BMW X1 scrapes my Maruti Swift in heavy traffic

I hear some scraping noise and to my horror, I see this car to my right. I honked but the driver couldn't hear through the windows, so I rolled down mine & banged on his bonnet.

BHPian avi_swift recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

It was a bad Christmas for me as my car got hit by another. So sadly, now it's my turn to post about my experiences in this thread, which I never thought I would have to. We were going to Vegas Mall, Dwarka to watch the Matrix. The mall entrance is next to a roundabout and due to Christmas, the area was jam-packed with cars. The arrow indicates the direction I would have taken to go to the parking and the black square shows the area where the accident occurred.

Before we inched under the metro pillar, there was an auto to my right. As I was inching forward, I was trying to take the service road as indicated in the arrow so that I can enter the mall. Now the auto was going right, so he inched a little ahead, while I was planning to go straight to the service road, so I was waiting and inching forward when I got the chance. And suddenly, a BMW X1 decides that the gap is wide enough, so he crept up to my right. I hear some scraping noise and to my horror, I see this car to my right. I honked but the driver could not hear through his windows, so I rolled down mine, and banged on his bonnet. This worked and he applied his brakes after this. You can see in the below pictures the part where I banged is free from dust.

Since I could not open my doors, I moved a little ahead once the traffic allowed me to and blocked his way. The guy was not ready to admit his mistake and kept insisting it was my fault which almost drove me mad. Seeing that there was no use arguing with him, I walked ahead and got a cop from a kiosk in front of the mall. He looked at both of our cars and told us to drive out of this traffic and call 100 (literally everyone was yelling at me by then since I was adding to the already severe traffic). The cop assured me that now, the guy won't try to escape, so I took a U-turn (i.e. completed the roundabout) and called 100. A police Innova came within 10 minutes. In front of the cops, the guy kept repeating that it was not his fault and that I would have to pay for his damages, so the 2 policemen who came told us to drive to sector 17 police station (less than 500m from the place).

At the police station, the officer looked at both the cars, then spoke to each of us separately. I told him if I can file a complaint, to which he said that it's possible, but then both of us have to leave the cars at the station for almost 5 days so that they can arrange a technical team who will come and assess the damages to both the cars. I have read on Team-BHP about cars getting vandalized at police stations, so I was not ready for this at any cost. I asked them if they can look at the CCTV from the area and he said they can watch CCTV footage only after a formal complaint has been filed, which again meant leaving my car at the station.

The officer advised me to settle it amongst ourselves. By then, I had a good look at the damage to my car. Thankfully, due to less than 5KM/H speed, there was no dent. But sadly the paint was chipped in lots of places. I told him that if the other guy owned up to his mistake and reimburse my insurance NCB, I would be satisfied. This time, he agreed and gave me 1000.

Very little damage to the X1, only the bumper has some paint chipped.

In contrast, my poor car has lost paint on both doors as well as the area around the rear right wheel. I have to get this repaired when I go for the annual servicing in January. The only silver lining is no dent.

Needless to say, Christmas was ruined for us and I have to watch Matrix once it releases on Netflix/Prime.

Few takeaways from my unfortunate incident:

• If you are a victim in a situation like this, do not waste your energy arguing, instead, call the cops. Note the number or take a picture of the offending car (if possible).
• Many times we are hesitant to call the cops thinking what may happen. But my experience with the Delhi Police has been very good. The cops were at the scene within 10 minutes after I made the call and all of them behaved very professionally with both of us. The other guy was playing victim but after a discussion with the officer at the station, he agreed that it was his fault.
• I always assumed that in India, the more expensive cars tend to drive more safely. Not anymore. This X1 was probably less than a month old and I thought it was really weird that someone can drive a brand new BMW like that. Don't cars like these come with front sensors?
• And lastly, I have decided to get a dashcam. I was dilly-dallying whether to get one since I consider myself a safe driver and never test my limit or the car's. But as this incident rudely pointed out, I can get into trouble even after driving safe. I don't think the outcome would have been any different in this case even if there was a dashcam, but if the situation is more serious than this, a dashcam would have been vital.

Here's what BHPian Bhupesh_2628 had to say about the matter:

Glad that no one got hurt.

From your incident, I learnt a lesson way back.

It's a serious issue I see every day that the moment a gap is left by us in crawling traffic, someone will come to jump & fill that gap, thus, initiating road rage, more traffic, blocks, minor accidents, etc.

Due to this, I always get left behind by others because as soon as 1 person enters that gap, immediately a line of 2-3 cars also try to cover their gaps following him, thus, leaving me behind by 4 cars with no fault of mine.

I learned that I have to be quick in filling those gaps & keeping (at least 1 metre) safe distance even if I have to use clutch extensively. I have no problem with 2-wheelers passing as they eventually get to their lanes.

Also, sometimes I act cleverly by blocking the extreme sides of the road where bikers pass through. I do this only when there isn't sufficient space for them to pass. But I know many bikers who still try to pass through that small gap even knowing about it & thus hit my side mirrors.

But if there's a gap on extreme sides that I know is sufficient, I always leave enough gap for them to pass but in the case of small spaces, I usually block their way because the damage is mine, not theirs.

Here's what BHPian krishnakumar had to say about the matter:

A dashcam is the first thing I bought for my new car. In fact, it was already part of my budget when we were looking for a new car.

I still don't understand why I don't see dashcams in every car that I see. Safe driving has nothing to do with it. If someone believes that accidents will not happen because they drive safe then sorry to burst that bubble.

I'm glad you shared your experience here and your decision to buy a dashcam after this. I hope others who have been toying with the idea go ahead and buy a good one!

Here's what BHPian Small Bot had to say about the matter:

A dashcam should really become a mandatory car accessory. I don't know the statistics, but I bet that a solid percentage of nasty accidents involving injuries happened to drivers through no fault of theirs.

A dashcam is not just a tool to capture events impartially and help you with insurance and police processes, it's also a deterrent in many cases. Almost like how the presence of a CCTV deters many aspiring shoplifters. People behave once they know there's no escaping the big brother who's watching.

I hope to see the day when cars come with factory-built dashcams.

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