This is long but I think the details matter.
As the title suggests I had a fender bender with a "parked" vehicle yesterday while pulling into a new campground. While making a turn the swing of the trailer caught the driver side rear quarter panel of an F250. The story gets more strange when I add that the truck was not "parked" there when I drove by!
The roads in this cg are 12' wide and curvy. The "parked" truck was coming at me from the opposite direction and made a right turn on to a side street (I assumed to proceed around that loop and out). When towing in a cg this narrow and tight I only use first gear = @2mph so I am going slow.
He turned and cleared the road.
10' past that side road was another road on my right that I needed to turn on. I had setup dead center in the street and was swinging wide due to an actually parked vehicle on the inside of this turn. Proceeded through the turn with no issues and carried on my way.
About 100 yds down I noticed a gentleman running after me... never a good sign so I stopped immediately and rolled down my window to ask whats up? He responds that you hit a parked car! Concerned, I parked and jumped out.
Looked at my driver side square steel bumper on the trailer and indeed it had hit something because the paint was scraped and the plastic stinky slinky cap was crushed in. This would be my blind side in a turn but I was sure there were no parked vehicles on that side before making the turn.
Walking back down the road he proceeds to tell me again that I hit a parked car. How could that be when there was no parked car there? As we near the parked car I see that it is the same F250 that had turned on the side road. Only now it was parked at an angle with its nose off the street and the bed sitting 2' into the road.
How did you get there? I pulled out of your way. Um no you drove into the back of my trailer. No I was parked. Was your car running? Yes. Were you behind the wheel? Yes. Did you see me making the turn? Yes. Did you see my trailer swinging? Yes. How did you end up here? I drove around you.
Exasperating I know because I was looking for the "gotcha" camera crew by now. By the way his bed side is totalled those steel bumpers are seriously tough.
So you pulled around me and out of my view and parked with your truck in the street where I will swing making the turn? You then sit there and make no effort to go forward or back nor honk your horn? You then admit you watched the whole thing happen and decide somehow I am at fault?
So yes I was hit by a "parked" car yesterday. The driver is from Montreal and waited for the Sheriff to show up for a police report. He told him the same story, the Sheriff asked me mine, and asked if I would be filing a claim for damage to my trailer :). No I think I can cover the $2 cap :). Amazingly the guy in the F250 continued to believe he was completely in the right.
2006 Ram 3500
2014 Open Range
"I don't trust my own advise!"
