I was in a car accident with personal injury, caused by me. I tried to find information in English about what happens and what to expect when this happens. It was hard to find any information about accidents where the writer was the cause. It was also scary to hear about risk of being sued from personal injury and I didn't really know what to expect. This is the background to me writing this blog post.
The Accident
I was renting a car and had just dropped of my wife and child after being discharged from the hospital (child birth). I stopped at the car rental's parking lot, and put the gear in what I thought was parking. I released the break, heard a car horn from behind, and then felt a bump as my car had slowly reversed into the car behind me. (The police later told me that they had estimated my speed to be about 2-3 km/h.)
The driver in the other car came out screaming angrily about how his car was now unfixable, wonder how I and the rental car will be able to compensate this and so on. The rental car staff helped me call the insurance company to report the accident and they also called the police as the accident has to be correctly reported.
Police took my information and I also had to exchange name and phone number with the owner of the car that crashed. We also went through how the accident was caused. I was also informed that I would not get any points redaction as there was no personal injury but it could be change since the other party stated that his neck felt strange.
This whole thing took up to about two hours.
Meeting with the Police Again
The police called me a few days later informing me that the other party had claimed a neck injury as personal injury and that the accident therefore had to be reclassified to higher severity. They had not yet gotten any medical note but needed me back at the place of the accident to go through once again how everything happened.
We met a few days later. The police went through their understanding of how the incident happened. I could add extra information but they were pretty spot on so I didn't really have anything. The police was extremely pleasant to talk with and the whole thing was over in maybe 15 minutes.
The police also told me that we would need to meet again after they had gotten the medical report for the other drives injury.
Talk with the Insurance Company
I'm very happy that I had paid for the most expensive insurance. It removed some burden regarding how much this accident would cost me. But I was still worried about the risk of being sued so I called the insurance company to ask about it.
The insurance company does not cover lawyer in case of being sued. They did however tell me that the injury was so small that would be absolutely impossible to sue over (even though they also added that they had still not gotten any papers from the other persons doctor).
Meeting with the Police Again
It's now been about a month from the accident and I had still not heard anything so I ended up calling the police for an update. The told me that they had not yet gotten the doctors note regarding injury from the other person who claimed personal injury but that he said he would come in the beginning of next week. I booked the follow up meeting with the police to be on the Friday the same week (knowing it might be cancelled if the other guy didn’t submit the doctors note). The other guy did end up handing in the doctors note and I had the meeting as planed.
I met with the police again as planned. It was a short meeting (about 15 min) where he just went over the police report over the accident (how it happened, who was at fault, etc.). The police was very polite and kind. He explained everything in simple terms and also helped me understand the papers I had to sign. (My Japanese is good enough that I can feel somewhat confident that I understand what was written but it was still good to hear his simplified version.) The blame was put 100% on me which I, to be honest, agree with. I had to sign the papers with finger print since the seal I brought with me was of the wrong kind (Sachitaha).
I asked if this was the end, and if everything is done to which the police officer answered that the report will be sent to a prosecutor and that "there is a possibility that the prosecutor might raise criminal charges against you". I might also get a letter in the mail withdrawing my driver license. I think the mostly said it since it is a possibility where the accident might have been caused due to illegal driving and there is a (as close as possible to) zero chance of this happening in my case. But I guess we will see in 1-2 months.
Other comments
Should you call the driver?
I asked around in different communities I'm in what to do and what to expect and something that seems to be common is to call the other party to apologize and ask how they are doing. I decided to call the rental company to ask what they thought. They told me that they do not want me to call the other party. I also asked the insurance company and they said that they don't really care but that I can call if I really really want to.
I think it might be good to call the other person if you believe they are genuinely hurt, they are somewhat calm giving the circumstances and you feel confident in your Japanese. I did however decided to not call the other party because I had properly apologized after the accident, he was extremely aggressive (think ojisan using anger as a weapon against customer support), and I didn't want to risk accidentally being rude due to subtle ways of expressing oneself in Japanese. (My Japanese is okay, over >N2, but nuance can be hard, especially over the phone.)
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