Comments on: “St. Paul employee who hit own car with rented city van wants damages”

By: Jerry Vandesic

Jerry Vandesic — Mon, 13 Oct 2014 23:01:00 +0000

Regardless of the disposition of the claim, she should be fired and charged with leaving the scene of an accident.

By: gasman

gasman — Mon, 13 Oct 2014 19:27:11 +0000

Sounds like she could dig herself a hole deeper than anticipated.
What if the rental company ‘finds’ some damage on that vehicle now.
With her admission of both fault and failure to report an accident to her employer she could find herself on the hook for damages to the van too.

And a failure to file a police report on the accident. Leaving the scene of an accident probably does not have a exception for the vehicle being your own (because it would be expected that one of the vehicles is your own).

So if this is a false report now which she cleverly thinks will net her a free car repair, she could find herself with all sorts of unintended consequences.

By: Wfjag

Wfjag — Mon, 13 Oct 2014 14:34:06 +0000

@MattS:
You should read the news story before speculating that the rented van she was driving was not damaged. Her complaint alleges that the collision “popped” a tire and scrapped the van. But, neither she nor Enterprise Reat-A-Car reported any accident or damages. The accident allegedly occurred on August 4th, but she did not file a claim until September 25th. If you deal with Enterprise (as I do for an organization the rents many vehicles), you’ll find that it claims every bug splat on the windshield as damages in excess of fair wear and tear (we recommend using a cell phone to video the vehicle before and after). Accordingly, if Enterprise didn’t report the damages she now claims, there’s plenty of cause for skepticism.

By: KDP

KDP — Mon, 13 Oct 2014 14:04:36 +0000

“Campbell, a 2014 college grad, …”

Her claim just goes to show that a college degree does not necessarily equate with intelligence.

By: MattS

MattS — Mon, 13 Oct 2014 05:43:34 +0000

From the Lowering the Bar article: “Sometimes one vehicle inexplicably suffers no damage in a crash, though. That does happen. Or so they say.”

I can attest to this from personal experience though it does depend on what each of the vehicles are.

I have a Dodge Nitro SUV (5000 lb tow rating) with a Class 3 trailer hitch (Rated up to 6,000 lbs GTW with 600 lbs TW).

I was stopped at the end of an off ramp. There was a compact car behind me. I started to slowly roll up to make a right turn, but had to stop due to on coming traffic. The driver in the car behind me started to roll up with me, but failed to notice when I stopped. The other car hit me at maybe 10 mph.

My hitch caved in the other car’s grill, luckily for the other driver not quite reaching the radiator, but at that low a speed and with as small a car as it was, the forces were nowhere near what would be involved in stopping with a 5000 lb trailer and it didn’t even scratch the paint on my hitch.

It never says what the personal vehicle was, but I can easily believe that a low speed collision between a full size cargo van and an eccono-box car would result in no damage to the van.