Cycling accident - need advice please

[HLaB]

Thanks for the update tricyclista, I think most people will be appreciative and understand you are going through a difficult time. My thoughts are still with Dave, I hope he gets well soon.

 

[Crankarm]

It's a pity some can't be more sensitive in your time of need. It's sad to read of yet another cyclist hospitalised as a result of a collision caused by another vehicle driver.

If you've got the CTC on board and legal assistance then you are half way there. It seems like your partner is totally blameless. The lorry driver should be quaking in his boots as far as you've told it so far. Plus the lady witless in the car following your partner who you say flashed the lorry driver to cross is a total muppet. You are not supposed to use your car headlights to indicate to other road users to move but people still do it. Headlights are supposed to be used as illumination in low light/darkness or as a warning, as is with the horn. If you are "invited" to move by another road user by them flashing their lights, you do so at your peril. You still have to exercise sufficient care and keep a look out for any other road users approaching you. Yep the lorry driver is totally at fault. Also being higher up he should have seen your partner Dave cycling especially if he was in hi-viz gear.

Ask the cops if they will take action against the driver who flashed their headlights. I know everyone does it, but suggest they give her words of advice.........not to do it.

My thoughts are with your partner and you at this difficult time. Hope he is currently comfortable as far as he can be and that he makes a full recovery. As an extra thing perhaps you could inform his GP of his situation. They can be very helpful and influential when your Dave is out of hopsital.

I was knocked off and quite badly injured some years ago, hospitalised, police prosecuted the driver, he was convicted of driving without due care and attention and then a civil claim ensued. It took several years to finally reach a conclusion, 4 years in all I think. It was a very difficult time. If you need any advice or are not sure of what to do, you can PM me if you wish and I will be more than happy to try and assist where I can. If I don't know I will try and point you to people who will. But as I say I have been through it all.

All the very best,
Crankarm

PS Re solicitors/lawyers I'm sure Russell Jones Walker who have hooked up with the CTC will be working on the case for your partner and be keen for him to sign a legal agreement with them to act for him and stop him going elsewhere, but your partner does have choice he doesn't have to sign up immediately with the first solicitor that makes contact with him. He will have to enter into a no win no fee contract with them. There are a number of specialist PI cycling specific solicitors whether BC, LCC affiliated or CycleAid who advertise in CyclingWeekly. I would advise go with the ones you or your partner feels most comfortable with. However his first priority will be medical treatment, then assisting the police investigation, as witness in the prosecution of the lorry driver if any charges are laid, court, conviction or not of the driver. Then the civil side will start in earnest. If liability is not disputed a good solicitor can easily get interim payments from the defendant's insurers quite early on. Hopefully the lorry driver is insured. It sounds like that as you are dependent on your partner then there might be some more complex issues to take into account in the claim. PM me if you need to. Best of luck.

 

[4F]

Call me an ignorant heartless bastard if you wish but I see some holes in this story that simply does not make sense:

FFS Lee was there any need for that ?

 

[bauldbairn]

Tricyclista - sorry to hear about your partners accident - hope he makes a full speedy recovery.


ps. I too am new here - wouldn't pay to much attention to the negative / insensitive comments - most people on this site appear to be sensible / sensitive / intelligent human beings(but not all).

 

[summerdays]

3) The independent witness claiming he was cycling too fast won't make an official statement because it turns out that she flashed the lorry driver indicating he was safe to turn right even though Dave was cycling along in front of her - why we have no idea - but lorry driver's defence will be based on this. However, officer informs me lack of care and attention still holds as he should've have checked for himself that the road was clear.

(

Here's hoping he makes a speedy recovery, and hopefully you have someone supporting you too at the moment.

Flashing of lights - definitely dodgy - how does the lorry driver know the flash was for him? I've been in a situation where a driver was waiting in a queue of traffic flashed his lights - not sure who too - either of the side roads where cars were waiting. Luckily both cars looked and saw me coming down the other side of the road towards him. Even if you are flashed by another motorist it is still your responsibility to ensure that the way was clear before you turn.

 

[yello]

It's good to read your post tricyclista, and thanks for the update.

I'd say things are looking good on the legal front. Please keep us updated on how Dave is getting on.

As for the hurtful comments, forums are public places so will draw a wide spectrum of opinion, try not to worry about that and focus yourself on what is important right now. Best wishes to Dave and yourself.

 

[bad boy]

First off I wish him a speedy recovery.

I'm sure most of it has been covered here already but the speed of the bike at the time of impact with the lorry and just before surly has no bearing. Like Fossy said I'm sure he wasn't going over the roads speed limit anyway and even so how can a witness determine a speed of a bicycle its a lot different to looking at a car go past.

