A Tayside cyclist who was involved in a collision with a 4×4 while taking part in a 10-mile team trial has been awarded £55,000, reports the Evening Telegraph. Graeme Daly had been seeking £110,000 in a personal injury court, but was deemed to have been 50 per cent to blame for the incident.
The collision took place on an unnamed road near Mawhill, Perth and Kinross, on August 23 2015, during a 10-mile time trial organised by Kinross Cycling Club.
It was filmed on the dash cam of a minibus that had been following the team involved.
The roads were open for the event, but there were marshals on the course and signs warning other road users that a cycling event was taking place.
The competitors did not have priority over motorists, but the course was, as is generally the case, a series of left-hand turns to avoid their having to turn across the carriageway.
As Daly and his two team-mates, David Barclay and Gordon Dick, approached the first left-hander – the junction of the A91 with an unclassified road – they were doing around 25mph.
Barclay and Dick made the turn, but Daly missed it and had to turn back along the A91 and turn right to rejoin them.
After he caught up, the team again accelerated.
Heading in the opposite direction was David Heeps, driving a Ford Explorer towing a Toyota Marine Sport boat on a trailer.
Heeps had already passed two groups of cyclists taking part in the time trial and there were ‘single track’ and ‘road narrows’ signs in both directions.
Barclay, leading, saw the vehicle when he was about 200 yards away, moved to the left and shouted to warn his team-mates.
Dick, following, took Barclay’s movement to mean he should take the lead, but upon hearing the warning and seeing the vehicle, he too moved to the left.
Daly also heard the warning and saw the vehicle and moved to the left. He was approximately 200 yards from it when he did this.
Heeps saw the cyclists, but did not alter his road position. He said he was unable to drive closer to the verge without the wheels of his trailer bouncing through potholes.
He was doing over 20mph and there was insufficient space for the cyclists to pass.
Barclay and Dick missed the trailer by inches. Daly, who had not looked up since first seeing the vehicle, assumed he was safe after passing the 4×4 and fell following a collision with the trailer.
Sheriff Peter Braid ruled that Heeps had driven at excessive speed given the nature of the road and the fact that he knew a cycle event was in process.
However, he also stated that Daly had cycled at excessive speed given the likelihood of meeting oncoming vehicles.
Having “materially contributed to the accident through his own negligence,” the damages payable were reduced by 50 per cent.
50 thoughts on “Team time trialist awarded £55,000 after collision with 4×4 but court also says he was 50% to blame”
Appreciable award on the face
Appreciable award on the face of it, but doesn’t detail the extent of the cyclists injuries.
“He said he was unable to
“He said he was unable to drive closer to the verge without the wheels of his trailer bouncing through potholes.”
Ankles.
Quote:
How does a time trial work? Isn’t “riding at speed” sort of the whole point?
brooksby wrote:
It is, but if you’re not on a closed road then the usual rules apply.
God forbid the wheels of one
God forbid the wheels of one’s trailer might bounce in potholes and mean you have to slow down.
Far better to hold your speed, move into the middle of a narrow road and run into an oncoming cyclist.
Not overlooking anyone’s
Not overlooking anyone’s behaviour, decision or road sense, but it is odd to have a timetrial use a singletrack road, never experienced that myself.
Daly, who had not looked up
Daly, who had not looked up since first seeing the vehicle
Sorry but that’s why he’s partly to blame. Literally not looking where he was riding. What a fuckwit.
We cry about drivers not seeing up but literally cannot be bothered to look once in ‘head down, I’m racing on a public road’ mode.
I’d say the driver is a
I’d say the driver is a little more complicit though; the rider was careless in not looking up but the driver dangerous in favouring his wheels/boat over the life of another human…
alansmurphy wrote:
Seriously?
What would you prefer he did, drive his vehicle completely off the road?
wingmanrob wrote:
You can tell who also drives on this forum can’t you?
wingmanrob wrote:
Yes
wingmanrob wrote:
erm.. perhaps stop?
wingmanrob wrote:
Yes. The car is a 4×4 offroader and he’s worried about potholes, the mind boggles. Or stop at the very least, that way the wheels would not be bouncing in potholes..
wingmanrob wrote:
What would you prefer he did, drive his vehicle completely off the road?
