Team-BHP - Auto hits my car from behind

Again its that horrible three wheeler on our Indian roads. Today morning on BTM road just after Jayadeva I am in the right most lane behind a van and the traffic is slowed due to lot of buses. I am moving and then brake keeping behind the van but hear a small thud and the next thing I see is that $#@&! auto has hit me from behind. I am really mad and pissed off with this happening first thing in the morning that too with autos. Goddamn autos and that guy starts accusing me as I get out of the car. I feel liek thrashing him then and there but inspect the damage to see that the left tail light is brushed. I curse him badly and just get in and drive to office.
Now in parking I notice that there is small dent too near the tail lamp which I didn't notice earlier with paint rubbed off. This Sh** incident leaves a bad taste for the entire day now.
I feel I should have taken time at the spot and extracted some money out of that A$$.... :Frustrati

How to handle mishaps by autos? do we register a complaint or paisa vasool there itself?
The problem is every time this happens I end up spending nearly 3-5k for small dents and the major cost being painting. The service men always say that "paint mismatch will happen sir so we will have to point the entire panel". Is this true? can't they paint that small portion around the dent?

Sad to hear this man. Even I had a bad morning. I got hit by a Ford Ikon this morning on Airport road in front of SNS Arcade. This place is always a problem area as there is a bus stop at the curve and the stupid Autos, Cabs, Mini Vans and BMTC/ private buses all stop in the main line and traffic holds up. The Tata Sumo fella in front me braked hard and then I had to brake hard, but looks like the the Ikon couldn't and hence rear-ended me.

The only saving grace is that the Ikon driver agreed to pay me for the damages and hope that it is not much. I took his mobile number and noted down his car registration number and we both left the place.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zaks (Post 1332097)

............How to handle mishaps by autos? do we register a complaint or paisa vasool there itself?........

Auto drivers, apart from a very small minority, are scum anywhere you go - they just speak different languages. You are lucky he didn't gang up with a few other auto drivers to demand money from you for braking.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zaks (Post 1332097)

.....The problem is every time this happens I end up spending nearly 3-5k for small dents and the major cost being painting. The service men always say that "paint mismatch will happen sir so we will have to point the entire panel". Is this true? can't they paint that small portion around the dent?

In my opinion the paint mismatch, between older and newer paint wouldn't be an issue unless one is extremely particular. The service men can paint just that portion but from what I have heard at my dealer, their rules don't allow them to do that.

@Zak:

These type on incidences do happen. Yes, we do feel unfortunate about the incidences as these are totally avoidable without any major hassle. But we have to accept reality that these guys are not the one with whom we can fight. Infact, we cannot fight with most of the indisciplined people as they can fall to any standards to just register a win besides satisfying their ego.

A Scorpio rear ended me when I was driving our M800. Due to road divider, as usual people tend to go on wrong sides, in my case it was a man around 50 years old on bike. I was taking a left side turn slowly but after noticing that man, gradually started barking. My speed was 20 kmph when I had initiated the turn, and then I gradually applied brakes. But the biker changed direction suddenly and came exactly infront of my car. I slammed the brakes. Thank God, I just avoided the biker and then suddenly a large thud and a shock to all in the car.
A Scorpio rear ended us in the right corner of the car. I got down, shut the door hard. But before I could take any steps, Scorpio man just ran away. Now the door is not shutting properly.
So moral of the story is that never lose temper unless it too big a damage. These indisciplined people will some day rear end a parked truck and learn a lesson.

Dad recently pain Rs. 100 to a biker after he rear ended my dad in M800, fell off and was hurt. This is the mentality. We just cant help it.

The main reason why we are not using Baleno as regular car is this only. If a biker rear ends or an Auto rears, they will try to get more money out of us.

Get over the incidence.

