Yesterday night at the parking lot in my 86, somebody pulls up next to my car, and their passenger opens the door on my front right fender
As ironic it may seem, the moment I saw the car pull up next to my car, 1 millisecond of thought said in my mind, I hope this person opens the door carefully. But it was too late, I watched her just open her door carelessly into my car. She replied back "oh! nothing scratched, woops, sorry." And than awkwardly walking away nervously with her other 2 friends as I give them the stare like "really..."
In my mind, she opened the way she did, because she thought nobody was in the car(asphalt with tints all around) She seemed more shocked the fact that I was in my car and caught her in the act when I opened my door to check the damage. Luckily... no dings. I yelled back, "you seriously need to watch your surroundings, and be careful about opening doors around you!!"
As I drove home, while getting over the situation, I wonder if she really did dinged up my car how would I go upon the situation. Because I know door dings are really hard to avoid if your car is your daily driver, but if you were me and you saw this happen to your car AND it did indeed give a decent ding on your car, what would you have done?
Would there be a case where the driver is at fault because they are his passengers, there for he gets all the blame? (basing off an example if your friend doesn't have a seat belt on, you get ticketed for it instead of your friend)
Would you try and make the passenger pay for the damage? Maybe a paintless dent removal. (but most of the time passengers of their friend's car wouldn't even take responsibility and try and make some BS not to pay) So is it worth taking to small claims court for a ding?
Or would you go ahead and take the ding, and accept it and fix it with your own money.
My philosophy is: "If I didn't do the damage, why should I have to pay for it?
"