Minor Accident with Rental Car

The first morning I was using the rental car to shop at Hypermart and, as I was turning left (with my turn signal activated 5 seconds before I turned), some asshat on a scooter slammed into my driver’s side door. Of course he blamed me for turning left and said he was also turning left, but further ahead so I should have given him the right of way. As I was turning from the middle of the road with my left tires on the dividing line, I couldn’t understand his line of reasoning. There were several witnesses that were calling out to him to accept his responsibility in causing the accident and to pay the foreigner for the damage he caused. He argued back with the witnesses. Eventually he just took off and I never even got his name, but the wife got his license plate number.

We duly filed a police report and will go to LTO to file a report of the incident this week. My wife tells me that the owner of the motorcycle will have a fine levied against him that will need to be paid before he can renew his registration. The police told her that there’s pretty much nothing to be done about the guy that hit us though. Just to be vigilant in driving.

 

Good thing didn't happen to me. I would have grabbed his keys waiting for the police to arrive and if he tried taking off knocked him to the ground. Potentially even smashing up his motor shoving it into a nearby ditch if their was one.

I'm a nice guy generally but when a$$hats like that are around I'm in a killer mood.

 

The exact thing happened to us turning off the hwy at Barcong the guy ran leaving his bike with his gf . she had the cheek to tell me to be more careful next time. good idea is to have a dash cam

 

If he was ahead of you? How did he run into your door?

 

I don't see where a dash cam is going to help much unless you run over people and at that point you would probably be better off without it. A camera that covered the rear might be of some use. But then there is the problem that eyewitness testimony trumps photographic evidence in Philippine court.

I did see one funny dash cam video though. Car stopped at an intersection and then seconds later a pedestrian throws himself on the hood of the car and rolls off the front. In that situation I think I would just rev the engine because I believe they don't really want to get run over.

 

My *guess* would be car is on the right side ready to turn (very little room between car and curb). Motorcycle comes up on the right side but slightly back. Car starts turning as being in the right lane and motorcycle having faster acceleration hits the throttle to take off into turn as car is already slightly ahead. No room for motorcycle to turn as car is blocking the motor and motorcycle accelerates into the door when motorcycle thought he could cut in.

Just my guess as have seen the exact same thing happen hundreds of times with very near collisions. The stupid thing is when the person with the right of way (the car in this instance) is using a turn signal it should be clear but these idiots think they are invincible.

 

Very common here, unfortunately. May I suggest in the future you check your side view mirrors before turning (left or right) because idiots on motorbikes are always trying to pass cars on both left and right sides irregardless of your turn signals and you can hopefully avoid this in the future. Also check before trying to change lanes too.

Yes, I know it's technically their fault but they are not going to stop doing it just because we want them to so a bit of caution is warranted on the drivers part to avoid wasting many, many hours of filing reports and insurance claims that get nothing accomplished except you pay the tab either for repairs or in higher premiums for insurance in the future.

Some other good rules to use when going into a blind curve is to honk your horn to warn any idiot trying to pass someone in the other direction coming around that blank corner. Better to honk than get into a head on collision with a sugarcane truck or a$$hat motorbike.

Also at night it helps to flash your brights in the same blank corners or curves for the same reason.

Lotz of Di#kh#ads here don't' have insurance, license or two piso to rub together to pay for repairs or even headlights and the TMG doesn't enforce the rules anyway.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

 

The guy was behind me and I slowed down to a stop to make a left turn due to oncoming traffic. As soon as it was safe to make the turn, I turned sharply into Hypermart. He creamed into my door before I got very far though.

His story was that he was going to make a left turn at the intersection ahead and I messed him up by making a turn into Hypermart's parking lot (about 40 meters sooner).