"You do not have to say anything....

But it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence"

Please tell me that I've not just been cautioned by a police officer?! Could this situation get any worse?! Not only is my insurance going to go through the roof but I'm sitting in a police car being cautioned! Which is worse; I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure they're both not a good situation to be in.

I was driving along with my brother and sister and North West London was heaving with traffic! I'm not one for patience, so I did a U-turn and tried to find another route. Basically I was on a slip road trying to merge onto a dual carriageway and there was a car in front of me. I was looking behind onto the dual carriageway to see if there was any incoming traffic. When there wasn't any, I decide to move forward thinking that the car in front would have pulled off as the space was big enough for both of us to go (it didn't help at this point my brother yelled in Tamil "Goooooooo" so I went! I should have checked.). Unfortunately for me, the driver in front hadn't moved off so I went into the back of him! :-(.

Anyways, it turned out he was a Cuban diplomat who'd never had an accident in this country before (bollocks!) and didn't really know what to do. So I explained that we needed to exchange details and insurance details. And then he said "We need to wait for the diplomatic police" You WHAT?! The diplomatic police? WHY?! WTF?! It's just a road accident! These are the thoughts that went through my head but clearly I didn't tell him this, I just meekly agreed and waited. We assessed the damage (my car sign had been imprinted into his rear bumper!) and agreed that it could have been a lot worse and it was unfortunate (yeah, more so for me than you - I have to pay for this shit myself!)

The thing is, I was in Cuba recently so I was hoping I could somehow maybe sweet talk him but my brother or sister would have had none of it. They think that I would have been left standing in the middle of the road with just my car air freshener having given everything away!

We parked up on the side road and waited for the "diplomatic police" to arrive. Every single official looking car that I saw only seemed to make my heart race so imagine my surprise when I saw a normal police car (though I still had some fear instilled in me!). I had been waiting for an hour by this point so I got out and made my way over to the diplomat's car and assessed the damage with the police. Good God - can people please stop gawping at us - it's just a minor accident! No one's hurt, it's not a 6 car pile up and I haven't been arrested (yet).

By this point my siblings had become so hungry (even though they'd just eaten about 2 hours ago - anyone would think we'd been stranded in the outback), they'd gone in search of a shop!

The female officer told me to go and wait in the car - she was just going to go through an incident report with the other driver and would then come to go over it with me.

I was beginning to get a lil' bit more worried but I hadn't done anything wrong (had I?!). My siblings had come back this point (with goodies) and were trying to cheer me up by making fun of the situation so it didn't look too good when the male officer came over to make sure that I was OK, that we were sitting there having a bit of a laugh! So he asked me what happened and told me that his colleague would be over to take my side of the story. And then it happened - he told me he'd need to breathalyse me! NO WAY! WTF?! So I got out the car, and blew away into the little device. I know I don't drink alcohol but I couldn't help feeling like "This could go horribly wrong. Say it's positive - Oh no, my parents will kill me!" Where did all my rational thinking go?! Thankfully it was negative. By this point, a small crowd had built up (My brother and sister got a lil irate at the passing crowd. Something along the lines of "WTH are you looking at?!") and the female officer had made her way over to me! Oh good God, could this get even more embarrassing?!

She proceeded to take my mini statement and because it started to snow again, she said, "Shall we go and sit in the car?" Apparently it can get more embarrassing because clearly she didn't mean my car as she walked over to the police car. Oh no! So in I went and sat down in the back. I've never been inside a police car before - they don't have a radio. Instead they have a screen which had all my details there! Eeeek!

And then she cautioned me! The only thing that made me feel better at this point was that she cautioned the other driver as well.

As the ordeal came to an end, she said that she couldn't see any laws being broken so I'm not in too much trouble but I do have to present all my documents to the nearest police station within the next 7 days, my brother and sister have been sworn to secrecy and this is something that we will take to the grave and my car is slightly battered but that can be fixed.

The only thing now is I have to tell my insurers and I don't think they'll be too pleased as I had the EXACT same accident 4 months ago!