Maybe somebody can advise me

I find myself in a right pickle and hope somebody here mey be able to offer some advice. On Remembrance Sunday I was driving home with my 4 children from the new village playground we had gone to check out. It was quarter to 2 in the afternoon and the day was clear and bright though cold. At 2.30 a remembrance sunday parade was starting in town. I was driving down the residential A road with houses on each side and side roads that coming out of onto this road I was on you always have to give way. There are 2 roads coming from the right about 0.20 miles apart, one has a hump before, the other does not but always has cars parked on the left. I remember that I passed over a hump and there were cars parked on the left so I had to go on the right side of the road to avoid the cars. I saw at the junction a car waiting to pull out of one of the side roads. I proceeded to move past this car moving to the right lane of the road to avoid parked cars and before I cleared the junction I heard the crash when the other car drove into me. I stopped and said 'Look what you'd done to my car' and she said 'sorry, sorry, my insurnace will pay for this, I take full responsibility. The children were with me, I checked them over. She was very keen to go she told me she had to pick her own children from somewhere. I was never in accident before so did not really know what to do. She gave me an old letter with her address on, found out car registration number. She told that 'she did not want to seem rude but she has to go'. She sped away and I took the children home in shock. Since then the car has been written off and on top of that, now she changed the story and claims she is not to blame.  At the time I did not see anyone on the street and there was a car passing but it came some time after the accident so would not have seen anything. I had to move the car to let it go. I was so in shock that now thinking about it I am not sure at which junction the accident took place. I thought it was the first as it had a hump before and I was was slowing down for it and to avoid the cars and did not go fast. But now thinking about it I cannot be sure that it was not on the second either. I simply cannot tell, I was in such state of shock. The insurance company wants me to write my version of events but I am not sure how to approach it. I am extremely frightened that for no fault of my own I would have to potentially pay half the costs or even the whole lot. I took some photos of both of these junctions, I will take my 10 year old son there tomorrow in hope that he can remember which one it was. I think it was the first junction with the hump in it but when I think about it there seemed to be many cars around and there are always a lot around the second junction. Any advice how I should approach it, what chances we have got in winning this claim, the fault was 100% hers. I did break down in tears today as this situation is getting me down, I was worried about the children as well as the car that took 4 years to pay off (only last Christmas) that we looked after and repaired as we live in a small town and it is essential. We haven't got a lot of money and we find ourselves impossible to afford a new one without the payment from the insurance company. Hope somebody can offer some advice.

I'm assuming you don't have fully comp insurance?

Who is your insurer?  Is it fully comp?  legal fees included?

Either way, go see a soloicitor too, you might end up getting properly shafted otherwise.  The other driver has clearly been advised to shut up.  Act quickly, there may be deadlines that you are not aware of for claims and defences

Just tell the truth, keep your notes, particularly the admission, and hope for the best. Do not trust anyone's word, only signed written documents.

I really hope it works out for you.

We do have full comprehensive insurance. We have a hire car on credit hire (we did not really want it, but they kinda forced it on us) but if we are unsuccessful we will have to pay for it £60 a day and it's been here for nearly the whole of last month. Excess is £500.00.

Mr Puffy, you really scared me now.

I really did not know what I was signing. We are used to courtesy cars when we have car in garage, I just thought they were trying to help me.

£60 a day ? Thats ridiculous !

http://www.enterprise.co.uk/car_rental/home.do;jsessionid=PmNTQDlLnvdk7GmN1lj5SNMT1rQ4C2HdSn11Q2NP2pW2cTBWtCkL!-997960229

Definitely get legal help on this ASAP.  Insurers arent to be trusted - they inflate costs of repairs and hire cars and everyones premiums go up.

Also - most phones have cameras on them nowadays. Use them in situatons like this. 

Hope you can get it sorted painlessly.

Simple. She hit you on the main road by coming out of a road with less priority.

Its the other drivers fault. 

The geography of the road layout will prove it.

Doesn't really matter which junction it was. The issue is about 'what happened'. Where it happened helps but the problem the other driver has is proving that the accident was in fact your fault. 

Fortunately, the fact that you happened to be there doesn't let them off.

Only afterwards did I think about having a photo taken but I was blocking the road and then moved the car. I was just too polite and did not play the situation well. I had the phone on me so could have taken the pic. The fault of hers was so great that I thought no way anyone would doubt me, little did I know.  

Agree with RicF. When pulling out from a minor road onto a more major road you should look both ways and give priority to any vehicle on the more major road. That's what the give way lines are for.

You don't have to mention the speed hump or the other junction. Just draw a road with a side road and parked cars. Draw your position in the road. Show which road had priority, where the give way markings o the road are. Show her car pulling out from the side road into your car.

Top sketching there !

T.Mouse, ace work.

acdc - my advice would be dont try and become an investigator or a novelist.  Keep your description of the events as matter of facts.  Dont say things like "i think".  you dont have to solve the issue thats what your insurance is for.

Tmouse above has given you great advice via the diagram.  State simple facts....on x day at x time i was passing x junction travelling west along x road. when i was struck by a 3rd party.  At the time she took. full responsibility before leaving the scene abruptly.  Please see the diagram for illustration.

You dont get marked on it and its not personal....its all about insurance let them take the stress  

remember you are in the right, its the 3rd party responsibility to ensure it was safe to join the main road.  It was not! 

Can you knock on some doors and ask the locals if they remember where it was?

She is obviously going to say that she was already on the road when you pulled out to pass the parked cars.

The damage to each car will give a clue as to what the positions of the cars were too.

I am going to do that tomorrow. Garage corraborated my story to me, not sure whether they would tell insurance people that.

Aside from all the above advice, admission of 'guilt' at the scene is never advised nor taken into account once it reaches the insurers, it is for the insurers to aportion any blame once they have both sets of claims from both sets of drivers
If there is no clear blame ie: no witnesses then it is likely they will settle 'knock for knock'
As for the hire car, you need to check your insurance policy very carefully to see what they will pay for and what thy wont, sadly they haven't 'forced' a car on to you as you have signed some kind of agreement and have kept up this agreement for best part of a month

Write the details of the accident as best as you remember them, time of day, road conditions and include your direction of travel and a sketch as has already been shown on here.   As someone else has said also you are not being marked for creative writing or spelling just write the facts.

Not worried about spelling as it's always perfect anyway  Good advice there, thanks.