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Fake Pedestrian-Car Crashes are Sprouting Around the World

According to popular belief, staged auto crashes started when insurance companies got interested in protecting the motorist. Despite the safety net offered to signing parties, auto insurance policies also represent a hard-to-resist proposition to evildoers specialized in scams.
Fake pedestrian-car accident 4 photos
Photo: imgur
Insurance frauds that involve anything with four wheels got out of hand since the early 1990s and still are on the rise. Most often, the wrongdoers stage an auto crash, maneuvering normal motorists like me and you into an unpleasant crash.

The most common auto scams around the world are the swoop and squat, brake slam, T-bone crash, drive down, sideswipe and those shady helpers that approach you at the side of a crash. Though the automobiles will suffer only small dents, the crooks’ modus operandi is to inflate fake injury and car damage claims against your insurance company.

The price one has to pay for being involved in this type of fraud is enormous. A costly claim on your insurance record, passing bogus claims’ costs onto honest policyholders, you name it, nothing nice ever comes from such an ordeal. But what happens when the crash doesn’t involve two cars, but a car and a pedestrian? Yep, things get a helluva lot more serious.

What can one do when fraudsters risk injury by staging a car crash with the deliberate (and criminal) intent of claiming a victim’s insurance? Check the three GIF files in the gallery below then ask yourself “What were they thinking injuring themselves like that?” A pedestrian that darts out into a car’s path is as serious as auto crashes get, especially for the side that isn’t protected by a 1.5-ton metal cage.

On a side note, I find it funny that all three frauds listed below weren’t thinking “Are there any traffic cameras in this intersection?” or “Should I jump in the front of a car though there's a dash cam?

To boot, neither of the three crooks used the pedestrian crosswalk as an aggravating factor during the investigation into the crash. If there’s anyone with legal knowledge reading this piece, may we ask your opinion on what can a motorist do in this type of auto scam?
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About the author: Mircea Panait
Mircea Panait profile photo

After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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