Need Help Fast Re: Four Wheeler Accident (1 Viewer)

[Ted Lee]

brandon - you are totally doing the right thing.

no way should the owner have to pay anything! not a dime!

if i let my friend ride my bike and he crashed it, then i would expect him to pay for it. if we're talking assumptions here, then i would assume he would take financial responsibility for using my property.

i had a roomate who dropped some heavy object on my car. it even put a small dent in my fender. the guy never even offered to fix it.

bottom line: he borrowed it, he busted it, he should fix it.

(sorry brandon...don't mean to sound too harsh...this is one of my pet peeves... )

ps - it would be nice if your friend would let you make payments though. i had to sell all my stereo gear to get my car out of impound and it totally sucked!

 

[KyleS]

Brandon you are doing the right thing.

I crashed my friends car in the snow/Ice and it was a brand new Subaru Outback sport with only 500 miles on it. My friend had asked me to drive since he was tired... I agreed even though I told him I wasnt comfortable with the situation... Well long story short slush, Ice, & a car coming in the other direction led to a totaled brand new car.

I offered to pay the Deductable plus whatever increase he was going to see in his insurance bill even though I knew how bad it was going to hurt for me to pay that amount of money. Bottom line was it was MY fault that the accident happened. He was nice enough to offer to pay any increase in his insurance because he asked me to drive and thanked me for offering to pay the deductable of $750.

Bottom line is sure he probably should assume some responsibility but if he doesnt then it is on you as a friend. It really comes down to your and his integrity and what each of you is really deep down about as a person.

To this day we are still friends and can laugh/joke about that incident (though I still feel bad). If I were to have screwed him with paying nothing or him making me pay for everything (even though I offered) I can almost guarantee we wouldnt still be friends.

KyleS

 

[Jeremiah]

Your friend (the owner) needs to pay at least half to learn that part of this was his fault as well. If it is brand new, it *might* still be covered by the dealership and you can ask for a new ATV, but that is a bit sketchy to me. Your friend needs to take responsibility for his mistake and shoulder his part of the debt. Because by law it is actually all his to begin with (you're being nice by even pitching in.)

Sorry Joe, but you have one F!!!ed up way of thinking. Being nice for pitching in? Are you out of your freaking mind!? If I let a friend use my truck to pick up a washing machine and he wrecked it or had the machine put a dent in my truck, my friend is being nice by paying for the damage he caused?

 

[Eric_L]

Had you been injured in the accident it is quite likely you'd be able to sue your friend. Weather you would is a different story.

We live in a litigious society where personal responsibility is abdicated to the courtrooms.

The right thing is to fix what you broke, but many attorneys don't see things this way.

 

[Ryan Wright]

but many attorneys don't see things this way.

That's because many attorneys are slime. "Let's see if we can weazel your way out of taking responsibility for your actions based on some technicality." No offense to you attorneys with ethics - I know you're out there (I have two in my family).

 

[Jeremiah]

I agree with you Ryan. Can you imagine if your friend wrecked your car or toy and wouldn't pay to get it fixed and said "It's your own fault, you never should of loaned it to me?" Nuts. Even the most basic of codes looks like is falling to the weigh-side.

 

[MikeAlletto]

Wow! Tough crowd!

This is pretty typical of the extreme PC'ish-righteous-holier-than-thou HTF crowd, doesn't surprise me at all.

Not everything is clear cut, black and white, right or wrong.

But as far as the topic goes this is a perfect example of why you just don't let friends borrow/drive/try out expensive vehicles or possessions. I hate driving other people cars or even test driving cars for this very reason. If something happens I'll feel horrible about it but at the same time do everything I can to not have to shoulder the entire burden of fixing it. The way I see it, if I'm using someone elses ATV and they clearly said that I could try it out and I break it how am I totally liable for it? They didn't have insurance, they knew what kind of a vehicle it was, they knew I never drove one before and yet still let me go out alone on it? Its not completely Brandon's fault and anyone that thinks he is 100% liable for what happened has some pretty odd ways of looking at things. Brandon unless your friend offers to help out I'd get it fixed as cheaply as you can. Unfortunately, depending upon how good of a friend this is it will probably be a major sticking point for many years to come.

