the road. So, they cover the damage as an "at fault collision". That means basically that we have to pay a deductible, and it's a ding on her record because they consider the accident to be her fault. And... the end result is an insurance rate increase. BOOO!
So, that little dashcam that I installed in her van gets called into action and I reviewed the footage. It records all the time, and she doesn't even notice it's there because it's out of sight from her and doesn't require any user intervention. It just records, and records, and records, and will do so until it's footage is called upon. Today was that day.
Long story short, I showed the video to a hesitant woman at Progressive who was ultimately very impressed with the footage. She came to the conclusion that my wife did everything she could given the circumstances because avoiding the tree would require her to cross the center line which would have put her into a head-on-collision scenario! She happily re-coded the accident as a "no fault collision". We still have to pay the deductible, but it won't affect our insurance rates or status.
Dashcam = 1
Inanimate Object = 0
Oh... and it looks like the county will possibly be reimbursing our deductible costs. Thank you Lord!
Dashcam: A119 with GPS
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
