Could I have possibly scratched someone else's car?

College Confidential Community
1

Hi,

Just a while ago, I was going in a very small parking lot. The parking spaces were really tiny, like those ones that you usually around Asian restaurants. So, I was trying to enter a space, but I couldn’t, so I decided to back out. When I was backing up, I accidentally came in contact with the car at my right. I only noticed a little brief contact, so I didn’t think much. When I got ready to leave 40 minutes later, when I walked around the parking lot, I realized that there was a little dent, or rather, a small black line on the other car.

I then checked my car and found no visible scratch or damage on my car. Nothing at all. The other car’s height was two times higher than mine’s, and my car’s top only reach to about the bottom part of its windows. The dented line that I saw on the other car was somewhat higher than that. The part that came in contact was around my car’s side mirror. There seems to be way it was possible for my car to cause that scratch. I didn’t see any other damage on the other car or on mine, either. The parking lot was empty, I thought that was probably there before, so I just left.

Now that I think about it, is it possible for me to cause that dent? I don’t know for sure, but I have to do the right thing. Are there cameras in the parking lot? It’s small Asian plaza full of restaurants. If I somehow was responsible, can the owner take his car to the police and track me down? Maybe they can use technology to trace down the paint, DNA, or whatever that could lead to me.

2

When you knew that you “accidentally came in contact with the car at (your) right,” you should have immediately pulled forward and examined both your car and the other car.

“I only noticed a little brief contact, so I didn’t think much.”

That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. You knew you had touched the car with yours in trying to navigate the tight space. The right thing to do would have been to check it out right then and there, not just go about your merry way.

I don’t know what there is to be done now, after the fact. But next time, don’t just blow it off. Check it out, and if you have in fact damaged another car, you need to leave a note with your contact information on it, and when contacted, make arrangements to pay for the damage. And always, always take a photo of the damage (or lack of damage as the case may be). This is for your protection against false claims.

3

Of course it’s possible. Two objects that each weigh on the order of 3000 pounds tend to cause some kind of damage when impacting one another.

However, the odds of this going to the level of police tracing down the paint are pretty slim. It is quite possible that the place had a security camera.