 

[Ted Lee]

Its not completely Brandon's fault and anyone that thinks he is 100% liable for what happened has some pretty odd ways of looking at things.

lol...same thing can be said of you. no offense...

if i let you borrow something of mine and you busted it, then didn't offer to fix it, i'd think you were pretty odd!

seriously though, this is just a subjective stance. we're definitely gonna have people on both sides of the fence...chalk it up to different strokes for different folks.

i still say brandon is doing the right thing and i congratulate him on his maturity.

 

[Ryan Wright]

Mike: Technically, Brandon isn't 100% liable for it. All of the points that have been made about the friend knowing the risks, not having insurance, etc, are valid points.

Morally, however, Brandon is doing the right thing by paying 100% of the costs without balking. If I broke someone else's toy, I'd fix it properly no matter what the cost or the circumstances. If someone broke my toy, I'd expect the same. It's simply the right thing to do.

Where this gets really tricky is when a borrowed toy randomly breaks while you're using it. Do you pay for it, even though it was going to fail anyway? I would pay to have it fixed. If it was my toy and it happened to a friend, I would expect him to offer to repair it (if he didn't, I wouldn't consider him much of a friend), but depending on the damage I'd either split the cost with him, or more likely, decline his offer and pay for it myself. But I still want him to offer.

These sorts of issues are why I don't like borrowing things from people or loaning my things to them.

 

[Joe Szott]

You guys have a funny idea of responsibility, you don't consider not buying insurance for your own property before loaning it to a friend irresponsible? This is my point, at the very best Brandon is only 50% responsible for this problem, the owner was being negligent by not taking some *basic* precautions with his property. If you all knew me you would know that saying I don't pay my debt or mend my mistakes is ludacris, I believe in absolute responsibility for one's actions. I've rebuilt items and paid friends thousands of dollars for broken stuff that I thought was possibly my fault. But here I believe the owner is the one mostly at fault, not Brandon. So yes, by offering to pay anything he is being a very nice person.

So Kyle, let me understand this: If your friend asked you to drive his brand new Subaru in the ice after you told him you were uncomfortable and then it crashed, you would feel obligated to pay $15,000 for a new Subaru if he didn't have insurance? No way, because your friend was being an idiot driving his new Subaru around at all without any insurance! Paying his deductable I can see (although splitting it seems more fair), but would you fork over $15,000 no problem? Should you have asked him what his insurance and deductable were before you started driving? Heck no, you just assumed that your friend was smart enough to cover his *own* property. That really is the same thing as what we are dealing with here, only on a different scale. If Brandon's friend had insurance I could see forking over $500 just to smooth it over, but $2K+ because the owner didn't insure it? That isn't right.

Bottom line - The owner did not properly insure his own property before he put it at risk. If it was a shovel, a receiver, a VCR, or a lawnmower I would pay to have it fixed/replaced no questions asked. But loaning an expensive new ATV to a noob to go ripping around in the woods while it's uninsured is just a numbskull move.

I don't see how you all can just let the owner off the hook so easily. He was the one being irresponsible with his preoperty here, not Brandon.

 

[Ted Lee]

damn joe...that is a pretty good argument!

i agree that there is some negligence on the owner's part, but the bottom line still stands.

if brandon didn't ask to ride it, it wouldn't have been damaged. call it bad luck, bad timing, whatever. but, it's still brandon's fault.

anyway, i'm done with this thread. brandon - i wish you the best of luck and i hope everything works out for ya. i still say you're doing the right thing. this good karma will come back at ya 10-fold!

 

[Joe Szott]

Ryan -

These sorts of issues are why I don't like borrowing things from people or loaning my things to them.

Amen to that!

One last thing I would say as well is that this isn't a 'loaner' type of item. A DVD or a VHS that breaks you might expect the person to replace. But a multi-thousand dollar off road vehicle is not a toy or trinket, it is a valuable and vulnerable asset. If you aren't ready (insurance and otherwise) for your noob friend to wrap it around a tree, don't let him drive it in the first place And don't pin all the blame on him when it happens...

