I'd like to do an update on what has since happened. As already mentioned, it seemed like my insurer was on the brink of settling 50/50, and I was not happy with how the case had been handled. One area that summed it up for me was the witness statement. At first my insurer said the statement was strong as the witness knew the third party but not us. Then later my insurer said the exact opposite, that the witness statement was of no use because the witness knew the third party! I wrote an official letter of complaint to my insurer and said that I would take the matter to the Financial Ombudsman if I was unhappy with the response. Even my official letter of complaint to the correct department did not get confirmation of receipt within the promised time frame, so we had to chase that up as well! There has been a happy ending, though. I received an apology from my insurer over the handling of my claim (e.g. they now say that the witness report could have been used). And although it turns out that they had settled 50/50, they have refunded my excess, given me some compensation and are classing it as a non-fault claim. Thank you for the help.

Thank you all for the replies. The accident was over five months ago, so my car's already been repaired, but my Mrs took good clear photos of both cars and the crash location minutes after the crash with a DSLR. My car is shown in the crash position. As said earlier, I braked and did a final pull over to my left as the other car was about to hit. So I left my car in the crash position for the photos, already pulled over and not a danger to other traffic. In the photos, you can see my car pulled up towards a solid wall, angled a bit, with the front pulled in towards the wall and the rear pointing out into the road, with plenty of space to the white lines, my car well on my side of the road. The photos show the damage to my car clearly. There is no damage to the front bumper or light at all. The damage starts at the rear half of the front wheel arch and carries on to the back wheel arch. The main point of impact is about a foot and a half below my driver's door handle, towards the rear of the door. The damage to the other car is also clear in the photos. This is: broken front light with a chunk missing, scraping along the front corner and side of front bumper, damage to the front half of the driver's wheel arch, broken wing mirror (I think it hit my mirror), and leaks dripping from somewhere near the front right of the car (the front right tyre is damp in parts with the leaked fluid). The biggest dent is above the front light, on the front right corner of the bonnet. There are various clues in my photos as to what happened. You can see a chunk of plastic or glass next to my driver's door on my side of the road, close to where the main impact was on my door. My photos show that this chunk matches the missing piece of plastic/glass from the other driver's broken front light. It is an unusual shape, it clearly is from the other driver's light. I made this point in my photos to my insurer. There is a trail of leaking fluid that shows the movements of the other car shortly after the main impact once the fluid had started to leak. The fluid shows that the other car carried on up the road for about 20-30 metres past my car, then reversed back towards my car, then pulled over onto the large grass verge on their side of the road. Photos show that on the other driver's side of the road, there is a large grass verge - no steep bank or solid wall like on my side! You can see disturbed grass where the driver has pulled up to park after the crash, but no other disturbed grass at all. This disturbed grass is a bit up the road from where my car is and I think the photos show very well that the other car did not attempt to avoid a collision by pulling onto the large grass verge on their side of the road. Post crash, we heard that the other driver was blaming me. We asked our insurer if they had got the crash report from the other driver. They told us categorically that they did not need to ask for it because they felt we had a strong case. They said that we had a strong witness report, especially as the witness knows the other driver. The witness report makes it clear the witness did not see the crash but heard blame being admitted. I said myself in my crash report that I did not believe the witness saw the crash. We have said several times to my insurer that the witness did not see the crash as far as we know, but did hear blame being admitted. The insurer only got the crash report from the other party about a month ago, after they told us the other insurer wanted to settle 50/50, and we insisted they get the crash report. The other driver's crash report is minimal and basically says we came around the bend on their side of the road and hit them, it was our fault. There are no details about any steps the other driver took to get out of the way. I took my time to send a very detailed, accurate report, photos and an accurate diagram to my insurer. I explained in detail that I braked, pulled over, beeped my horn and did a final pull over into the steep bank/wall at risk of damaging my car. The witness report confirms that they heard my car horn and after that heard a bang as the cars crashed. I don't know how the witness knows it was my horn. My horn is very loud, perhaps the witness knows the sound of the horn of the other car as the witness and other driver know each other. The other driver's crash diagram seems poor to me. The road scale is wrong and the diagram shows the front of my car level with he front of theirs, with about a foot distance sideways between the cars. If you continue the direction of the cars, it looks if anything like either the front corner of my car will strike their car in their side, or I might even miss their car. Their car looks slightly angled away relative to my car. To me, the damage in the photos suggest the opposite, their front right of the car hit the side of my car. Their report says I came around the bend on their side of the road. My car in the photos is on a straight, about 20-30 metres past a bend I had already come around, and about to approach the bend that the other driver had come around on my side of the road. I'm not anywhere around this bend at all, I'm towards the end of a straight approaching the bend. At the start, my insurer said they would keep us updated at all stages. They didn't do that. We contacted them multiple times and found sometimes that they still had not done what they said they were going to do next, and things only seemed to be getting done when we chased them up. They said they would call back on some things, but there was no call back. I appreciate that sometimes it's just one driver's word against another's, and I can understand that if the witness knows the other person, that could be open to abuse. But if the witness report was a non-starter, why didn't they get the other party's crash report months ago? We had to request the witness statement three times before a copy was finally sent to us. We wanted to see if the witness had mentioned anything which would help, e.g. if they had mentioned the car horn that was in my report before they were asked for a statement. I was hoping that in the other driver's report there might be something I could prove from my photos to be a lie, e.g. something that contradicts the trail of fluid from their car such as if they had said they had swerved onto the grass. But our insurer said it wasn't necessary to get the report. The other driver's insurer got a copy of my report months ago. When our insurer talked about whether we agree to settle 50/50, we asked them what action the other driver had taken to avoid the crash. Why didn't they attempt to pull onto the large grass verge on their side of the road if, as they claim, we were on their side of the road? Our insurer said they didn't know, they would request more information. We still haven't heard back on that yet and last we heard our insurer feels obliged to settle 50/50. Thank you for reading and advice you can give. PS Road conditions were dry, visibility was good. My car is big and very visible.

