Darrell, or one of you other legal types

a general legal question...

My daughter was in an fender bender this weekend. Actually a hit and run. Her car was parked at work and somebody backed into it, left the scene. However it was seen by a bystander who happened to be an off duty police officer. My daughter was inside working and he went in and got her. The damage to the rear bumper of her car was minimal and the car is rather beat up however the rear bumper is now loose and she is worried its going to fall off on the highway. The car that hit her was identified and she called the police, they wrote up a report and it states the accident was "vehicle 1's fault" (the other car). We called our insurance carrier and have a $500 deductible.

This is an 8 year old Scion with over 100K miles on it, beat up pretty good. The rear bumper was already banged up so we are not looking to have it replace etc... however we also don't want it falling off on I-95 on her way to work. What are my reasonable options?

turn a couple tricks and buy her a better car?

In no particular order:

1. Leave it alone and hope the bumper doesn't fall off (not advisable IMHO);

2. Get it fixed through the collision coverage on your own vehicle, which may require you to pay the $500 deductible. However, if the other driver's insurer can be identified, your insurer may not even require you to pay the deductible because liability is clear (your daughter wasn't even in the car). That's what happened when another driver hit my son's car in a parking lot last summer. We had a $500 deductible but our insurer, USAA, told us liability was clearly against the other driver since my son wasn't even in the car. They got the $ from the other driver's insurer.

3. If the other driver's insurer can be identified and you don't want to go through your own insurer, you can contact his insurer and make a liability claim. You don't have to worry about the deductible in that situation.

If he's uninsured, what I probably would *not* do is sue him in small claims court. Getting a judgment and enforcing it are 2 different things. He may very well be "judgment proof" (no $ in the bank, no job where you could garnish his wages, no property to levy against), making enforcing the judgment difficult. Even if he's not judgment proof, it's just a real pain to enforce a judgment. Better to get it fixed through your own insurer in that situation, IMHO.