After just over 3.5 years, the other side’s insurance (Aviva) finally settled and the costs have been recovered. And I expect it was quite a lot of cost too. As mentioned in https://wordpress.com/post/blenderfox.com/8108:
Total costs the other side will have to foot: Value of my car (written off): £3000 Value of the car next to me (written off): £2500 Value of the car that both our cars got shunted into (written off): £1500 Repair of the damaged car (sole survivor): £1500 Hire car (45 days @ £75 per day): £3375
Total Costs: £11875
And this is not including the other side’s own car, which was likely also written off.
It’s been a long time since I posted on here — my last post (before today’s posts) was July 17 when I had to self isolate. A lot has happened since then, so this post will be a bit of an update list
I had to take my dad into hospital for a prostrate operation (this was planned before I had to self-isolate) — he already had a PCR test and was cleared. My LFT was also clear, but I still had to self isolate. This was before the self-isolation changes happened. The operation was successful, but he needed to be held a few more days to see an ENT specialist due to them finding lumps in his throat. The concern was that they might be cancerous, but turns out it was just irritation so they gave him some Gaviscon to take after means and soothe the throat. Both my dad and I are prone to post-meal throat irritation so it might mean I might be subject to the same thing later in life.
I got a ticket after driving my dad to the hospital for taking a left turn when I was not supposed do, due to badly signposted roads. My appeal was rejected on the grounds I had paid the ticket. This is how the council screws you over — if you pay the fine to avoid the 100% charge, they will claim that admits guilt. If you don’t, they delay the response until after the 2-week window so you then have to pay the 100% charge.
I finally decided to upgrade my phone and went for a OnePlus 9 Pro. The phone is classed as a “Phablet” and much bigger than the Samsung Galaxy S5 I have been using for years:
The case on the left is for the OnePlus, the case on the right for my S5
I had problems activating the new SIM and eventually Three had to send me a new one, and soon after I got that new one, I got a message saying Three were going to be doing works on the mast in my area and ever since then I have had horrendously bad speeds at home. By bad, I mean speeds of < 1Mbps and even down to 0.2Mbps. Using 3G band sometimes helps, but only marginally.
I’ve taken my complaint up to the Ombudsman but Three are still refusing to do anything about it — even charging me to leave contract early.
I’ve been with Three many years but I will not be recommending them going forward. I will be checking other providers when my contract expires.
We’ve started to go back to the office. My team is doing three days a week in the office, and you pick which three days as long as there are a max of 8 people in the office (due to some office reorganisation, we only have 8 seats for the entire team).
Surprisingly many people have left jobs during and post lockdown (some might have been nudged due to the lockdown, and not just in my office, but generally.)
I won a Twitter completion by Curve for a swag bag. Just had to tweet them three images of their different adverts — all of which showed up on the same station, so that wasn’t too difficult.
Then we had the annoying as heck “Panic at the Pumps” causing shortages.
Driving past Alperton Sainsbury’s
This video from my dashcam shows the queue of traffic. This is the queue leading into the Alperton Sainsbury’s. I was there at around 5am and it took me 30 minutes to clear the queue even with less people in the queue. This queue will probably take 90 minutes to clear, assuming the fuel was not gone by the time they got to the front of the queue
Driving past Whetstone Esso
This video, also from my dashcam shows the queues that built up outside the petrol stations — this Esso I actually went into at 4:30am that morning and they were not open, even though there were staff in the shop (so maybe they were waiting for delivery?)
You’ll get people tooting impatiently and even people cutting the queue and then blocking the lane for the people behind (they must be luxury car drivers)
My house purchase has progressed and we have moved on and are now ready to exchange. However, one of the two sellers is unable to complete his purchase (he’s part of a chain and needs to complete his purchase before he can complete the sale on the current house).
Finally, I got a letter from Principia Law who are the ones trying to claim money back from the drunk driver who wrecked my previous car.
They want me to release my bank records for the period of time I had the hire car. But everyone I have discussed this with seems confused as to why this is required since the accident is a “no-fault” claim on my part, so they should not even need my bank details.
I asked them to call me today to discuss this. I may also speak to the office legal team for their thoughts.
As you may be aware if you follow my non-exercise posts, I’ve been contacted by the hire car company to start legal proceedings against the third party’s insurance company to recover funds from them for the cost of the hire car I held on to for around 45 days due to being unable to get a new during because of lockdown.
Yesterday I was contacted by the lawyers and today, I’ve got the details to log into their portal to provide details for them to start the case.
I’m hoping I don’t have to attend court for this, but you never know with insurers.
Forgot to log this yesterday, but it was another on-off rainy day. Went for my walk in a period where the rain was easing and it was fine, but it started to rain on the way back home, so got a little wet.
Also got called by the hire car company from my accident last year (just over a year ago now) — the insurance company on the other side are still resisting paying the hire car charges and now its going to legal action. So potentially I might end up in court.
But since the accident is a no-fault accident from my side (my car was stationary and parked, and the other driver was arrested for drink driving), I should not be getting any costs coming my way.
Had my MOT done today. Took surprisingly low amount of time — I dropped the car off at 10:30 for the 11:00 appointment and they called me back at 2pm saying it was done.
They had a check-in process where you sign in, and deposit the car keys (with a tag saying which bay you had parked the car) into a small locker and that signals the mechanic you have left your keys. It’s contactless so you are never near another human.
My daily walk as a result, was much later than normal.
Was another wet and windy day, didn’t really do much of a walk, and just managed to walk to the local Co-op to get some milk in the pouring rain.
Toyota later called me advising my MOT on the Yaris was due next month and I should book in the MOT.
Did that today and surprised that they offer a “While you wait” MOT that you can drop the car off and wait for them to do the MOT and then pick it up afterwards.
Next available slot for that is in two weeks. Still in good time for the 9th June deadline where the MOT expires.
It’s been nearly a year since my accident that wrote off my old car and I was surprised to get a call this morning from the car hire company.
They had been contacted by the third-party driver’s insurance company (Aviva), offering them part of the cost of the hire car I was using for over two months during the time I had no car. Bear in mind that during that time, the UK was in lockdown, shops were closed and car showrooms were closed so I couldn’t even get a new car to replace the smashed up one, meaning the car hire was longer than either side expected. The estimated total cost for the car was ~£3300 as mentioned in https://blenderfox.com/2020/09/02/car-accident-update/. Aviva offered to pay only around 30% of the cost. Obviously, the car hire company said “FU” in more formal terms and wanted to ask if I would co-operate with their solicitors if it came to it.
I obviously said yes since the case is an open-and-shut with the other side being drunk and even arrested by the police for Drunk Driving after the accident (although I didn’t see him wobbling while walking, it was still enough to be driving while impaired through alcohol.)
Update on the car accident that wrote off my car earlier this year.
My neighbour finally got an estimate on the repairs of her car. Hers is the only car that survived the crash, and she got away with a damaged front spoiler. Costs about £1500 to repair.
Total costs the other side will have to foot: Value of my car (written off): £3000 Value of the car next to me (written off): £2500 Value of the car that both our cars got shunted into (written off): £1500 Repair of the damaged car (sole survivor): £1500 Hire car (45 days @ £75 per day): £3375
I thought with the Hire car collected, this incident would be closed. I guess not.
The insurance broker contacted me to ask me to complete a litigation questionnaire. From the sounds of it, the other side is resisting the costs, unsurprisingly.
Blender Fox 
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