Seeking advise for the aftermath of a car accident

[melur66]

Hi.  I'm a new member so I hope you bear with me a while.  This is more about debt than insurance, hence put here in general topics.

  

Last year I was in Pattaya and as usual when I wanted to go back to my home in countryside my family car came for me.  My wife came along enjoying the ride and the driver was her sister´s son who has served as driver for many years.  I didn´t note anything unusual about the driver so I took a little nap.  Little did I know what was ahead.  Somewhere on the motorway to Chonburi I wake up and look around and see the driver has nodded off too and ahead is a bunch of cars going unusually slow!  I scream at the driver who suddenly wakes up,  accelerates for a bit until realizing he has to break and that fast.  But it was to late.  We run with enormous force into the car ahead which in turn runs for quite a distance into another car with enough force to run into yet another car.  So three cars damaged not counting ours.  Luckily no one was injured to my knowledge except me who had a small elbow incident which costed a cast for a month but that things could have gotten much worse.

 

Now, right after the accident before the rescuers came to the scene the driver starts howling and crying explaining to his aunt that he has not renewed his driver´s license and might also have some drug in his blood from the evening before so if checked by police he would be violating his parole and sent straight to jail.  So my wife starts calling and crying with him that I have to go the driver´s seat pretending to be the driver.  I hated this situation because I´m usually a straight arrow going by the book with things but I was in shock and pain and perhaps not thinking rationally so I did what they suggested and before going in the ambulance I left my drivers license with the driver who after had no problems witnessing against me on the highway police station were I soon took my place amongst the others victims of this accidents who were very unterstanding and polite.  Here I might add our car was not insured, one of many of the drive´s duties he hadn´t filled.

 

Two out three cars claims we took care of on the spot under the police blessing but the third one chose to go through insurance and I heard nothing from that until last Monday I was called by insurance company informing me I owed them about 140k because of this accident.  I speak a little Thai but not enough to understand fully so my wife and the driver who happened both to be on the spot spoke to the company too.  They both assured me we would deal with this together.  On Tuesday however they disappear and on that evening my wife informs me that they were seeking the advise of a lawyer which told them to play this very slowly, register the car and other properties to other puppets in the family and just wait and pay as little as possible because the don´t own anything (except the purp driver who gets up owning the car legally). And in time the insurance company will lose interest and move on, that´s the idea.

 

My situation is I am on retirement visa here soon to be renewed, I don´t have anything in the bank but live on my monthly invalid pension which isn´t much but gets me a way better life here than back in Eourope.  So what shall I do?  I am equally responsible with my wife for this debt, me as the driver and she as the owner of car, but she has decided not to pay it seems.  Will that strategy work for me or is it maybe more likely that the insurance company will simply get a court order and I can look forward to spend a good lot of time in jail?  If I could just hear some thoughts of this esteemed community I would be thankful.

[SuperTed]

I think one of the posting rules for this site forbids people from encouraging one another from breaking the law. Your family has put you in a very bad spot, and is looking to further profit from you by taking everything you have. Act accordingly.


Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect

[melur66]

I spoke directly with the insurance company today and they offer me a deal of one payment with good discount and the case is history.  The purp driver is history too.   

 

I consider this case closed.  Thanks for reading.

[CharlieH]

CLOSED.