I visited my local body shop today to have the damage assessed. Unfortunately the costs involved in the repair make the vehicle an insurance write-off. This incident is going to result, regardless of who is liable, in the loss of my only means of transport and I'm likely to receive, after i pay the excess of £350, no more than £600.

I'm not a happy man today :(

Put in a written complaint to the Insurers with the pictures, asking them to dispute liability. This is not something you can go to the ombudsman about. It is up to your Insurers to decide on liability, as you delegate responsibility to them under the terms of your policy. It is only if you took this to a court of law, that the Insurers could possibly be overruled.

Problem of proving the other driver at fault, is that you would have to obtain expert opinion or independent witness testimony that the other driver was speeding. On the balance of probability, I would say that it could be viewed as a 50/50 accident. They could argue that if your view was impeded by the transit van, that you should have asked someone to guide you out of the space, by warning oncoming traffic that could not see you trying to exit your parking space. Having said that, in your picture the transit van is not parked right next to you, so if they were driving at 5mph, they would have seen you and the accident could have been avoided.

I am insured with Aviva. Today, whilst edging out of a parking space in a retail park car park I was hit from the right by an elderly driver who was travelling at speed.

On my right hand side was parked a transit van which was impeding my view. This is why I was having to edge out of the parking space in order that I could see what, if any traffic was coming.

Here is a google maps satellite view of the accident area to which I have added the vehicle positions:

http://i43.tinypic.com/2yobuxh.jpg

The impact ripped the plastic bumper cover almost completely off the front of my car but worse than that the solid steel bar that resists intrusion into the engine bay was ripped right off the bodywork and was left lying on the road. The mounting points for that bar have been completely torn and bent. To do that kind of damage the driver must have been doing a fair speed. Here is a pic of the resulting damage to my car at the scene:

http://i43.tinypic.com/330ww76.jpg

I called my insurance company to inform them of the accident. They tell me that *I* am liable. Their reason being that I was not on the road but entering it from the parking space. The other party WAS on the road and therefore they had the right of way.

Apparantly it's irrelevant that the other party was travelling so fast in a CAR PARK with a 5mph limit. It's also irrelevant that I was having to edge forward so that I could see if it was safe to pull out because of the Transit that was impeding my view.

Here is a view of the scene taken immediately afterwards, with both vehicles in the positions they finished in after the accident:

http://i43.tinypic.com/144d374.jpg

As you will be able to see, my car's front wheels are only just out of the parking bay I was parked in. My vehicle is protruding perhaps a foot in total outside of the bay. With the Transit in the way, even this far out of the bay, I could not have seen the other vehicle until they were at least level with the Transit, and certainly could not have done anything about it when I did see it, given the speed it was travelling at.

My question is this: How do I go about disputing liability? I do not accept that this accident was my fault. The other vehicle was speeding and negligent in his awareness of the road in front of him. If a pedestrian had stepped out instead they would be dead or severely injured. This was a car park, not the public highway. As far as I'm concerned this gentleman was driving irresponsibly and that is why this accident occurred.

Is this something I should discuss with the insurance ombudsman or is there a better alternative?