My question: I was backing up in my parking lot of my housing complex. I was not backing out of a space, just backing up. I looked over my shoulder to see if anybody was coming. Nobody was, so I look down to put the car in reverse, let off the brake, and not 5 feet later I heard a crunch. I got out of the car and asked the other driver what happened. She said she did not know. I said that I had not seen her when I looked to check that the coast was clear. She said that she did not see me, either. I asked her if she had honked, because I did not hear her, and she said that she did not honk. She claims that she was at a complete stop when I hit her, but as I said before, she was nowhere to be seen when I went to go back up. My thinking is that she came around the corner, slammed on the brakes (as she said she did), and the inertia of her breaking and me backing up met. My car has little to no damage, she has given me 2 estimates, one for 1,700, the other for 1,800 dollars.

We do both have insurance, but seeing as our premiums just went down, neither of us want to mess with insurance. We also had the cops come out, but they just gave us forms to fill out for our insurance because it was private property.

I am prepared to offer her half of one estimate, seeing as it is both of our faults.

So what is the question?

Well, is it wrong for me to only pay half? Do you all think that insurance, if brought into the picture, would find a certain party at fault?

Where did the cars hit,

If the back of your car hit the side of her car you are basically considered at fault

If the front of her car hit the side of your car, she is at fault.

** this is a general rule ** police officer 15 years and trained in accident investigation. If you hit the side of her car, you should have been watching and seen her, if she hit the side of your car she should have seen you and stopped.

***** next you put your car into gear, and then look, and keep looking both ways as you back.

Also assuming that they were in a traffic lane, they would automatically have the right of way and vechiles pulling out of the spaces would have to yield to the other traffic. She had no obligation to actually stop for you, but would expect you to stop and let her go past. Many people do stop so they don't get hit.

But if I was the other driver and you hit me on the side of my car, and did not pay for it in full, we would be in court.
On the other hand, if I had hit you in the side, I would not expect you to pay anything.

So no I don't believe offering 1/2 is fair, you either owe it all or nothing.

I did not hit her on the side. My bumper hit her front and damaged the hood and the front near the headlight.

It's not quite clear to me what happened. You say that you weren't backing out of a space, just backing up. Were you in a parking lot, on a street, at an intersection, or what exactly. Was it day or night? I'm just thinking that if I were driving through a parking lot at a low rate of speed, and the car in front of me was backing slowly, it might not have been obvious that you were backing and not going forward. It's not the expected behavior of a car in that situation.

There are so many variables to your situation; what type of vehicle were your driving (large truck so you couldn't see a small sports car), what time of day or night, what was the parking lot sit up, were there any witnesses,etc. Questions all the insurance company would ask and yes they would investigate.

It was day, (2:15 or so pm). I was only going about 5mph, and I was backing up in a parking lot. It is the parking lot of my housing complex. I had just dropped my house mate off, so I was backing up without having parked in my parking spot.

Also, it was a flat surface. There is a curb that she has to pull around to pull into her parking spot (which is what she was doing). I was parallel to that curb, about 8ft up from where the curve of the curb is. Also, there are small trees (about 5 ft high) planted along that curb. If I didn't see her coming, she didn't see me, either.

Have you talked to the other person, and asked about just saying it was no ones fault and no one pay, no one?? You pay for yours, they pay for thiers, if they so no to that, then offer 1/2.?

That's a good idea. I was wondering if I should go that route, but I had not heard that idea from anybody else, so I kept it to myself.