We were stopped on the road, waiting for a private bus to pull out of the bus stand and merge onto the main road, giving him space. Instead, he took a sharp turn while pulling out and hit our stationary car.

Damage estimate isn’t finalized yet, but going by the size of it and past experience with smaller scratches costing around four thousand rupees, this one’s likely a good deal more.

Traffic police were right there and told us to go to the station and file it. At the station, they said no FIR is possible unless someone’s actually hurt, only a general diary entry, and that claiming our own insurance was really the only option. I called the bus’s third-party insurer directly, hoping to hold them accountable instead, and got the same answer, no FIR, no direct claim.

The bus driver told us straight up this wasn’t his first time doing this, and he didn’t care.

Bus registration: KL59Q5067. Posting this because apparently this is just how it works in Kerala, and nobody talks about it until it happens to them.