My wife was involved in an incident at a Coles car park, when exiting the car space (not reversing) at a crawling speed she was just over halfway out of the space when she was hit on the left front side of the bumper (our car is a Suburban 4wd), when she looked over to her left the young female driver looked to be in an intense conversation with someone however there was no one else in the car so she was talking on her phone. When my wife got out of the car after they parked safely the young driver also exited her car with her mobile already in her hand as she was talking to her mother about what had just happened. My wife could hear the mother clearly saying that she would say to the insurance company that she was driving as her daughter had mentioned that this was her second accident within the month & she wouldn't be able to pay the $2000 excess as she was under the age of 26, her car is a Toyota C-HR GXL 2020 model. Her insurance company is trying to put the blame on my wife quoting (Road Use Management-Road Rules) Regulation 2009 75 Giving way when entering a road related area adjacent land from a road. Where my wife was parked there where 2 vacant spaces on her left & right & had clear view of both sides before exiting in a forward direction not reversing out, no cars were sighted when exiting. The insurance company is claiming $5000 damages to her vehicle, but the kicker is that they are claiming damage for the left side of the vehicle as well as other ridiculous damages that were clearly sustained from her previous accident, our vehicle had no damage didn't even crack the chrome on the bumper as was mentioned previously exited at a crawling pace. Obviously, we are contesting the claim as when I did some research on her vehicle had found a safety feature that the car would actually stop the car if an impact was imminent & even taking a photo of the incident, storing it on the cars CPU for investigation purposes however this safety feature could be disabled but only manually meaning the driver had to push a button after startup to do so. On her claim sheet there was a recalibration of the EDS which supports this safety feature & had to be recalibrated after every impact the vehicle has. A blind man can see that she is at fault & obviously her insurance is backing her, we are not insured & obviously are refusing any responsibility or liability for this & we have done the research of her vehicle to support our side of events & have contacted AFCA as well. I have already told her insurance company (among other choice comments) that I am happy to go to court with our documents/evidence as they would not be getting a cent from me as she had clearly broken several road rules speeding being the key factor here. Other than what I have mentioned what else can we do?
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