They hit a car and fled: what to do and is it possible to get insurance?

If you hit a car, is it an accident or not?

Such a case is an accident with all the ensuing consequences, but only if the impact was initiated by another car - it hit your vehicle. If a standing car was hit by hooligans passing by, snow, a tree or other objects/persons not related to the vehicles fell on it, then this is not an accident.

If a stationary car was damaged by another vehicle, then the owner who discovered the damage must perform a full list of actions provided for in the relevant paragraphs 2.5 and 2.6.1, namely:

• do not go anywhere and do not move a parked car at the scene of an accident;
• check the windshield for notes left;
• turn on the emergency lights and put up an emergency stop sign;
• perform photo and video recording of vehicle damage;
• drive away the car if it interferes with the passage of other road users,
• and call authorized police officers, whose jurisdiction we will discuss below.

Contacting the insurance company

If at least one of the participants in the traffic accident has a CASCO policy, you will need to call the traffic police in any case. According to insurance rules, receiving payment under such a policy is possible only if you have documents about the accident from inspectors.

Regardless of the insurance policy, the parties must notify their insurance companies about the accident. If the insurance claim is filed correctly, the motorist can be confident of receiving the insurance necessary to repair the damaged vehicle.

After receiving the accident report from the traffic police inspector, the owner must submit it along with other documents to the insurance company. This must be done within 5 days from the date of receipt of the accident papers. An application for insurance payment must be supported by the following documents:

1. An accident notification form completed by both parties to the accident.
2. Application requesting payment of insurance.
3. Photo or video confirmation of damage to the car, the place where the traffic accident occurred.

If both parties to the accident have a compulsory motor third party liability insurance policy, as a rule, a representative of the insurer comes to the scene of the accident to independently record the fact of the collision and the damage caused to the vehicle. After checking all the documents, the victim receives funds that can be spent on repairing the damaged vehicle.

Do I need to call the traffic police?

If your parked car was hit by another car (at least the damage indicates this), then such a situation is clearly classified as an accident. Therefore, if the culprit leaves the scene of an accident, the victim must call the police and describe the situation.

DPS says to call the local police officer

Perhaps they are right. If a passer-by hit a car in the yard, or the cause of the damage is an organization or person who did not use the vehicle, then you should call a local police officer to record the accident. It is he who will determine, later issuing relevant information about the owner of the source of damage (in the case of objects falling from buildings, snow falling on a stationary car or a fallen tree).

In some cases, the dispatcher recommends that the victim call the local police officer instead of the traffic police squad even if the event falls within the definition of an accident. The traffic police have only one explanation - since the event happened in the yard, it is not a road and, accordingly, not an accident. And the inspector is wrong about this - the Supreme Court established several years ago that there are roads in the adjacent territories.

In such a situation, call immediately other numbers - if you called the duty station, then call 02, and vice versa. And also write down the number of the incoming call. It is advisable to record the conversation on your phone for further evidence in court.

I hit someone else's car - what should I do?

If someone else's car is hit while moving around the yards, you should try the following actions:

1. View the windshield to identify the car owner's contacts.
2. Knock on the wheels to trigger the alarm and attract the owner's attention.
3. Interview nearby people to see if they know the owner of the car.

If none of the methods is successful, then you will have to leave all your affairs and call the traffic police yourself. The police dispatcher will provide further instructions, for example, asking you to take photographs of the damage and to report to the police station to formally document the accident.

You should never just leave a note on the damaged car with your contacts, but you need to call the traffic police and formalize the incident. Only in this case can you avoid deprivation of your rights, because the owner of the hit car may not call you, but call the employees instead of you.

How to find the culprit?

If the culprit scratched a stationary car and left the scene of the accident, then you should definitely call the traffic police or the local police officer. It is the authorized employees who must search for the violator and bring him to justice.

However, as experience shows, employees are not too eager to fulfill their job duties, so the victim should independently:

• find witnesses to a traffic accident;
• view nearby cars for working car recorders;
• look for cameras on stores located near the accident site,
• take a walk through the neighboring yards - very often the perpetrators of such accidents are not very diligent in hiding their traces, and you may find traces of the paint of your car parked in the yard on other people’s damage.

If you successfully detect the car and license plate of the offender, the chance of receiving monetary compensation increases many times over. In this case, take photographs and videotapes of damage, take copies of them to the IAZ traffic police inspector who is in charge of your case, and hand them over to him.

What to do if your car is dented in the parking lot?

It doesn’t matter whether you have insurance, a CASCO policy or compulsory motor liability insurance, if your car was damaged in the parking lot as a result of someone’s careless driving, then the first thing you need to do is file an accident, even if the culprit is not there.

