Accident with London bus and cyclist - advice required
- Thread starter bluepeds
- Start date
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True.
For example, first look, they may just reference where a bus is timetabled to be on a particular day?
Thanks to an incident our lasses bus was 25mins out of timetabled position last Thursday.
BTW – Not heard any mention, How’s the other cyclist?
For example, first look, they may just reference where a bus is timetabled to be on a particular day?
Thanks to an incident our lasses bus was 25mins out of timetabled position last Thursday.
BTW – Not heard any mention, How’s the other cyclist?
CopperBrompton
Bicycle: a means of transport between cake-stops
- Location
- London
This.
With photographs of the bus, and a date and time stamp, it's going to be trivial to identify the driver, there's absolutely no need to put yourself at risk like that. I'm pretty sure all TfL buses have CCTV, too, so they will then be able to see from the video exactly what happened.
Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- Suburban Poshshire
In which scenario the transport manager then faces prosecution for failing to give the drivers details. In my experience even the most stubborn Transport Manager suddenly remembers who the driver was when served with a summons.
CopperCyclist
Veteran
Registration number would be enough. As Drago says, if not the company would be summonsed for an offence!
confusedcyclist
Veteran
Surely the operator has a duty to record who has reg "AB12 BU5" at any given time in the event of a speeding ticket/accident. I would be surprised if they couldn't do this retrospectively in the event of a claim on insurance etc.
Whether they would bother to do this for a complaint is one thing, but then if they can't be arsed to log who has what bus at any given time, I don't think you would be getting far with the further details anyway, so would have been better off out of harms way.
I'm not criticising the OP for doing this, as I too would get quite hot headed. I just want the OP to realise that it really wasn't worth getting hurt over. If it cannot be done retrospectively with a mental note of the time/date and the registration then he/she wouldn't have got far with it anyway.
EDIT: Sorry just repeated @Drago and @CopperCyclist
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jiberjaber
Veteran
- Location
- Essex
All buses within London are fitted with iBus, its a automatic vehicle location (AVL) system which is used to derive data for the real time passenger information (RTPI) displays at stops and online this uses a combination of GPS and a radio system to communicate and interfaces in to the bus itself (speedo, door activations etc). Because of the variation in routes used on a service (i.e. at sometimes in the day the bus might take a slightly different route to still service the same bus stops but avoid congestion etc) , the system needs be logged on by the driver (I think this is automatic for iBus, through an interface on the ticket machine). So there will be a record of location, time and driver available to the bus company operating this particular service. There will also be data within the system showing the bus stopped and for how long (this data is used for management of wasted time in bus service routes).
Whether you can get the data is a different matter!
*edit* - some more info here for you, you might have to do a FOI or contact the bus operator to see if you can get to the data, but you may want to explore other avenues first (such as ask them for the driver details).:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBus_(London)
https://www.tfl.gov.uk/info-for/med.../april/all-londons-buses-now-fitted-with-ibus
Whether you can get the data is a different matter!
*edit* - some more info here for you, you might have to do a FOI or contact the bus operator to see if you can get to the data, but you may want to explore other avenues first (such as ask them for the driver details).:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBus_(London)
https://www.tfl.gov.uk/info-for/med.../april/all-londons-buses-now-fitted-with-ibus
Thanks again for all the posts. There's a lot of valuable info from you all. Since I'm not a member of CTC I've asked them to call me back due to them being busy as I'd like to see if I can still be a member and have Slater & Gordon deal with the case as part of the membership.
A friend of mine has been in touch and would like to get this into the local press which covers the whole of South London although I'm not entirely sure if this would help the case. For one I'd like more witnesses to come forward but on the other hand it may influence a jury if it did go to court. If anyone could advise then that would be great.
On a side note, I've lost personal possessions during the accident which included my phone which was smashed. Would it be an idea to get this immediately repaired or would I have to wait for the claim to go through? Unfortunately I have no insurance that covers me for phone damage. Phone shops are quoting £200 for the screen replacement. :-(
As for the bus company, they haven't returned my calls nor replied to my email and I'm very concerned on the CCTV footage being wiped.
A friend of mine has been in touch and would like to get this into the local press which covers the whole of South London although I'm not entirely sure if this would help the case. For one I'd like more witnesses to come forward but on the other hand it may influence a jury if it did go to court. If anyone could advise then that would be great.
On a side note, I've lost personal possessions during the accident which included my phone which was smashed. Would it be an idea to get this immediately repaired or would I have to wait for the claim to go through? Unfortunately I have no insurance that covers me for phone damage. Phone shops are quoting £200 for the screen replacement. :-(
As for the bus company, they haven't returned my calls nor replied to my email and I'm very concerned on the CCTV footage being wiped.
confusedcyclist
Veteran
Personally I would not involve the press until all other avenues had been exhausted, as you say it could be used against your legal case. I would contact Slater & Gordon independently to speed things up as CTC may not take the case on retrospectively. There was also the other solicitors mentioned earlier that you could try.
Just to reiterate you dont need to be with CTC to use this particular firm. They are just the firms used by the charity and will take on work outside CTC. They will give you a consultation to see if they are prepared to take your case based on likelihood of making a successful case against the operator. Use this as your oppertunity to ask the solicitors for advice on repairing your damaged items and going to the press however you should be fine as long as you keep evidence of the damage and recept for repairs etc. Just don't rush into anything.
The driver will not be able to wipe footage and lost footage would damage their case against you. As long as you have the witness details I wouldn't worry too much. You may wish to explore if there were any CCTV cameras which may have recorded part of the incident.
Just to reiterate you dont need to be with CTC to use this particular firm. They are just the firms used by the charity and will take on work outside CTC. They will give you a consultation to see if they are prepared to take your case based on likelihood of making a successful case against the operator. Use this as your oppertunity to ask the solicitors for advice on repairing your damaged items and going to the press however you should be fine as long as you keep evidence of the damage and recept for repairs etc. Just don't rush into anything.
The driver will not be able to wipe footage and lost footage would damage their case against you. As long as you have the witness details I wouldn't worry too much. You may wish to explore if there were any CCTV cameras which may have recorded part of the incident.
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That's certainly my recent experience, courtesy of London United.
During the weekend I visited both incident locations and took sufficient photos both daytime and at approximately the same time the incidents occurred. This also exposed the location of street CCTV whereby there are 3 TFL cameras within 50 metres of the first incident where the bus driver cut me up and nearly knocked me off the bike. The location of where the accident happened has CCTV directly above the traffic lights and am hoping the camera was facing the correct way. Coincidentally the same model bus was standing at the bus stop and there is a CCTV camera at the front of the bus as well as one on each side and one at the rear of the bus. I'm just hoping that this proves the actual events that took place and that none were faulty.
classic33
Leg End Member
Been there, and despite being able to give the time of day, the road we were on and one of three possible routes. They were unable to supply the driver details to their head office.
confusedcyclist
Veteran
Would they have the same difficulty locating the driver with a criminal case?!
classic33
Leg End Member
Don't know. But since the FOI request was sent to their head office and the local manager was unable to supply the details. Not made aware of what happened after that, it became an internal matter.
For the OP, you say your thinking about going to the press. See what Slater & Gordon think of this before you do. It may mean they don't take the case.
Also consider reporting the matter to the Traffic Commissioners.
Buses are fairly easy find due to the number of bus spotters sites. Put the company name through one and search with the details you have.
I managed to get the details from the bus driver at the scene as he gave them to me although the police officer who accompanied me to hospital later found that the bus driver gave me false information and so rectified the information I was given.
