[the little onion]

Just another rant at where we are with road safety nowadays.

 

On a regular ride, going uphill on a dead-straight three lane (two uphill, one downhill) 30mph road, wearing a very bright top, in broad daylight and very little traffic, about 75cm from the verge. So all in all, about as safe as you can get.

 

Suddenly, I find myself smashed into from behind, and thrown onto the verge. The driver gets out, walks over, says “it wasn’t me, it was someone else”, gets back into their car, which happens to have the left hand mirror hanging off, and drives off. Fortunately, some witnesses who heard, but didn’t see, the original crash, took down the registration. The police arrived, checked me over (nice polite officers, which was a relative rarity for west Yorkshire), and I limped home. The officers then phoned me later to say they visited the driver’s house, where he admitted hitting me, but claimed it was my fault because they were safely driving in the outside lane, at a safe speed, and I suddenly without any sound reason or warning, swerved several metres into the outside lane, and they couldn’t avoid hitting me. They couldn’t explain why I did this, nor why me and my bike ended up in the verge rather than close to the outside lane. Fortunately, I have only minor bruising.

 

The police (and I stress, this was a nice officer for once!) are not taking it further as there are no witnesses, nor do they think my GPS data (which shows me travelling in a straight line) is admissible in court. Which shows:

-how easy it is for drivers to kill or cause serious harm and get away with it if there is no independent witness. They just have to claim the cyclist made a random suicide swerve.

-how much we need to bring in pressumed liability laws, which would mean that there would be much tighter examination of the suicide swerve excuse.

 

Anyway, I don’t know if my bike is a write-off, as it is a carbon frame, so any damage might not be immediately visible. I’ll see what my LBS says and make an insurance claim.

Topic

[OnYerBike]

Sorry this happened to you.

Sorry this happened to you.

Does your insurance include legal cover (also included through membership of British Cycling or Cycling UK)? If so rather than simply making a claim on your insurance, I would be engaging the legal cover to claim against the driver’s insurance. I would also document your injuries ASAP, even if it is only minor bruising.

Whilst (unfortunately) I suspect the police officer may be correct that there is no realistic prospect of a criminal conviction, for civil claims, the threshold of proof is only “the balance of probabilites”. And I would certainly think you would therefore succeed if the claim is contested. It’s probably not much comfort, but an “at fault” claim will put up the driver’s insurance premiums for several years. 

[chrisonabike]

First – glad to hear you’re

First – glad to hear you’re OK but sorry about the bike!

Just one point of pedantry.  I think “presumed liability” laws would likely just apply for insurance / suing the driver for bike replacement costs.  Unless we bring in ones which are far wider in scope and severe than anywhere else I can think of.

Places that have laws like these do not usually apply them in criminal cases. (e.g. see here, here and many more).

And on that you could point to the Highway Code’s existing “hierarchy of vulnerability”, much good that would do you…

I’m not even sure we want this as a principle.  For example the cyclist who hit the woman in Regents Park last year would immediately face having to prove she stepped out in front of him and he could do nothing about this (which was found to be the case).

[ratherbeintobago]

You’ve got his plate, any

You’ve got his plate, any mileage in pursuing it through his insurers?

[Author]

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