My son hit by a car

[Cdnone1]

First he is fine!
My son bikes to school. Yes, even in LA. This morning on his way to school he got hit by a car pulling out of a driveway. The man who hit him stopped and got out of his car and gave my son all his info. Because the accident was so close to his school half of my neighbours stopped and helped as well.
My son was really scared (he's 13) and it his first year of riding his bike by himself to school.
When I call this guy he is not the most friendly person despite the fact that he just hit my kid with his car. I tell him my son is fine, his bike is damaged and that I have no plans on sueing him or anything like that so no worries just pay for his bike repair and be more careful.
I pick up my sons bike from his school and take it to the neighbourhood bike shop to be fixed, because I want him to ride it home. I don't want him to scared of ever riding his bike again and offer to bring my bike back and ride home with him. Get him right back on the hoarse is my thoughts. He wants to ride home by himself.
So I call the guy about paying for the bike repair and he starts questioning the costs. He's still not the least bit friendly and I can understand he doesn't want to be real chatty and is worried about what might happen.
I tell him "just contact the shop with your credit card and pay for it and we will move on.
I arrive at the shop to pick up the bike and he has gone in with a certified check, but on the work order has written this big long "disclaimer that by paying for the bike repair I give any and all rights to further action etc, etc.
We had not discussed this before and from his not really being rude but certainly not contrite for hitting my kid it rubbed me the wrong way. I mean he did hit a child on a bike. Now he wants me to sign this without talking to me about it first!? That was my kid you hit.
So my question is how would you handle this?
Would you just let it go? Would you report the accident to the Cops. I don't think he trying to hit my kid but he still did. It just pi$$ed me off that after running into my child he is trying to get me to sign this "waver" and didn't have the courtesy to ask me before hand.
What would you guys/girls do?
Thanks
Steve

[motion]

Rip up his agreement and pay the bill with your own credit card. Sleep on it. Decide what to do in a couple days. Glad your kid is OK!

[Tobra]

Originally Posted by motion

Rip up his agreement and pay the bill with your own credit card. Sleep on it. Decide what to do in a couple days. Glad your kid is OK!

what he said, perhaps rip it up and mail it to him so he can think about it too.

[vash]

dont rip it up!!! you can use it!

just pay the bill yourself, and keep the dumbarse's disclaimer that he hit your kid as evidence. no way he can ever say, "what kid? i didnt hit a kid....." i say sue the effer. at least scare him. it is L.A isnt it? glad your child is ok.

[DonDavis]

Originally Posted by motion

Rip up his agreement and pay the bill with your own credit card. Sleep on it. Decide what to do in a couple days. Glad your kid is OK!

Originally Posted by Tobra

what he said, perhaps rip it up and mail it to him so he can think about it too.

I agree with both. Glad your son is ok.

[krichard]

you gotta f with this guy now. He opened up a can of worms with that spineless crap. I'm not saying sue him, but I would file a report with the local PD and make him sweat.

Oh and definitely pay for the repairs yourself and keep the check.

[the]

Originally Posted by krichard

you gotta f with this guy now. He opened up a can of worms with that spineless crap. I'm not saying sue him, but I would file a report with the local PD and make him sweat.

Oh and definitely pay for the repairs yourself and keep the check.

+1.

How old is the guy? That sounds like a move a law student or first year lawyer would do. Enough knowledge to know what a release is, but not enough experience to know when to push for one and when not to. I.e., an example of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing.

[Cdnone1]

He had already paid for the repair with the certifed check before I got there, so I just pick-up the bike. I didn't sign his silly 'disclaimer" I actually left it at the bike shop.
I don't want to ruin this guy but after the way he handled this I guess I just don't want him to think he's in charge and getting over on all this.
If I report the accident will this destroy his driving record, insurance, etc. I don't know if I want to get his attention that much
Steve

[Racerbvd]

Send him a copy in a lawyers' envolope.

[Gogar]

He's just scared $hitless and he's trying to cover his arse. True, he should have displayed some kind of contrition if the accident were his fault. But I sure hope you guys don't make a fear snowball out of it. There's already way too much of that kinda stuff out there.

Glad your kid is ok!

[HardDrive]

Isn't there enough spite and conflict in this world as it is.

The guy is a jerk. Nothing you can do will change that.

Hug your son and move on.

[mikester]

I'm not sure what I would do but I would certainly not sign ANY waiver very quickly - any expectation to do so would be simply stupid.

Pay for the bike repairs yourself, get your son a new helmet. I would definitely file a report with the local PD and if he gave the info, call his insurance company. I'm not sure if this guy is an a$$ or just gotten himself in a bad spot and handled it badly (we all do that at some time or another) but; he has handled it poorly and there is no getting around it.