— wingmanrobNo, just stop.
Plenty of times I have been driving where the road is narrow and I have stopped because it was the appropriate thing to do.
Says he was going 20 mph, so hardly difficult. Still might is right.
wingmanrob wrote:
Clearly, yes. What if the equation was reversed and it was a fully laden tractor and trailer coming the other way, and a car driver going toward them? The tractor driver didn’t want to damage the verge so carried on regardless and took out the car.Clearly this would be unacceptable. Both sets of road users should have slowed and moved aside to the point where both could complete the manoeuvre safely. Stating that you chose to endanger another road user because you didn’t want to hit potholes is clearly showing minimal regard for the value of someone else’s wellbeing. It seems overall, like a fair judgement, though I think the penalty is pretty harsh. I wonder if there’s any real deterrent value if he has insurance that covers that sort of thing?
wingmanrob wrote:
What do you think he’d have done if it was a car coming towards him, or perhaps a larger vehicle? Simply carried on going and run into it head on? No, he’d have stopped or moved over, which is what he should have done here.
Theres several questions to
Theres several questions to be asked here:
He was doing over 20mph and there was insufficient space for the cyclists to pass.
He drove a large vehicle down narrow country lanes, at speed and refused to adjust his position or at least stop to allow safe passing and he is only 50% to blame?
It seems to infer that he was aware that there was an event taking place but the big question is why did the marshals not stop the guy from proceeding along that section of road if it was narrow and they knew competitors were coming towards it?
If they had no powers to stop traffic and/or the guy ignored any warnings they might have given, why did they not radio to the prior marshal points and forewarn them, even neutralising the section?
Races I marshall we advise race radio of any vehicles or possible points of conflict as such (we’ve neutralised a few races because of horse riders) and try to talk to all road users if they are heading towards the race, especially on narrow lane sections to pre-warn them.
What seems to be blatantly
What seems to be blatantly not wanting to be addressed is the fact that NEITHER party appears to have wanted to stop to resolve the situation. Yeah it’s shit but sometimes your Strava section is going to take a hit but you’re going to have to possibly stop to squeeze past stuff on single lane roads, a tractor comes down it, it’s stop, move onto the verge and away again.
If you want to do time trials on open roads you don’t own them.
£55k in the bank though. More than you get for being beaten senseless on a Friday night outside Wetherspoons.
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
How do you work that out?
Presumably the cyclist was asking for £110,000 because that was how much he’d lost in the incident and it’s effects on him afterwards. eg. time off work, health, smashed bike, clothes.
Then on top of the personal costs (usually) he’s got his solicitor & barrister to pay for unless insured. I can’t see from the article if those costs were included in the claim.
So, potentially, the cyclist is DOWN £55k (more if he then has to pay his own legal costs). Just hope he was well insured.
The 4×4 owner owes £55k but as he was insured and the insurance company, Markerstudy Limited, were co-defendent, they’re picking up the bill. Presumbaly he has a scratch on his trailer to buff out otherwise he’d be counter claiming for damages to that as the Sherrif has ruled 50/50.
The only people that made off with money here were the solicitors, as is usually the case.
aegisdesign wrote:
What? For doing their job! The bastards!
Sounds about right.
Sounds about right.
Not a great day for Daly. Missing the turn that teh others did and then not noticing the trailer.
To be honest, I’m not sure
To be honest, I’m not sure that isn’t an unfair judgement, but if I was judging it, I might have given a little more consideration to the driver not wanting his trailer wheels to go into potholes. Possibly the most senseless, selfish reason for someone’s death ever.
Seems dumb to have a race on
Seems dumb to have a race on an open, public road, and dumber still to just keep your head down and keep going at speed when you know things are coming the other way.
But the driver drove a large , heavy, vehicle at excessive speed down a narrow lane and refused to slow down or move across even after seeing a vehicle coming the other way (I mean, what would he have done had the vehicle coming the other way been another 20mph+ car towing a boat?). The cyclist was also travelling at excessive speed and failed to look…but wasn’t driving such a high-momentum, oversized, vehicle. The cyclist only bought a smaller part of the KE to the party (and the lesser obstruction).
