Accident Advice, Germany

Forum wisdom sought on behalf of a friend here in Frankfurt.

At the junction of two back streets, he was hit by a car. Apparently by German law, the car had conventional 'right of way'. The friend wasn't hurt, nor his bike damaged. The car was also fine, but now said friend is receiving lawyer's letters demanding €3000 for emotional injury suffered by the driver. Neither he nor I are German. TBH, the edifice of German law gives me the heeby-jeebies.

Anyone have any thoughts or experience of things in DE? @Oliver Schick?

Vielen Dank, alle.

there is the adfc or a similar abbrevation that lobbies for cycling and cyclists. they will have a legal departement that deals with these cases. would have to become a member though, and I dont know if they cover you if it is an incident in the past. otherwise they couldbassist you in getting legal advice. similarly, I can imagine your Haftpflichtversicherung could help with it, do you have it? you could try contacting them.

damn leech btw to try to squeeze money out if the situation. they probably guess its insurance work and easy money. welcome to frankfurt, one of the worlds finance capitals. pukes on cock

€3000 for emotional injury?!

I've known people who got less for a fractured skull : o

Sounds like the German equivalent of a dodgy whiplash claim. All the best with this.

AIUI in Germany bicyclists are insured under their home insurance and if they're a young un under their parents' and it's therefore very usual to claim against cyclists after accidents. Helped by the fact that the Polizei attribute blame at the scene of the crash.

If your pal has insurance he just needs to get them on it.

I haven't lived there for more than twenty years, so I don't know much about how all of this works in Germany. Could it have been a "rechts vor links" crash (traffic coming from the right having priority over traffic from the left relative to each driver/rider)?

I assume you mean Frankfurt am Main, so perhaps try the ADFC Hessen in the first instance:

http://www.adfc-hessen.de/

They have an office with four staffers, so it might be worth dropping in or giving them a call:

http://www.adfc-hessen.de/kontakt/gs.html

These people should be highly knowledgeable and able to point him in the right direction, although he might have to become a member first. (I suspect that there probably aren't many good excuses for not being an ADFC member if you cycle in Germany, anyway.)

The follow-up claim certainly sounds dubious, but if your friend wants to avoid having reasons to lawyer up, the ADFC could well be a good place to start.

Good luck.

Brilliant replies, thanks so much all. I will dig with these links and post the outcome...

As a cyclist living in Germany I'm curious how this ended

@BruiserBike Looking at this thread to find ADFC link for someone... Unfortunately, there was no outcome, per se. I contacted the ADFC Hessen, but my friend did not because of poor mental health. Sadly / Happily, in the midst of depression, he left Germany to his native country, where he is much better and has not been contacted again on the matter.

Belatedly, case closed.