One big question. When will our roads be cleared of such goons (autowallahs)? They are the main cause of pollution, frustration, rage and what not?? They forget they drive the three wheelers for their living. Their behaviour is the worst ever seen on roads. They are rude behavioured and full of wrong characters. Add to that our traffic policemen. Grab a 10 or 20 rupee note and leave the auto guy. I have personally seen that happen in J.C.Road. If you ever face such an incident report to traffic police. Atleast the auto guy will have to shell out some money to the cop.

I would love to see Traffic cops(from every city) join our forum. We can atleast put forward such incidents to them please: .
(I may sound stupid here, but things can change a bit if this happens)

zaks, seeing the trends, it is otherwise, instead of you demanding money from them, they would have ganged up against you and demanded money from you. In Bangalore, one rick driver had done the same with me when I was learning and had put big L on my car, a cyclist came in front, applied sudden brakes, autowallah, didnt maintain gap and hit me and started abusing me, ganged up, I had to pay him 100 bucks, he was asking more.

On the dent, see if you can manage it otherwise, there is a post here of some people fixing bumpers, dippy has used them (though thats Mumbai) , if they can help for some sort of dents, it will be good.

Biggest scum on our roads are the creatures who "drive" the odd shaped 3-wheel contraption. Unfortunately they have such thick skin that nothing can be done to them. You'll just lose your own peace of mind. I know from personal experience that it is painful. Get over it. You can try claiming insurance for the repair, but I guess that would be hardly worth losing your NCB...

Slightly offtopic, but once an Auto hit my friend's car from the left side, and I was sitting in the left seat. As I didn't know the local language, I started swearing at him in english and guess what...

to my surprise, he staretd swearing at me in proper english!!

Moral of the story: There are even educated bad people driving autos...! :)

And, almost 95% of auto drivers fall into the same category as explained above but there are very very few nice people. Once it happened with me, I took an auto in Trivandrum city, and the auto driver started a conversation with me. He started discussing things from global economic crisis to Bhagavat Gita and Malayalam literature! Man I was sweating to be part of the conversation on the literature side. He said could speak english, hindi, arabic, little telugu apart from his mother toungue. I was really impressed.

Sad to hear that. Btw, 3K-5K for fixing small dent and paints is exorbitant.

I always go to a local denter and recently got my i10 Kappa which was dented on both side of the front bumpers ( one dent was quite severe with huge amounts of paint chipped out) and a few nicks here and there that were touched up and guess for how much it costed?

I paid a grand total of Rs.1800:). Its back to its spic and span shape.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mnhegde (Post 1332385)

I would love to see Traffic cops(from every city) join our forum. We can atleast put forward such incidents to them please: .
(I may sound stupid here, but things can change a bit if this happens)

Now that would be something worthwhile, IMO. Having cops on the forum would really give them an eye-opening session of how common people struggle with the lousy law & order situation in India.

zaks, call it a bad day. If it would have been possible, you should have taken the guy to the cops.Not that it would help, atleast you'd scare the guy a bit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by anurag_p80 (Post 1332448)

Yes, you are right spot on they are just that, scumbags.
Ganging up, they don't dare do that to localites and I am no pushover either but it is better we avoid them like plague. The streets will become a safer and saner place once these autos are banned.

I will keep the dent for now until I find a local tinkerer who will do it for less.

The streets will become a safer and saner place once these autos are banned.

agree: with you zaks. Its a pain to drive along vehicles, whose drivers dont have road manners. A few months back, having noticed my stopped vehicle in the signal ,an auto came and banged right into the rear right corner (hatch door) of my wagon R while trying to squeeze between my car and divider. The rear windshield was saved, but a deep cut on the hatch. And I watched the whole thing in rear view mirror . I even had the right turn indicator ON. When I got down and questioned him, he says its my fault to have stopped my vehicle in such a way. I showed him the gap (3 feet). He said he would have managed to squeeze if the gap was a bit more :Frustrati. I usually leave a gap between my vehicle and the divider while taking an u turn or right turn (just for safe turning) with indicator on for the whole process. Now what is the use of speaking to such idiots??

Got the paint job done within 3 hours in J.C.Road (costing around 1800/-,perfectly matched pearl silver paint).