Ergo, it seems to me the driver did more wrong things than did the cyclist. So, if it were up to me, I’d reduce damages by 1/3 or something, not a half.
FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:
Time Trials are pretty much exclusively ridden on open roads and have been for decades.
I’ve heard of racers riding head down into parked cars before now and they get a ban for doing so.
You still owe a duty of care even if you’re racing.
FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:
As the cyclists were doing 25 mph and the car 20 mph, clearly the cyclists were travelling at a ‘worse’ excessive speed.
So far as holding races on open roads, it’s not dumb, it’s normal practice, without which we wouldn’t have road races. It is dumb to race along open roads without looking where you are going.
It seems odd that the front riders didn’t give really loud warning of the impending situation…
Reading between the lines, it
Reading between the lines, it sounds like the driver has an attitude problem and/or is a shit driver.
1. not slowing and travelling at excessive speed.
2. not altering his road position.
The cunt knew exactly what he was doing.
Plasterer’s Radio wrote:
As did the cyclists
For me, given what sounds
For me, given what sounds like a very small margin for error, the driver should have stopped, so he is totally to blame. The fact that he kept going and missed the other two by mere inches speaks volumes.
While the dispute is largely
While the dispute is largely between the colliding parties, I wonder what the legal position of the organisers would be here?
While participants may sign forms accepting responsibility for the risk and rules of the road, that doesn’t absolve the organisers of responsibility to plan an adequately safe route.
This section of road doesn’t sound very suitable for this kind of event and problems seem foreseeable. If other routes were even less suitable, perhaps they should have neutralised this section.
Anyone have experience of designing on-road courses? How is this dealt with?
Duncann wrote:
If the event was on a course sanctioned by their district CTT committee and run as a type B club event, then that kind of punts the responsibility upstream. Having riders going both ways on a single-carriageway road would generally be a no-no – especially if it’s busy. You get cars overtaking one set of riders moving into the path of oncoming riders.
However, that doesn’t seem to be the case here. The guy was just driving further out because of his precious boat trailer.
However 2, under CTT rules and regs, it’s the responsibility of the rider to look where the hell they are going. There have been fatalities in the past with riders going hell for leather head down riding into stationary vehicles/obstacles.
I think it’s a bit harsh to say the blame was 50/50 here – although I don’t know the road or all of the details. The driver admitted to driving in the middle of the road.
SteppenHerring wrote:
Thanks for the reply. The article says it was a singletrack, not a single carriageway, road though – i.e. “only wide enough for one vehicle”, according to the HC. They work on the basis that users slow down voluntarily and give way to one another – which doesn’t seem to fit well with being a TT course. That was what lay behind my question.
Duncann wrote:
All the people here criticising the time trial organisers for running their event on a single track, lightly used road could equally criticise the driver for taking a wide trailer down a narrow, unsuitable single track road, surely there were alternatives?
Or does this blame thing only work one way?
Since wide roads apparently aren’t suitable either, just where are they supposed to hold these events? http://road.cc/content/news/235915-highways-england-wants-ban-cyclists-uks-fastest-time-trial-course
burtthebike wrote:
Not sure why you’ve quoted me since I didn’t criticise the organisers. Nor did I give any view on the driver or suggest blame only works one way. In this case it works at least two ways, and the driver deserves most.
Duncann wrote:
Sorry, I was just quoting someone saying that it was a single track road and I didn’t mean to imply that you had criticised the organisers.
burtthebike wrote:
I am not sure why Time Trials (or any races) are allowed on open roads to be honest as it would seem that drafting is against the highway code
and in law a bicycle is considered a “vehicle”
Usual uninformed garbage
Usual uninformed garbage above. Some one know nothing about time trials. You don’t/cant stop or neutalise a bit of the course for one vehicle. Not how TTs work Marshals cannot stop traffic and cannot even flaf them down to wrn them.
Rural road. Quite concievable that those pot holes were a foot deep. Some by me are. Droppinga wheel into one has seriuous consequences.