I forgot to say, at the very last moment I made a final pull over to the left at the risk of hitting the wall to avoid head on impact and the other driver missed the front of our car by a very narrow margin and impacted all the way down the side of my car from the front to the back. If it was a deliberate crash, then on the one hand why did the other driver hesitate to stop? Could it be that the impact was low, not front on, and not enough damage was caused as intended? The other driver has accused me of driving on their side of the road.

Thank you for your help. What happened in short is that the other driver came round a bend partly on our side of the road over the white markings and did not pull back onto their side of the road like you would expect with a driver who is cutting the corner. The other driver carried straight on and hit my car even though I pulled right into the verge and stopped. Somebody who did not see the crash but came onto the scene after chatted with the other driver as they already knew each other. The other driver admitted fault a second time at the scene to this other person. This other person has acted as a witness for us confirming that the other driver admitted fault but this person didn't actually see the accident. The other driver's insurer says the statement is of little value. I was with the Mrs in the car and she also heard both times the other driver admit fault. What I find very suspicious is that the other driver maintained a consistent distance over the white line whereas if they weren't watching the road, I would expect them to drift. It also looked like the other driver was not initially going to stop and only appeared to stop once we got out to get the numberplate. It appeared that only then with the numberplate clocked the driver made an attempt to pull over.

Thank you for the reply. It was low impact and there were no injuries, but the other driver has told such a big lie in the accident report (accusing me of what they did) that I do not know if the driver will have made up an injury claim. The way the driver drove, it was like someone was trying to deliberately hit me, but I can't prove it. It was very odd.

My car insurer wants to accept an offer from the other insurer to settle 50/50 on a car crash that was not my fault. I have motor legal aid but have not used it yet. The other driver admitted fault at the scene, but now blames me and has told a complete lie on the car crash statement. - If it goes to court, is it done on balance of probability? I don't have anything that 100% says it was the other driver's fault, but I do feel there are bits of evidence (photos etc.) that taken as a whole strongly suggest it was the other driver's fault. - If I accepted 50/50, which I have no intention of doing, would this in some way indicate that I accept I was partly to blame? - If someone knowingly lies in a statement, is this a criminal offence, and if so, what class would it come under? Thank you for any help.