<p>My senior son has parking privileges in his public high school lot. (He paid a fee of about $10 at the beginning of the school year.) At the end of his track practice today, he strolled over to his car and as he approached it, a ball came from the school team baseball practice in the adjacent field and hit his car windshield head on, shattering it. (There is a clear impreession of the ball in the glass, with glass fragments on the car’s seat and the hood.) There were several witnesses.</p>
<p>My son spoke with the baseball coach immediately, who said that parking in the school lot is “at your own risk.” Son has since e-mailed the principal regarding this matter. He has also taken pictures.</p>
<p>How should this be handled? We have a $1,000 deductible on our car insurance. For the moment the car remains in the school lot.</p>
<p>Check and see if windshields are included in the deductible. Mine has been replaced twice due to rocks hitting windows, and I’ve never had to pay a deductible. They even came to my house to replace it. My insurance has not been impacted at all from these windshield replacements. </p>
<p>It’s happened at our high school, too. Funny, the baseball players all move their cars after school and before practice so they’re not parked by the baseball field, because they know it happens.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it is park at your own risk.</p>
<p>By the way… $10 at the beginning of the year??? Our students pay $60 per term.</p>
<p>It stinks, but stuff happens. Maybe your son could have some fun raising money to replace it. He could go collect donations from the baseball team or maybe sell candy at practice for $5 a candy bar or do something similar on a schoolwide basis.</p>
<p>mathmom - I suspect if it’s just a matter of a windshield being cracked (as opposed to a wreck where other parts are damaged), it’s difficult for the car owner to have any liability. Insurance companies want people to fix their windshields, but aren’t so concerned about other damaged body parts.</p>
<p>Again, if I paid anything to have a windshield replaced, it was absolutely minimal ($50 or under) and it does not effect our rates.</p>
<p>Like EK said…most parking lots have the “at your own risk” signs everywhere to avoid liability.</p>
<p>Our school gives us a paper at the beginning of the year that states they are not liable for any damage to our car while it is in the school parking lot, and we have to sign a waiver in order to park there. (They do, however, periodically send CSOs around to monitor things.)</p>
<p>Our deductible applies to windshields. But my son’s was much less than that. It was about $230 to replace. Can’t imagine the school is going to cover any of it. Price of car ownership.</p>
<p>But don’t accept somebody’s verbal statement that parking there is at your own risk. Ask to look at the document that says so. Unfortunately, there probably is one, and your son may have signed it.</p>
<p>If your policy does not include full glass replacement, it is normally available as a very low cost policy rider. Over the years we have replaced windshields on virtually every vehicle we’ve owned, some multiple times. I’m remembering 6-8 windshields, and one Suburban tailgate panel.</p>
<p>Most were the results of kick-ups from highway stones and gravel, one a tree branch/storm incident, one was the result of my father’s inattentiveness while loading lumber.</p>
<p>It doesn’t help you now, but consider it for the future. It was one of the options I advised my kids to get when they took over their vehicles/insurance after graduating.</p>
<p>You know; the many years I went to school, I learned a lot of things that I thought was useless. Periodic Table of Elements; formulas; spanish; etc… As time went on after graduating, I found out that sometimes things I learned years earlier would actually become useful years later. I then applied that to life and realized that I could also learn A LOT OF THINGS that weren’t formally taught in a classroom. Many of those things came back later on to be useful.</p>
<p>So; why can’t this be a learning experience? Why does this have to be a matter of “Someone else should pay”? If you pay; you will learn. If someone else pays; there’s a good chance it will be forgotten and possibly happen again some day. I.e. at your son’s kid’s little league baseball game.</p>
<p>I have no problem when there is negligence or someone vandals a vehicle that they pay for it. This is one of those proverbial “Feces happens”. LEARN FROM IT AND MOVE ON. That is part of life. Why does it HAVE TO BE someone’s fault? It could have just as easily been a large rock being shot up from a truck in front of you; hail; tree limb falling; etc… Pay the $200 for a new windshield and learn not to park your car near a baseball field during practice/games. There’s also a ton of other life lessons that you can learn. Keep learning.</p>
<p>Tough crowd here. I don’t think her son drove home afterward as she posted that his car is still in the lot and I am sure it was not drivable with shattered glass all over the seats. </p>
<p>I don’t have the facts but if it was like our high school, students have assigned parking spots and are only allowed to park in those spots. My D’s spot was adjacent to a field but it was the soccer field. If this situation was at our school, I’m not sure what the kid was supposed to do? Move his car after school to another spot? Here you have to park in the assigned spot. </p>
<p>It may be that there is no recourse, not sure. But I would not put the entire blame on having a student’s car parked where it may be, if like our school, he was assigned to park. </p>
<p>I don’t think this is a far fetched question either. When I grew up, if kids were playing ball in the street and the ball went into a neighbor’s window, the kid had to pay for breaking the window even though it was an accident. </p>
<p>It may be that the policy at school is park at your own risk and there may be no recourse. But I am not sure why this young man is being criticized.</p>
<p>^^ Agree. It is a shame this happened, and it is certainly not the boy’s fault. I would also ask the school to check with their insurance carrier. It is damage that occurred on the premises, so there is a chance it would be covered.</p>
Because sometimes it is someone’s fault. Someone designed the school, laid out the parking lot and the baseball field, and apparently didn’t think about foul balls. Why didn’t the school install a fence or net to keep baseballs out of the parking lot? Why should the loss fall on the person who had no ability to prevent it, instead of the one (the school) which did? Some things are actually no one’s fault - but this doesn’t seem to me to be one of them. </p>
<p>I’m sure that no one would be claiming that saying “park at your own risk” would be a defense if the baseball coach had taken a bat and smashed in the windshield; the only issue here is whether the school’s failure to layout its facility can be waived by an express agreement of the student. (You generally can’t be bound to an agreement to waive the right to recover for intentional damage, but sometimes can agree to waive the right to recover from damage caused by negligence.)</p>
<p>The practical answer is to have the owner’s insurance handle it if possible. If not, I don’t see anything wrong in the person injured seeking reimbursement from the person who had the ability to prevent the damage. Between the school and the student, I don’t see a good argument for saying the student has to eat the loss.</p>