50/50 sounds about right. After all its would have been much easier for the cyclist to give way. On rural roads we all give way for tractors. They are important. Recreational riding isn’t. i see that the rider had his head down, I do that in TTs as well but not where I cannot see a dead ceratin clear road.
mattsccm wrote:
But the logic of your point about ‘potholes’ would seem to be that if two such drivers encountered each other, they’d have no option but to drive into each other head-on at speed. If that’s the case, then clearly they shouldn’t be driving down such a road in the first place.
The driver could just have slowed down sufficiently to be able to cope with the potholes, or just stopped entirely. Both were at fault, the cyclist really should have looked where he was going, but the driver was taking up greater road-space and creating a greater danger by virtue of having greater mass and width – ergo I don’t agree it’s exactly 50/50.
I really don’t give a toss about judgments about whose journey is more ‘important’ – was the driver’s boat really a vital national resource? And I’m pretty sure most of the drivers making trips of less than 1 mile in London are not doing anything of world-shaking importance, so why don’t they give all instantly way to me when I want to cross the road on foot, eh?
mattsccm wrote:
Agree with pretty much all of this. There are some total entitled bellends commenting on this article…on a rural road having a trailer wheel fall into a pothole could mean any one of a number of costly and potentially dangerous consequences. Furthermore, since the (it has to be said) fucking idiot cyclist didn’t even look up, what difference would it have made of the fucking guy stopped? Some cyclists love to get on their soap boxes about drivers thinking they own the road, while completely ignoring the fact that plenty of cyclists seem to think everyone should move out of their way.
Mathemagician wrote:
Usual uninformed garbage above. Some one know nothing about time trials. You don’t/cant stop or neutalise a bit of the course for one vehicle. Not how TTs work Marshals cannot stop traffic and cannot even flaf them down to wrn them.
Rural road. Quite concievable that those pot holes were a foot deep. Some by me are. Droppinga wheel into one has seriuous consequences.
50/50 sounds about right. After all its would have been much easier for the cyclist to give way. On rural roads we all give way for tractors. They are important. Recreational riding isn’t. i see that the rider had his head down, I do that in TTs as well but not where I cannot see a dead ceratin clear road.
— Mathemagician Agree with pretty much all of this. There are some total entitled bellends commenting on this article…on a rural road having a trailer wheel fall into a pothole could mean any one of a number of costly and potentially dangerous consequences. Furthermore, since the (it has to be said) fucking idiot cyclist didn’t even look up, what difference would it have made of the fucking guy stopped? Some cyclists love to get on their soap boxes about drivers thinking they own the road, while completely ignoring the fact that plenty of cyclists seem to think everyone should move out of their way.— mattsccm
Then perhaps he shouldn’t have been pulling a trailer along such a road?
Bloody boatists.
Mathemagician wrote:
Usual uninformed garbage above. Some one know nothing about time trials. You don’t/cant stop or neutalise a bit of the course for one vehicle. Not how TTs work Marshals cannot stop traffic and cannot even flaf them down to wrn them.
Rural road. Quite concievable that those pot holes were a foot deep. Some by me are. Droppinga wheel into one has seriuous consequences.
50/50 sounds about right. After all its would have been much easier for the cyclist to give way. On rural roads we all give way for tractors. They are important. Recreational riding isn’t. i see that the rider had his head down, I do that in TTs as well but not where I cannot see a dead ceratin clear road.
— Mathemagician Agree with pretty much all of this. There are some total entitled bellends commenting on this article…on a rural road having a trailer wheel fall into a pothole could mean any one of a number of costly and potentially dangerous consequences. Furthermore, since the (it has to be said) fucking idiot cyclist didn’t even look up, what difference would it have made of the fucking guy stopped? Some cyclists love to get on their soap boxes about drivers thinking they own the road, while completely ignoring the fact that plenty of cyclists seem to think everyone should move out of their way.— mattsccm
Not if the driver had slowed to say 5mph or a stop, after all a high court judge decreed that Charlie Alliston should have come to a complete stop when confronted with what was percieved as a vulnerable road user compared to himself (which is BS in itself). So given the huge dispairty in the kinetic energy/damage that can be done you would expect at the very least if we are to ensure that the law/rules of the road are applied evenly that the boatist should have come to a complete halt and moved right over at the first sign of seeing the people on bikes. Thus not endangering his load and reducing the chances of a an incident.
