A van driver who scraped the side of a parked car in a Richmond parkade lost his bid to reverse ICBC’s decision holding him at fault.
Weiguo Qu was deemed to have crashed his large van into a car parked in an adjacent stall while backing into a spot in October 2021.
Qu denied there was a collision and took ICBC to the Civil Resolution Tribunal (CRT), asking ICBC to reverse its decision and refund him $500 in overpaid premiums.
According to Qu’s initial statement to ICBC, he parked in another stall and did not recall hitting another car. He later said he moved parking stalls because his van was sticking out in the first spot and blocked traffic, while still denying he came into contact with the parked car.
He claimed he spoke with a third-party accident reconstruction team and was told he wouldn’t have been able to cause the damage to the parked car, but did not get a report because “it was too expensive.”
A witness, who was a co-worker of the driver of the parked car, gave ICBC a different version of events.
The witness, who was sitting in their own car during the incident, told ICBC they saw Qu’s van “going back and forth trying to squeeze into” a parking space next to the parked car and ultimately scraped its passenger side bumper.
They briefly left for their lunch break and returned to find Qu’s van in a different parking stall.
ICBC’s Material Damages department also found the damage on both vehicles to be “the same approximate height range, with similar textures and transfers that correspond to the colour/texture of the other vehicle.”
Andrea Ritchie, CRT member, dismissed Qu on the basis that ICBC took statements from drivers involved, as well as the witness, and it had employees investigate the damage to the vehicles and asked around for surveillance footage.
“I find Mr. Qu has not proven ICBC breached its statutory obligations or its contract of insurance, or that it acted unreasonably or improperly in investigating the accident and assigning fault,” wrote Ritchie.
Since Qu lost his claim, he will not be reimbursed for his tribunal fees.
