[Sleeper]

Ok, quick explanation:

Driving along local highway, passing a semi truck. When I'm beside him, (nose about 6 ft past his rear wheels) A sheet of ice (24"x24"x2" ish) flips off his trailer and slams into the roof of my car. Wasn't much to do besides curse as there were cars in front and behind me. I have the company of the trailer (didn't get the truck) and a license plate number.

Do I have any legal recourse or am I just stuck dealing with 2 good sized dent on the crown above the drivers door?

I was happy there was not any noticable paint damage, but obviously cheesed that I have two dents.

On a side note, are there any decent tools/methods of taking a dent like this out short of just taking it to a shop?

[attachment=19945:Roof_Damage.JPG]

Thanks,

Sleeper

 

[timivers]

record all the details you can about the location it happened, description of truck, time, etc. and call your lawyer and see what he says. serves them right for not scraping the snow off their trucks. same thing happened to me last week (smaller block from a pickup, hit in windshield). first thing i would have done if there was damage was get his license plate and call the cops.

 

[dream weave]

if the only info you have is off the trailer, you might have a long search to find the actual company that was hauling it. if it was a drop trailer the name on the box probably does not match the trucking company. you might want to look into a comprehensive claim and let your ins. company do the leg work for you.

as for the repair you might want to look into PDR, but since it's on the driver's door, there probably is a safety beam or two in there that may make it difficult.

 

[broken08]

I know a few years back in MA they made a law about that because it was causing accidents, so that is to say you're not crazy for wanting recourse. good luck

 

[Sleeper]

Thanks for the help. What I have going for me, I have the truck, I have verified the plate is valid, and its from wisconsin. (It looked weird, I knew it was black on orange, but never saw the state) I'll call the company tomorrow. Fortunately its not some backwoods place, its a multi-state group, so with a little luck, they'll just write me off on their insurance and not be jerks about it.

My insurance company has been helpful, and basically gave me the advice to call them first and see if they'll play nice. If not, I don't have alot of recourse besides make a claim (worthless unless its over my deductable, which would suck in itself). However, if I do make the claim to the insurance, the adjuster would want the info of the truck to see what they could do. Supposedly since this is "no fault" it wouldn't affect my rates, but I don't know about that.

Anywho's, life sucks, ice flys.

I'm still not sure if it would have been better if it had just hit and shattered the windshield if that would have been better than the dent in the roof... (I'm thinking windshield)

 

[Egierda]

Umm, up in Ontario it would be 100% the trucker/trailer company's fault. My dad had a piece of ice fly off the top of a trailer infront of him and shatter the grill on his old car. Anyways, the point of the matter is that if you know the trucking or trailer company then call and don't accept anything but for them to repair the damages. I don't remember which member said it uptop but ya, I recall hearing about the same law stating that you need to properly clean off your car and I think it might actually be finable now as it can cause harm (as it did in this case). Sorry to hear about your car..it's most definitely a tragic case.

Best of luck.

 

[terigox]

Wow, best of luck with that! I'm always afraid to pass trucks :blink:

 

[ricks6inNJ]

Here in New Jersey they have a law that you have to clean off your car after it snows. They even have it plastered on the overhead signs on the GS Parkway and NJ turnpike. Not sure it's enforced though. Never saw anyone pulled over for it. The last week has been real bad around here for flying ice and snow. Narrowly missed some projectiles myself.

Good luck on the dent removal!

 

[Blue Mazda]

Semis, trucks and SUVs that don't clear snow and ice off the top of the vehicle piss me off. We have a law in CT that they are supposed to be ticketed for that but the police enforce that just about as much as the stupid not talking on your cell phone without a hands free device law. The laws are useless if they aren't enforced. Personally, the cell phone thing is more dangerous than minor speeding IMO. The snow and ice thing is dangerous as well. I had to pass a lady in a Jeep on the way to my folks house becasue sheets of ice were falling off the top of her vehicle and I was dodging them. She was doing over the speed limit but I just wasn't going to follow behind that with all that stuff coming off the roof........ :angry:

 

[flarearrow]

At least you're not a statistic

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=...tnG=Search+News

 

[Speed6Turbo]

Man, I can imagine it is ruff for you guys who have to deal with this. Hopefully it all works out for the better and you can get the truck company to pay for the damages. I have a huge truck hit me as it was backing up. I had nowhere to go and to make things worse, the driver of the truck didn't even have a license. Since I work for attorney's, it was realatively simple to get things rolling. They fixed it and I went on. But best of luck with the entire ordeal.