That you and others cannot see this says more about your inability to understand matters, both with respect to who should have the greater responsibility to act and reduce the chances of harm nor understand how uneven the rules are being applied.
You sound like a motorist with a motorists viewpoint (same as the sheriff/police) and you’ve taken that attitude/way of thinking when you decided to take up cycling. It’s pretty common tbh, no ida whatsoever.
mattsccm wrote:
Your comment highlighted is repugnant to natural justice and has no basis in law. All road users have equal right to use of the road (and equal responsiblity to other road users).
mattsccm wrote:
Whereas your speculation is to be taken as fact, hmmmm?
I’ll see your speculation about foot-deep potholes and raise you a ‘the moton twat didn’t want to bounce his boat or ping his alloy’.
Yes, rural roads might have foot-deep potholes, but how many roads that are chosen as time trial courses will?
Didn’t the rider have
Didn’t the rider have potholes to avoid on their side of the road?
Charlie Alliston ….
Charlie Alliston ….
Judges words were(aling the lines of) , you did not stop when had you had the brakes to do so would have avoided collision (when the other road user was moving in his direction)
So, not only did the driver here have the abity to brake to a stop they chose to keep their foot in AND make no attempt to move over fully despite knowing that by that act they were blocking the highway and presenting a danger to vulnerable road users.
One person on a bike gets the book chucked at him, one person in a motor actually making no attempt whatsoever to avoid collision (unlike Alliston) doesn’t even get criminal charges and even in a civil case is only found 50% to blame.
Again, two sets of rules applied by motorcentric bias and discrimatory people who have great influence and bearing on how matters pan out not just on this case but ones in the future.
I just want parity even though a civilised society should demand that those posing the greater harm should be far more responsible/liable in any case.
Yet more fucked up thinking!
It doesn’t really matter what
It doesn’t really matter what speed the vehicles were doing really. They could have been doing 100mph or 10mph, what matters was the space available. Even if the driver stopped the cyclist may have still ridden into him.
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
No, the speed IS important because if stopped or at very slow speed they would have (would have even less feeble excuse) gone all the way over and thus there would have been more space and thus redued the chances of collision significantly. The driver actively chose not to and kept their foot in on a narrow lane taking up the vast majority of the road. The lane positioning is a consequence of not slowing down enough or coming to a halt, that action is as I said what jurists, the police and judges expect when confronting vulnerable road users and not to do so is classed at the very least as wanton and furious and if a death occured manslaughter.
So yeah, the speed really DOES matter both from a criminal POV and from a civil claim POV, except those in charge ignored it yet again.
Interesting how many people
Interesting how many people call for equal treatment of cyclists when what they actually mean is cyclists being treated as more important, exactly what they accuse of happening with cars.
In this case both sides chose to go too fast, both sides chose not to give way on a narrow road. 50/50 seems fair. The cyclists were more vulnerable, which means that both the driver and them should act with a little more caution, which nither did. If cyclists want to be treated equally we can’t complain when we are.
John Smith wrote:
With power comes responsibility, and more power means more responsibility. The driver of a tank has more responsibility than the driver of a mobility scooter because they have more power to inflict damage, and the same levels of recklessness would have very different results.
The largest problem with road safety is that the people causing by far the biggest problems are least likely to suffer the consequences, while those causing only a tiny part of the problem are killed. The law is supposed to protect the vulnerable, but it clearly fails to do so in this case.
Perhaps it is time that this principle is enshrined in law, and I’m sure the forthcoming inquiry will be reccommending this. Must dash out and feed the pigs ready for the 0800 flight.
The article says
The article says “unclassified” not “single track. A little googling indicates that this is probably the road https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@56.196358,-3.5639561,3a,75y,129.67h,60.82t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1srC-w92pETLEUnSE3V4wcBQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
It’s not that narrow (I’ve chosen a bit with a car in the picture for scale).
SteppenHerring wrote:
The article says”there were ‘single track’ and ‘road narrows’ signs in both directions.” I don’t see those on the road you’ve linked to, although it seems a good candidate otherwise.
Was just wondering, thanks anyway.