Edit:

One last bit: I still think you and your friend should just split it in half and remain friends. Don't ever ride ATVs with him again though Good luck!

 

[Leila Dougan]

In a perfect world:

Brandon would offer to pay for the repairs. The owner would then tell him that he was negligent and that he'd cover the repairs. They'd both want to do "the right thing" and err on teh side of caution, even if it meant that the person had to pay more money. Then they'd agree to split the cost. Both people took blame and made an attempt to pay, the vehicle gets replaced, adn the friendship is saved.

 

[david stark]

well in a nice world the owner would offer to pay half as would Brandon, but if the owner doesn't offer then Brandon has to pay it himself really, and good on you for it as it seems you will, you are a true friend.

A lot of people on here are saying "I assume he owuld have insurance", this is an incredibly stupid thing to do. Whenever I am renting or borrowing a car I always ask if I am insured to drive it, without fail. Why? it is my responsibility to ask, never assume or you could end up owing thousands of $'s or end up in jail.

 

[Lee L]

To me, there is a clear difference here between "loaning" or "borrowing" and what happened here. IF brandon had walked up to his friend and said "hey, I want to go ride in the woods this weekend, can I borrow your 4 wheeler?" then went on and wrecked it he would be totally 100% responisble. What sounds like happened is that the friend has access to more than one 4 wheeler and invited Brandon to come along on an excursion and was in fact leading Brandon along a trail. If I am asking people to come along and providing toys for them to ride, I am assuing a risk of there being some damage to those toys. Yes, Brandon should offer to pay but the friend should take some resposibility here too and I certainly would not make my friend sell his equipment to pay the thing off.

 

[MikeAlletto]

To me, there is a clear difference here between "loaning" or "borrowing" and what happened here.

Absolutely!

 

[KyleS]

Joe as a matter of fact I would pay for a 20K dollar car if it was my fault but thats just the type of person I am, I take responsibility for my mistakes.

Now granted if my friend had not had insurance and I didn't know that my insurance would cover me driving other cars then I wouldn't have accepted him wanting me to drive. Now with a 2-4K ATV I wouldn't even think about is it covered or is it not. Heck if I fucked up my buddies equipment whether he invited me or not I would feel obligated to take care of MY friend.

I know that the friends I have would do the same for me which would lead them to offer to pay a portion of it. If Brandon's friends doesn't offer to chip in then it gives him a pretty good idea that he may not be that good of a friend. Chalk it up to the school of hard knocks if he doesn't offer to help you pay and get the ATV fixed. Then after you fix it you may want to reassess if he is the kind of friend you want to keep in your life.

KyleS

 

[Ryan Wright]

Then after you fix it you may want to reassess if he is the kind of friend you want to keep in your life.

Or at the very least, don't ride ATVs with him anymore.

 

[Brandon_T]

WOW

I really appreciate the lively discussion concerning this issue. I do have mixed feelings about this whole situation. Yes, I do think he should have know better and had insurance on it. Yes, maybe I should have thought twice about riding the stupid thing.

I do know this. Know matter what it will not damage our friendship. Bob has basically been a brother to me for 21 of my 26 years on this planet. We each have our own brothers and are closer to eachother by far. Maybe this situation was complicated by the fact that this was his wifes ATV and it is basically brand new. I don't know. Tommorrow I am taking it to a guy I know that has a frame shop and says he can fix it and do the aluminum welding. Pleas keep you fingers crossed for me.

BTW, I didn't ask to borrow the atv. He asked me if I wanted to go up north and ride on is wifes quad. I accepted and asked him to be gentle on the first timer. I just consider this a life lesson, hope it won't cause me to sell my HT gear. and hope to post pics of the destroyed bumper, wheel and frame.

Brandon

ps. A guy at one frame shop looked at it and said "Holy Sh*%! How long was the guy riding this in the hospital for?"

 

[Philip_G]

I haven't seen it mentioned, but watch ebay for a used (straight) frame. I dunno about ATV's mut sportbike frames are pretty common.