Two things really matter, your son is okay and this guy (as well as all of us) learn to drive a little more carefully.

[Cdnone1]

Thanks for the imput
I'm more inclined to go with Gogar and hard drive
I think the guy is just scared $hitless and handled it poorly. I know I would be if I hit a kid with my car
My son is fine. His bike is fixed.
Lesson learned. I'm just going to leave the guy alone.
He could have handled it better but at least he stopped and made sure my kid was OK and gave my son all his info. That to me shows his heart is in the right place.
I'm sure he will be more careful in the future, so we are counting our blessngs and moving on.
I think it would be a waste of my energy and bad Karma to just screw with the guy because he was rude.
My son is sound asleep, safe in his own bed and that in the end is all that matters
thanks
Steve

[Jeff Alton]

Wow, glad your son is okay!!

I too once hit a kid on a bike! However it was 100% not my fault. Kid crossed road right in front of me and I could not avoid him. He was hurt, not too bad, but required a trip in the ambulance to ER........

Even though not at fault, as determined by the Police and Insurance company, I bought the kid a new replacement bike. I just plain felt bad. Insurance picked up the damage to my car, only a few hundred (20 years ago). I was 18 at the time.......

So, there is legal avenues available to you to think about, but remember, the most important (and maybe the ONLY important) thing is that your kid is alright. It sounds like this sort of accident could happen to any of us. We pull out of our driveways and 999 times out of 1000 everything is OK, then once...........

At any rate, maybe call him up and say "thanks for paying for my kids bike repairs" and see what his attitude is.

Cheers

[David]

I agree with some of the others, it's not worth your time to even talk to the guy.

One of my greatest fears is running over some kid coming out of the garage. If it was me hitting a kid, I'd have gone to the bike shop, bought the kid the nicest bike I could and given the kid's to charity.

An even greater fear is that it'll be my son that gets run over. He's also 13 and I guess he got his mom's sense of awareness, i.e. he has none. I used to ride all over the city of Houston at 13, I don't mean my neighborhood, I mean the city. Of course that was a different time, but at least I was aware of my surroundings.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by Cdnone1

Thanks for the imput
I'm more inclined to go with Gogar and hard drive
I think the guy is just scared $hitless and handled it poorly. I know I would be if I hit a kid with my car
My son is fine. His bike is fixed.
Lesson learned. I'm just going to leave the guy alone.
He could have handled it better but at least he stopped and made sure my kid was OK and gave my son all his info. That to me shows his heart is in the right place.
I'm sure he will be more careful in the future, so we are counting our blessngs and moving on.
I think it would be a waste of my energy and bad Karma to just screw with the guy because he was rude.
My son is sound asleep, safe in his own bed and that in the end is all that matters
thanks
Steve

I'm glad your son is OK! It's nice to see there are still foks who "do unto others...". He's not one, but you are

[dad911]

Your son is ok, the guy paid, move on. You don't know his history, perhaps he was burned before.

[RoninLB]

it's a fast $25k pay out around here.

[Christien]

I think I can see this guy's point. Sure, he could have been more friendly and cooperative about everything, but paying for the repairs could easily be seen by a judge as admission of fault. In our overly-litigious society, I can't say I blame the guy for wanting to cover his ass. Certainly if a lawyer had been involved and the agreement had been reached to pay for repairs and end it at that, there's no way you'd be able to get the cheque released without signing a legal document waiving your right to sue.

If it were me in the situation of hitting someone and knowing it's my fault, I'd want to make things right, which would include fixing the bike or buying a new one, and any medical bills that resulted from it. But I'd also want to make sure that some unscrupulous person didn't trump everything up and come after me a year or 2 later for all sorts of phony resulting injuries. I used to do insurance defence prep work for my dad's law firm when I was in school, and this kind of stuff happens all the time.

Remember, this guy doesn't know you or your son, and has no idea if you're some scheister who's looking to cash in on what really was just a simple accident. I can't say I blame him for wanting to cover his ass.

[legion]

Originally Posted by HardDrive

Isn't there enough spite and conflict in this world as it is.

The guy is a jerk. Nothing you can do will change that.

Hug your son and move on.

My thoughts exactly.

When I first read this, I thought that he made payment for fixing you son's bike conditional on you signing a release. Apparently he didn't, so just move on.

I used to ride my bike around Naperville on summer breaks during college. I had a car, but I liked the exercise. I must of got hit half a dozen times--never even hard enough to push me off my bike. Twice the driver of the car yelled at me! In both of those cases I stopped and gave their car a firm kick (once in the hood, once in the door) leaving a large dent. As the first person pulled into me and the second pulled right in front of me as they were leaving a parking lot, I was prepared to tell the police that is where I impacted their car...