Below I will tell you point by point the order of your actions:

1. We do not move the car, if we left and discovered damage later, we return to the scene of the alleged accident;
2. We call the traffic police inspectors to the place, call and explain that you have an accident, the car was hit in the parking lot, the culprit is not there. Do not call the emergency commissioner, he will not help you, road accidents with an escaped participant are registered only by traffic police inspectors, if they tell you to call the local police officer, this is not true, if there is a collision between two cars, then this is an accident and the authority to register it lies with shoulders of traffic police inspectors. Stand your ground and demand a visit to the site for registration;
3. Try to find witnesses, look at the cars standing next to or opposite yours, some drivers do not turn off the recorders and they are recording. Next, we look around and look for external surveillance cameras, and if we find them, then you can then request video recordings from the cameras and see which cars could catch yours;
4. Take as many photographs as possible of the accident scene from different angles; if there are fragments, debris and other traces of the accident, photograph them too. Also shoot a short video clip;
5. Upon arrival of the traffic police inspectors, explain the situation to them, the inspectors must draw up an accident diagram and a protocol, you must write an explanatory note on how everything happened, that you left the car in the parking lot and went about your business, and when you returned you discovered fresh damage to the car. Also indicate all the details of the case, perhaps there were eyewitnesses who saw the culprit’s car and remembered the license plate number, tell everything that you know about the fact of this incident. The inspectors must give you a copy of the resolution upon the initiation of a case of an administrative offense;
6. After you have received a copy of the resolution, you can leave the scene of the accident; perhaps the employees will give you a copy of the resolution and you will have to go to the nearest traffic police station for further registration of the accident and preparation of administrative material.

In any case, the resolution, after registration by the traffic police inspectors, should remain in your hands.

Inspectors will be looking for the culprit of the accident and may request video recordings from video cameras located near the accident site, or maybe one of their eyewitnesses has remembered the license plate number of the culprit’s car and they will search for him in the database. All actions to search for the culprit will continue for 2 months, and if during these two months the culprit is not found, then the traffic police inspectors will issue a decision to refuse to initiate proceedings for an administrative offense.

Here you shouldn’t wait until the traffic police officers start acting; frankly speaking, in such situations they don’t move much at all, so find out the name and position of the inspector involved in your case and constantly call him and find out information about the case, what actions were taken.

Do not wait for inspectors to request video recordings from nearby video cameras; it is best for you to go through the institutions yourself and request all video recordings, if possible, and if not, then demand that the inspector involved in your case help you obtain these video recordings.

In general, you don’t need to rely on traffic police inspectors; if you have the opportunity, then try to find out any circumstances in the case yourself, find witnesses, find out which cars were parked next to yours and other points. I don’t argue that we need the traffic police just for such cases, but frankly, if you completely rely on the fact that the inspectors will deal with your case, I would not advise it, it happens that a person waits 2 months, then calls to find out what’s wrong with the case and only then is he taken out from under a pile of similar cases, there is only one conclusion, no one was looking for anything at all. That is why I advise you to regularly call the inspector and find out how your business is going.

Of course, the situation when you at least know the license plate number of the car that damaged your car makes the task much easier, but if you have to find the culprit using video camera records, then you have good chances, and if there are no cameras in the area where you were hit, it’s not there were witnesses and you have no information at all about the car that damaged you, then the situation, to put it mildly, is not very good if you have an MTPL policy.

If the culprit has not left, what should I do?

If the culprit of the accident does not leave and fully admits his guilt, then the rules allow the solution of the material issue on the spot. To do this, the parties need to draw up a European protocol and sign the document. In the future, the victim has the right to contact the insurance company directly and demand compensation for damage.

Important! A European protocol under the new rules for registering road accidents must be drawn up - even if you have agreed on direct compensation for damage by the culprit. You simply won’t need to take your form to the insurance company and declare it (otherwise there will be unjust enrichment). The Europrotocol can only be concluded in case of an accident, the damage from which is less than 400,000 rubles for Moscow and St. Petersburg or 100,000 rubles for other regions. Otherwise, the parties to the conflict will have to call the traffic police.

I scratched a parked car and drove away: what threatens

Our legislation provides for administrative penalties for leaving the scene of an accident. The most severe measures in the form of arrest are ordered by the court only in exceptional cases.

Note! Only judicial authorities can deprive a person of the right to drive transport; traffic police officers cannot do this.

Many people are interested in the question “I scratched a parked car and drove away, what punishment do I face?”

Answering this question, I would like to note that this incident is considered an accident (its parameters are defined above). Consequently, you face administrative punishment in the form of deprivation of the right to drive transport for a period of up to 18 months. In exceptional cases, the judicial authorities can punish the most severely, applying administrative detention for up to 15 days. Penalties for this offense range from 1,000 to 1,500 rubles.

Act of official investigation of an accident.

Read about the application for the appointment of an automotive technical examination here.

