Repair bill after ‘bus scrapes car’
Rewi McIntyre has been lumped with a $700 repair bill after he says his car was hit by a Go Wellington bus, with operator NZ Bus saying there is no way to prove it was one of the company’s drivers at fault.
The Wellington man claims his Subaru Legacy was scraped by a passing bus while parked legally on Pirie St, near the Mt Victoria bus tunnel, on March 25 or 26.
McIntyre said his vehicle was parked about 11 metres from the bus tunnel stop, and yellow paint marks left on his car clearly implicated NZ Bus.
But NZ Bus said the lack of detail on the incident meant it could not submit a claim to its insurance company, leaving McIntyre to foot the resulting repair bill.
‘‘Without any specific identification, such as registration number or bus number, it cannot be proved that it was one of our buses that caused the damages ... especially if the driver failed to report the incident due to not being aware of the incident and, therefore, [being] unable to confirm [their] version of [the] event,’’ the company wrote in response to McIntyre’s incident report.
NZ Bus chief executive Zane Fulljames said he was not aware of the alleged incident but all damage claims were dealt with by its insurer, NZI Insurance.
He could not confirm whether any of the company’s buses had been damaged around the time of the incident.
McIntyre said in his incident report that it appeared a bus had sideswiped his car above right-front wheel arch.
‘‘I was not in my car at the time but when I came back to drive my car to work on Monday morning, I noticed the scrape marks.’’
He said a bus driver was clearly the at fault. But without any hard evidence, McIntyre will need to pay the $708 panelbeater bill for removing two panels, stripping the car down and repainting it.
It was obvious the damage was caused by a bus, he said. ‘‘How many yellow cars do you see driving round the city?’’
NZI Insurance told McIntyre that NZ Bus had submitted a ‘‘no knowledge’’ claim in regards to the reported damage, so it could not provide further information.
The insurer asked McIntyre’s insurance company, Trade Me Insurance, to contact the company to discuss liability.
McIntyre was advised by his insurance company to withdraw his claim, as it would not be worth the effort once he had paid the $500 excess and lost his no-claims bonus.