 

[Daishi]

its a law in jersey but its never inforced i see people with snow covered cars riding around all the time. including me i was guilty of it when it snowed here recently the entire hood was 1 big sheet of ice that was stuck on their good so i left it on. passed rite by a cop he didnt do nuttin... later on that entire piece the size of my hood flew over my car and smashed into the road and shattered to pieces good thing noone was behind me or else i woulda had to evade them lmao.

 

[b12sentra]

I understand your complaint, as I drive big rigs myself, but I can honestly tell you that their is no way in hell you can get on that trailer roof in the first place, even if it's warm and dry let alone loaded with ice and slippery as hell up their. So I'm not quite sure what they could do to enforce the issue since it's hard to tell when ice is still on the roof, but considering the amount of snow they have received up in the Northeast it's not a surprise to see the frequency in which this is occuring.
It is a problem, but I don't know what the cure is unless they had two sky lifts at the weigh station so when the truck pulled in they would clean each one off as they go underneath.
Figure about 15 min. per truck at least, to get even a little cleaned off, then multiply that times the thousands of trucks going through the weigh station and you should have a 10 mile traffic jam in no time at all and delayed freight across the board. But it wouldn't take very long for the word to get across the CB and trucks would avoid it like the plague and you would be back at square one.

Sorry to hear about the damage to your car, it does suck. Next time something happens like this get the truck # and trailer # and the company on the cab as well. Just remember, don't call a trucking company over something you wouldn't want someone to call and complain about you. :swearin:

 

[2poor4MS6]

ouch, let us know what happens.
I figure this happens all the time and that the we have no method of recourse. Would love to be proved wrong.

 

[xshellshock]

...It is a problem, but I don't know what the cure is unless they had two sky lifts at the weigh station so when the truck pulled in they would clean each one off as they go underneath.
Figure about 15 min. per truck at least, to get even a little cleaned off, then multiply that times the thousands of trucks going through the weigh station and you should have a 10 mile traffic jam in no time at all and delayed freight across the board. But it wouldn't take very long for the word to get across the CB and trucks would avoid it like the plague and you would be back at square one.

Sorry to hear about the damage to your car, it does suck. Next time something happens like this get the truck # and trailer # and the company on the cab as well. Just remember, don't call a trucking company over something you wouldn't want someone to call and complain about you. :swearin:[/b]

I have yet to see a weigh station open in CT or the surrounding areas. therefore....no traffic jam and if my negligence to clean my car damaged someone else's and they called me, I would have no problem paying the repairs, I wouldn't be happy, but it's still my fault.
The real solution is to have it cleaned at its destination/origin, it should be that companies responsibility. Sort of how a restaurant/bar is responsible for a drunk driver leaving their establishment.

 

[Sleeper]

I understand your complaint, as I drive big rigs myself, but I can honestly tell you that their is no way in hell you can get on that trailer roof in the first place, even if it's warm and dry let alone loaded with ice and slippery as hell up their. So I'm not quite sure what they could do to enforce the issue since it's hard to tell when ice is still on the roof, but considering the amount of snow they have received up in the Northeast it's not a surprise to see the frequency in which this is occuring.
It is a problem, but I don't know what the cure is unless they had two sky lifts at the weigh station so when the truck pulled in they would clean each one off as they go underneath.
Figure about 15 min. per truck at least, to get even a little cleaned off, then multiply that times the thousands of trucks going through the weigh station and you should have a 10 mile traffic jam in no time at all and delayed freight across the board. But it wouldn't take very long for the word to get across the CB and trucks would avoid it like the plague and you would be back at square one.

Sorry to hear about the damage to your car, it does suck. Next time something happens like this get the truck # and trailer # and the company on the cab as well. Just remember, don't call a trucking company over something you wouldn't want someone to call and complain about you. :swearin:[/b]

I definately understand the difficulty in cleaning off a truck, and honestly, I have no malice towards the driver or even the company. What I do have is a $370 repair bill that I just want their insurance company to pay for. In honesty, if I got that, I would generally forget about this whole situation except for my "lessons learned" if it ever happened again.

In hind sight, I most definately agree to get truck number and all the shipping company info you can. At the time of the incident, he wasn't done chucking ice, I was mad, and I floored it past him to get away from him. Now that is causing me more difficulties about hunting them down. My current problem is I had license plate number and initials/logo on the back of the trailer. I called the company I believed it was and they said its not their trailer, and they don't even license trailers in that state. It could be BS, but frankly, I don't have enough to call that so I assume they're telling the truth. At this point, I need to actually have the plates run and see if I can get the shipping companies name. I'll be calling the highway patrol and seeing what I can do that way. The damage is below my insurance deductable so getting them involved is pointless except for possibly running down the plate, but I don't even know if they can.

The fun of owning a nice car that you care about. Had this been my old Grand Prix, I probably wouldn't have done much past get some paint to cover up what got chipped off.