Find out about the new road accident certificate form at the following link:

However, you will still incur material losses, even if you have a valid MTPL policy. The law clearly states that if the driver leaves the scene of an accident and is subsequently found guilty, the insurance company has the right to file a claim through the court for compensation for the damage caused to the victim.

In your case, with a parked car, it is almost impossible to remain unnoticed. The owner of a scratched car can file a police report to search for the driver who left the scene of the accident. Naturally, there will be eyewitnesses to the incident, recordings from nearby cameras, recorders of cars that were parked nearby.

Note! Some eyewitnesses may give false information against you, and it will be more difficult for you, as the person who left the scene of the accident, to prove your innocence.

The duration of search activities is three months.

Be carefull! Do not burden your guilt, do not leave the scene of the accident! As you can see, you probably won’t be able to stay “in the shadows,” and in the eyes of the judicial authorities, you will already be a guilty person.

Is it possible to receive compensation under compulsory motor liability insurance and how?

Compensation for damage under OSAGO in a situation where the car was parked near the road in the yard and was scratched is possible in one of the following cases:

• the driver who hit the car in the yard and fled the scene of the accident was found and has a valid compulsory insurance policy;
• the offender’s car is identified by license plate or other characteristics, and the owner of the car has compulsory motor liability insurance;
• people were injured during the accident.

If the victim has CASCO insurance, he will in any case receive payment if he registers the incident.

Intruder detected

If the traffic police are working properly, the offender will be promptly identified and found, even if the accident occurred late at night. In such a situation, the victim has the right to count on financial compensation if:

• the offender has an issued MTPL policy;
• the found driver is officially recognized as the culprit of the accident (a decision or ruling has been made against him).

It is possible to receive an insurance payment in a situation where the culprit is found according to the following scheme:

1. request from law enforcement agencies a copy of the resolution and documents confirming the guilt of the other party.
2. write an application for compensation of damage to the insurance company.
3. submit all documents and application to the Investigative Committee.

The license plate number of the violator’s vehicle was recorded by cameras or witnesses

If the culprit of the accident fled the scene of the accident, but the license plate of his car is known, then, according to the current court practice in 2021, the owner of the car will be held responsible.

The fact is that the Civil Code of the Russian Federation prescribes the possibility of recovering damages from the owner of a source of increased danger in cases where the cause of harm has not been identified. We described this situation in detail in an article about the culprit who fled the scene of an accident.

There are victims in the accident

According to Article 18 of Federal Law No. 40, in 2021, financial compensation to the victim is provided even in cases where the culprit has disappeared or does not have a policy. However, there are also disadvantages:

• compensation is paid only to persons who were physically injured, that is, we are talking only about parked cars in which people (driver and/or passengers) were sitting;
• Damage to the car will not be taken into account when calculating the insurance payment.

To receive compensation, the injured person should collect all health certificates, treatment documents and papers from the traffic police. After this, you must contact the RSA with a claim for compensation.

They dented the car in the yard, but the culprit remained

Small traffic accidents that occur in yards every day can be divided into two categories:

1. Accidents in which the perpetrators are in a hurry to escape from the scene.
2. Road accidents in which motorists try to find the owner of the damaged car and wait for him at the scene of the collision.

In some cases, a motorist may not even know that he caused an accident until he is called to the traffic police. For example, this can happen in cases where the collision was not severe, and the driver simply did not notice it (the music was turned on loudly in the cabin or the driver was distracted by a conversation with a passenger).

However, there are also respectable drivers who try to find the injured owner or wait for him at the scene of the collision. In this case, the parties can peacefully resolve the current situation.

A car owner who discovers chips, scratches, dents or other damage on his car must act as follows:

1. First of all, you need to find out whether the person at fault has a compulsory motor liability insurance policy. If you have this document, the insurance company will pay compensation. If the driver does not have this document, the motorist himself will have to compensate for the damage caused. In cases where the culprit refuses to pay the funds voluntarily, they can be claimed through the court.
2. If the vehicle suffered minor damage and there were no casualties in the accident, the participants in the accident can file it themselves. According to the law, registration of an accident according to the European protocol is allowed if: two vehicles were involved in the accident, there were no injuries, the amount of compensation for repairs does not exceed 50 thousand rubles, both parties have valid MTPL policies.
3. If the parties were unable to reach an agreement peacefully, it is necessary to call traffic police officers to the scene of the traffic accident. However, you have to wait several hours for inspectors to arrive.
4. While waiting for the traffic police officers to arrive, it is necessary to record the details of the person responsible for the incident: his full name, contact details, insurance policy number. It is better to capture the license plate of his vehicle with a camera. It is also necessary to take photographs of any damage caused to the victim's vehicle. In the future, this may result in receiving an insurance payment from the insurer.