One, 20 years ago, nipping round to the estate agent to put down the deposit on my first house. Was trying not to lose sight of a friend following behind me in another car who didn't know the area and didn't pay enough attention at the front, clipped another car whilst pulling out of a sliproad. Only very minor damage. Felt very sorry for the woman driver who had a bastard of a husband. When I spoke to her on the phone afterwards, I could hear him yelling at her in the background, and he certainly wasn't going to help her sort out the claim. I actually ended up telling her how to put in the claim against me...
Had 3 that weren't my fault, all shunts up the rear. In one case, the culprit buggered off, but I couldn't actually see any damage on mine. In the other two cases, I saw them coming, but was in a queue of traffic and couldn't take any avoiding action, other than jamming my foot on the brake pedal to light my break lights and help ensure I didn't go into the car in front. On the last occasion, I was writing the details in my diary at the scene, and the other driver took my diary, wrote that he was entirely responsible and signed it, and gave it back. I had no problem with that claim. He was the director of a Norwegien phamacutical company in a hire car. Actually, I can now recall another 2 rear-end shunts, but both very minor with no visible damage. One of these was in Palo-Alto (USA), and the woman that shunted me was totally amased that I wasn't instantly threatening her with $1M lawsuite.
-- Andrew Gabriel
