She Promised to Fix My Truck and Stopped Answering — No Police, No Insurance

Attorney Answer

Her promise to fix your truck did not replace the claim you are still entitled to make, and it did not turn this into a handshake deal you are stuck with. The claim against her is a negligence claim for pulling out in front of you, and it exists whether or not anyone ever wrote anything down.

Nothing in your message describes an injury, so the loss here is the truck, which keeps this a straightforward question of fault and damage. On fault, CPLR 1411(a) is the rule: "Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, in any action to recover damages for personal injury, injury to property, or wrongful death, the culpable conduct attributable to the claimant or to the decedent, including contributory negligence or assumption of risk, shall not bar recovery. The amount of damages otherwise recoverable shall be diminished in the proportion which the culpable conduct attributable to the claimant or decedent bears to the culpable conduct which caused the damages." If she argues that some share of the blame belongs to you — speed, attention, distance — that argument reduces what you collect in proportion; it does not end the claim.

Her preference not to involve the police or an insurer did not repeal Vehicle and Traffic Law § 600. That section sets out what a driver must do after an incident in which another person's property is damaged: stop before leaving the place where the damage occurred, show a driver's license and the insurance identification card for the vehicle, and give a name, residence, insurance carrier and insurance identification information and license number to the person whose property was damaged — or, if that person is not there, report to the nearest police station or judicial officer as soon as physically able. An agreement at the roadside does not substitute for that exchange, which is exactly why you are now without her insurer's name.

The gap in the paperwork is a proof problem, not a bar. It also makes your own insurer more important than you may think. Insurance Law § 3420 requires New York liability policies to provide that a failure to give a notice the policy requires does not invalidate a claim unless the late notice actually prejudiced the insurer. Reporting the collision now, late, is meaningfully better than never reporting it, and how that provision applies to your policy is a question for a lawyer who reads it.

What you can do

1. Report the collision to your own insurer in writing today, giving the date, the location and what happened, even though weeks have passed.

2. Ask her in writing — text or email — for her insurance carrier, policy number and driver's license information, and save the reply or the silence.

3. Save every text, voicemail and call log that shows the promise to repair and the calls that went unanswered.

4. Photograph the damage from several angles and get two written repair estimates.

5. Ask a New York attorney whether a police report can still be made in your county and what the absence of one means for proving her fault.

6. Do not accept a partial repair, or let anyone begin work, in exchange for signing anything you have not had reviewed.

⏱ Time limits apply. An action to recover damages for an injury to property must be commenced within three years under CPLR 214(4), and a personal injury action within three years under CPLR 214(5) — "an action to recover damages for a personal injury except as provided in sections 214-b, 214-c, 214-i and 215." Both run from the date of the collision itself, not from the day she stopped answering your calls. A claim built on her promise to repair rather than on her driving would run on a different period. Which period is yours depends on facts an attorney has to see, so have a New York attorney fix the dates instead of estimating them.