What to do in the case of an accident (discussion)

just got knocked off in the rain , C**t overtook me , cut me up , swung hard left and didnt indicate , i braked hard , his back bumper caught my wheel and i ended up on the tarmac. funny loads of bikes / cars / people around but nobody got the registration i guess cos of the rain . there was plenty of cctv mind . should i call the rozzers ? car didnt stop ..........

this type of driver needs a serious lesson !

It would be helpful to have some info on here as to how the cops dealt with you if you were in an accident and riding without a front hand brake.

I think it's important to phrase it this way to the cops/solicitors: "front hand brake".
It is my understanding that your drive train is a back brake and thus it is legal to ride with only one hand brake.

My only tip here is to keep insisting that you "ARE NOT RIDING BRAKELESS". You are, perhaps, only riding with one drive-train powered back brake.
If someone ever gets the chance to use this, please come back on here and report how it went over.

It is illegal to use any mode of transport on any of her majestys highway network if the vehicle in question does not have a means of retarding the back wheels. Fixed gear bike achieve this with drive train braking. Any single speed bike with a free wheel must be fitted with a rear brake to be used legal on the highway.

Great tread, saved, hopefully never to be used, but that's life!

LageRider

great info, very useful!

Moving this to mech and fixing

Good question, but I don't think that this is the right thread for this discussion.

Glad you are not more seriously injured though ;-)

Take care!

Did you seriously register with the username "nerdslut"???

@Balki, I did.... is that not okay with you?

@ojeffcott, thank you, me too. Actually, I'm glad it went down (I went down) this way because now am slightly more relaxed, in a good way not a reckless way, about the whole concept of falling.

Could anyone please suggest where to move my reply if there's a better place (not allowed to do new threads yet)...

No, its frikken awesome. Anyway, I need to get back to World of Warcraft.

cough

i know there's all the info at the start about what to do, but I'm just looking for some advice.

on august 1st i was heading up lower clapton road towards lea bridge roundabout to go to work. i went to over take a bus on the right handside as it was pulled too close into the curb, as i pulled out from behind the bus i was caught on the forearm by the wing mirror of a car travelling in the opposite direction. hitting his wing mirror cause me to be pulled into the back end of his car, cutting up my head and shoulder. the damage to his car was a broken wing mirror and a scratch down the side of his panelling.

i luckily managed to stay on my bike. i went back over to the driver to discuss what had happened, a friend came and collected my bike, and i called for an ambulance. as this was a road traffic accident the police were called. i was taken to hospital, my head was glued up and my my shoulder x-rayed and cleaned up. after this the police came in to take my details and my account of what happened.

i got the details for the driver also.

now today in the post i recieved a letter from his solicitor claiming i was:

"rode on the wrong side of the road"

"rode into the path of our client's correctly proceeding veichle"

"failed to take avoiding action, steering, swerving or otherwise so as to avoid the collision"

does over taking really count as riding on the wrong side of the road? and within that tiny time frame of seeing the car and being hit, how was i supposed to avoid him?

any help would be great. i'm going to head over to citizens advice on monday morning.

i know there's all the info at the start about what to do, but I'm just looking for some advice.

on august 1st i was heading up lower clapton road towards lea bridge roundabout to go to work. i went to over take a bus on the right handside as it was pulled too close into the curb, as i pulled out from behind the bus i was caught on the forearm by the wing mirror of a car travelling in the opposite direction. hitting his wing mirror cause me to be pulled into the back end of his car, cutting up my head and shoulder. the damage to his car was a broken wing mirror and a scratch down the side of his panelling.

i luckily managed to stay on my bike. i went back over to the driver to discuss what had happened, a friend came and collected my bike, and i called for an ambulance. as this was a road traffic accident the police were called. i was taken to hospital, my head was glued up and my my shoulder x-rayed and cleaned up. after this the police came in to take my details and my account of what happened.

i got the details for the driver also.

now today in the post i recieved a letter from his solicitor claiming i was:

"rode on the wrong side of the road"

"rode into the path of our client's correctly proceeding veichle"

"failed to take avoiding action, steering, swerving or otherwise so as to avoid the collision"

does over taking really count as riding on the wrong side of the road? and within that tiny time frame of seeing the car and being hit, how was i supposed to avoid him?

any help would be great. i'm going to head over to citizens advice on monday morning.

As the driver is looking at taking action against you I would recommend getting advice from a solicitor who specialises in Defendant work (I only act for the Claimant). You will probably need to already have legal expence insurance to pay for the solicitor. Check to see if you are covered through cycling insurance, household insurance, car insurance, credit cards and bank accounts. Any of these may have legal expence insurance bundled with it.

If you do not have any insurance then contact citizens advice or your local volunteer law centre.

Best of luck

Okay, going to see about moving it over... thanks

someday, I'm seconding the advice to get a solicitor. If you're an LCC member, you can get free legal advice from one.

Re SoL for criminal cases:

Its down to how serious the case is.
Something that can only go to the magistrates court (summary only) like careless driving is 6 months. Something like dangerous driving which can go to the crown court (either way or indictable only) has no limitation.

its not just linked to it being a traffic case.

