- Thread starter
- #21
Bit of an update…
After weeks of little to nothing happening, I finally got a call about 10 days ago from the cops (or rather my wife did as I was working at the time), asking if I was truly sorry, reminding me of my "need to follow the rules", and other rather inane sounding stuff.
A few days later, some legal representative for the driver called her to discuss settling out of court. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, he yesterday suggested a settlement of ¥350,000, which apparently includes the repair cost of the left hand mirror, of which they gave a figure of just over ¥110,000.
I've requested a copy of the repair estimate/bill, and I'll go to my local Toyota dealer and get it verified, as ¥110,000 for one mirror + labour costs sounds somewhat excessive to me. I've also asked the remaining ¥240,000 to be itemised. As Tanki mentioned before, I accept that I need to give some money for his "inconvenience", but I feel it needs to be proportional.
I guess they've put that figure out there with expectation of negotiation, which again, because of Tanki's advice of not letting myself get played, means I'll be driving the figure down all I can.
According to my wife, who has been dealing with most of this as, whilst my Japanese is fine for day to day, I'm out of my depth with legal stuff, the driver has been consistently pushing for my punishment, and has not taken off the Higaitodoke.
She mentioned that after him and his legal Rep spoke with the police, it looks like the cops are happy to let it be an out of court affair, which got me wondering – Might they have told him that they wouldn't be taking this very far if at all, and that if so, it might give me a bit of leverage in the negotiations…
I don't want to overplay my hand though, as he may decide to leave the higaitodoke in place if I offer too low-ball an offer.
That said, from what I understand, if he leaves the higaitodoke on, and the police do take action against me, he only gets the repair costs re-imbursed, and any fine I might receive goes into the cops' coffers and not in his pocket, so it's in his interest to do the out of court thing too.
With a bit of luck, this'll be under the bridge soon; I don't want to pay a silly amount, but on the other hand, any police action could negatively impact my (and by extension my wife's) future, and it's also, needless to say, causing a bit of grief between us too as she's the one dealing with the cops/legal stuff.
After weeks of little to nothing happening, I finally got a call about 10 days ago from the cops (or rather my wife did as I was working at the time), asking if I was truly sorry, reminding me of my "need to follow the rules", and other rather inane sounding stuff.
A few days later, some legal representative for the driver called her to discuss settling out of court. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, he yesterday suggested a settlement of ¥350,000, which apparently includes the repair cost of the left hand mirror, of which they gave a figure of just over ¥110,000.
I've requested a copy of the repair estimate/bill, and I'll go to my local Toyota dealer and get it verified, as ¥110,000 for one mirror + labour costs sounds somewhat excessive to me. I've also asked the remaining ¥240,000 to be itemised. As Tanki mentioned before, I accept that I need to give some money for his "inconvenience", but I feel it needs to be proportional.
I guess they've put that figure out there with expectation of negotiation, which again, because of Tanki's advice of not letting myself get played, means I'll be driving the figure down all I can.
According to my wife, who has been dealing with most of this as, whilst my Japanese is fine for day to day, I'm out of my depth with legal stuff, the driver has been consistently pushing for my punishment, and has not taken off the Higaitodoke.
She mentioned that after him and his legal Rep spoke with the police, it looks like the cops are happy to let it be an out of court affair, which got me wondering – Might they have told him that they wouldn't be taking this very far if at all, and that if so, it might give me a bit of leverage in the negotiations…
I don't want to overplay my hand though, as he may decide to leave the higaitodoke in place if I offer too low-ball an offer.
That said, from what I understand, if he leaves the higaitodoke on, and the police do take action against me, he only gets the repair costs re-imbursed, and any fine I might receive goes into the cops' coffers and not in his pocket, so it's in his interest to do the out of court thing too.
With a bit of luck, this'll be under the bridge soon; I don't want to pay a silly amount, but on the other hand, any police action could negatively impact my (and by extension my wife's) future, and it's also, needless to say, causing a bit of grief between us too as she's the one dealing with the cops/legal stuff.