My car is parked, in first gear, on a slight incline (2-5 degrees, not really enough to make it roll) in front of my work place. 3 teenagers leave my place of work, and then return 5 minutes later, and tell me my car must have rolled, because it hit the back of their van. They tell me, they borrowed the van, and are nervose the person who borrowed it will flip out, and they have a friend who can knock out the dent for free, so they don't want to file a police report. They leave, and afterwords it dawns on me that they were acting strange about not wanting to file a police report. They were parallel parked, and very well could have backed up into my car while trying to leave, but wanted to put the blame on me in case the owner of the van tried to make them pay for the damages. So I basically forget about the whole thing. Fast forward to today, 3 months later, I get a call from the owner of the van, asking me if I had any intentions of paying for the damages, and that he got an estimate for $700. There were no witnesses, but my car rolling on such a small incline, while in gear seems very unlikely to me.

So when you went out to get into your car, was it moved forward out of its parking spot,
You did not walk out and see where the location was.

You turn it over to your insurance company at this point, tell them your story and let them handle it.

If you did not have the parking brake on, and left it in first gear, it is possible to roll, but not likely, Just let the insurance deal with it.

I'm assuming this was a standard transmission. I was taught that you NEVER park in gear and that you always use a parking brake on a standard AND that you always turn your wheels into the curb on even the slightest incline.

The problem here is he said/she said. You have no proof your car didn't roll. So you either turn it over to your insurer or pay.

My car is parked, in first gear, on a slight incline (2-5 degrees, not really enough to make it roll) in front of my work place. 3 teenagers leave my place of work, and then return 5 minutes later, and tell me my car must have rolled, because it hit the back of their van. They tell me, they borrowed the van, and are nervose the person who borrowed it will flip out, and they have a friend who can knock out the dent for free, so they don't want to file a police report. They leave, and afterwords it dawns on me that they were acting strange about not wanting to file a police report. They were parallel parked, and very well could have backed up into my car while trying to leave, but wanted to put the blame on me incase the owner of the van tried to make them pay for the damages. So I basically forget about the whole thing. Fast forward to today, 3 months later, I get a call from the owner of the van, asking me if I had any intentions of paying for the damages, and that he got an estimate for $700. There were no witnesses, but my car rolling on such a small incline, while in gear seems very unlikely to me.


I'm a liability investigator. Some of this concerns me. If it doesn't appear to be "normal" behavior, bells and whistles go off.

They were going to get the dent in which car knocked out for free? Did you have damage? If not (and they could get it taken care of) why did they even tell you about it?

Did you go outside and look at the accident scene, particularly in light of their strange behavior?

They were acting strange but you decided to "forget about it" and never mentioned it again - for 3 months?

Seems unlikely to me that the car would roll - but that's for your insurance company to argue. Turn it over to them. Depending on your insurance they may (or may not) take the claim at this late date.

It is quite unlikely to have rolled unless it somehow slipped out of gear. After the accident, did you check to see whether it was still in gear?