I notice that someone mentioned that going to criminal court is no use for compensation. i would disagree. Since the burden of proof in a criminal case is beyond reasonable doubt, if the other person loses in a criminal case it makes it much easier to get your compensation in a civil court because you can say - well he was found guilty beyond reasonable doubt. This is a much higher standard than the civil - balance of probabilities i.e is it more likely than not.

hope this clarifies a bit.

now today in the post i recieved a letter from his solicitor claiming i was:

"rode on the wrong side of the road"

"rode into the path of our client's correctly proceeding veichle"

"failed to take avoiding action, steering, swerving or otherwise so as to avoid the collision"

does over taking really count as riding on the wrong side of the road? and within that tiny time frame of seeing the car and being hit, how was i supposed to avoid him?

any help would be great. i'm going to head over to citizens advice on monday morning.

*Not a lawyer* but yes, if you crossed any lines marking a division of carriageways, for what ever reason you are travelling on the wrong side of the road.

It is permitted to travel on the wrong side of the road if you are going to overtake, however you have a legal responsibility to ensure that the carraigeway you are moving into is free of traffic and will be so for the duration of your overtaking manouver. You were supposed to avoid him by making sure your manouver was safe in the first place. The third point may be irrelevant if there was insufficient space to avoid a collision.

As above, seek legal advice before doing anything else.

I had a nasty crash a couple of months ago. It was my fault. I never admitted it and just said I couldn't remember anything because I'd been knocked out. The police just gave me a ticking off and told me to wear a helmet, even though I'd scraped up the side of some guys van and totally wiped out his mirror.

I was dead lucky I was ok (bumps, bruises and slight concussion) and also that I wasn't prosecuted. Just never admit blame in the first instance of an RTC.

Very Useful Infomation. Thanks.

When should you call the police. I have a friend who was hit and knocked off and she didn't call, and I now know she should have. However, what if your not injured? Or your bike is the only one who was hurt? Does it matter if it was an accident or if it was reckless or dangerous driving?

I even have heard of the police telling people who report stolen bikes that they should have called them out to the scene. Is that just the police trying to shift the blame or is it something you should actually do? This whole area of what you have to do in these unfortunate situations is itself a mess.

I agree - there is a lot of confusion with what cyclists should do following an accident.

Although it does not always seem practical at the time, you should always call the police to the scene in the case of an accident, whether you are injured or not.

Cyclists seem to think of themselves as having less rights than other road users and often leave the scene of an accident without taking the other driver's details. My advice is that it is best to think what you would do if you were a car driver. For instance, if your car got stolen or broken into you would call the police to the scene. Or if your car got damaged in an accident you would take down the other person's details and get the police involved. Do the same if you are a cyclist.

i'm not going to come along this evening as i forgot TRNC... but happy to offer services if you need some help to look at transport options to solve the issue. seems like you've enough skills / people attending tonight.

i'm not going to come along this evening as i forgot TRNC... but happy to offer services if you need some help to look at transport options to solve the issue. seems like you've enough skills / people attending tonight.

Did you mean to post this in the Action Group thread?

rider down... me

on the harrow road going south on the hill just before the turning for scrubs lane

riding my fixed bike with front brake

i am going down the right hand side of stattic traffic. A women coming from a junction on my left, she was cutting through the stoped traffic, pokes her nose out into the centre of the road

the nature of the hill is steep enough to make it hard to see a gap in traffic or a car pulling out from the left.

so the first i see is of her poking her nose out right in my path i am about 2 meters away i lock my legs and my front brake, but unfrotunatly end up with my front wheel in her wheel arch and me over her bonet

i was not breaking the spead limit i run 44, 16 and was not spinning out so i must have been going below 30

no helmet but i am absolutoly fine brusied jaw and shoulder but my frame now has a bent top tube and down tube and the wheel base is now shortened by an inch or so.

I have the womens number and have contacted her about the broken frame and told her i want to claim it on her insurance.

I also damaged her wheel arch or rim, not sure what she meant was broken over the phone. Can she claim against me, i have no insurance.

Her only witness is her passenger and my only witness is the guy i was riding with.

Was in a bit of a daze so didnt get numbers of passers by etc.

what is the process i go through and was i in the right or the wrong in this situation?

also WANTED NEW FRAME (will be checking classifieds soon)

Sorry to hear about your accident - good thing you are not too badly injured...that could have been really nasty.

In the circumstances you have discribed, the current position in law is that both parties are equally to blame. In other words you would be liable for half the cost of the repairs to her car and she would be liable for half the cost of your injury and bike repairs.

If you were insured then your insurers would pay for her damages and you would still get half of your compensation, so you would still gain. As you are not insured, you would have to pay for 50% of her repair bill personally. As this is the case it is probably not worth you pursuing a claim unless your injury becomes more severe or if the repairs to your bike are worth more than the repairs for her car.

Hope that helps!

ok cheers i think i will leave it as fair and square then she phoned me saying thats what her insurers said aswell, my frame was just a shitty old converted touring frame any way so the value isnt probs as much as the repairs to her car or worth bothering with.

thanks for reading and replying

No problem - happy to help.

i have no insurance.

C.B., I'm biased, but you can get free third party insurance if you join the LCC (you can also get it through other cycling organisations, I should mention). Saves you money through discounts in bike shops and gives you peace of mind.

http://www.lcc.org.uk/

Glad you're OK and good luck with the outcome!

Oliver
LCC