In court that would hold no bearing they would simply concentrate of the actual and probable facts of what occurred at the time of crash and just prior but speed on the cyclists part would in my mind logically have no bearing what so ever.

Insurance law if you want to call it that differers from criminal the police will just want to find out the facts of the case and determine if there is a fault on either party, where as the CTC will also help with any resulting claims from an insurance/claim point of view which differers as they look at it from a different perspective, although any police report will be taken into consideration.

 

[Crankarm]

First off I wish him a speedy recovery.

I'm sure most of it has been covered here already but the speed of the bike at the time of impact with the lorry and just before surly has no bearing. Like Fossy said I'm sure he wasn't going over the roads speed limit anyway and even so how can a witness determine a speed of a bicycle its a lot different to looking at a car go past.

In court that would hold no bearing they would simply concentrate of the actual and probable facts of what occurred at the time of crash and just prior but speed on the cyclists part would in my mind logically have no bearing what so ever.

Insurance law if you want to call it that differers from criminal the police will just want to find out the facts of the case and determine if there is a fault on either party, where as the CTC will also help with any resulting claims from an insurance/claim point of view which differers as they look at it from a different perspective, although any police report will be taken into consideration.

The police's criminal investigation has nothing to do with any civil action brought about by the injured party against the driver. They are totally separate. The police investigation will be trying to determine whether any offences have been committed and whether it is worthwhile or in the public interest to prosecute an individual. The civil action is where one party, the claimant, generally an injured party in PI cases, claims the other party, the defendant, is liable for either damage to property or has caused injury due to his negligence. The claimant has to establish that the defendant was negligent on the balance of probability. But as I have already stated if there is a previous finding of guilt in a criminal prosecution (beyond all reasonable doubt) against the defendant this can be used as prima facie evidence of liability in negligence in a civil claim brought by the claimant.

Where the claimant's own actions have contributed to events that caused their property damage or them injury, it can be held that they showed contributory negligence. However, in this instance I just don't see it arising and certainly not if the driver is found guilty of driving without due care and attention. It has nothing to do with apportioning blame.

The CTC are acting as forwarders to the solicitors RJW with whom they have an arrangement. I suppose the CTC could monitor your case if you felt it was not progressing as well as you had hoped and could on your behalf take your concerns to RJW or the particular solicitor with in the firm handling your case. You can still sign up with RJW - on a no win no fee basis, but obviously if you weren't a CTC member you couldn't rely on them if in the unlikely event you experienced difficulties. The solicitor should also have a proper complaints procedure which they must tell you about when you sign up with them or failing this you can contact the Solicitors Usery Authority. A solicitor has a code of conduct to adhere to and a duty of care toward their clients. If they make a balls up of your case, they are at risk of being sued.

AVOID CLAIMS MANAGEMENT COMPANIES - VERMIN.

 

[Arch]

Parts of the OP don't make sense.

Seems clear enough to me. Lorry made a right turn across cyclist. Do you understand now, since things have been clarified for you?

I just love (in the sense of meaning 'oh, FFS!') how the independent witness who was so keen to apportion blame is now not wanting to be a witness, since they realised they partly caused the whole thing....

 

[I am Spartacus]

Repeating my support... I hope that some apologies have been made.
First instance is good recovery and health again
Seconds, I hope CTC do a good job on anyone who was at fault including the muppet who flashed the headlights..
If ever there was a justified case for compensation above and beyond then this is a very good example.

 

[HJ]

Yes, sorry, I didn't make that very clear. Lorry was on opposite side of road approaching towards Dave, indicated a right turn, then stopped in the road waiting to turn - it was because the vehicle had stopped that Dave thought the driver had seen him.

Dave had the right of way anyway so continued cycling down the lefthand lane. He sped up a bit at this point to get passed, and at that moment the driver started moving forward and they collided.

Hope that makes sense

Thanks for the clarification, from that it is clear that the driver was at fault, he should have looked to make sure that it was clear, even if a car driver following the cyclist flashed her lights to tell he to take presidents over her.

I hope Dave makes a full recovery and receives proper compensation for his injuries. Sadly cyclist are all too often blamed for being the victim because drivers do not feel the need to take responsibility for their actions

Research into the causes of road "accidents" has shown that in 90% of collisions between cyclist and motor vehicles, driver error was the cause of the collision.

 

[purplepolly]

I don't understand why I'm being criticised on a cycling forum for having 'holes in my story' when I was just looking for some advice on behalf of a cyclist

There's quite a few posters here who usually default to blaming the cyclist. While it can be helpful to have differing opinions aired in debates, a little more sensitivity is called for when replying to people whose partners have just been hospitalised or to new posters. Hopefully they'll get the message in future from the replies here.

 

[joolsybools]

Seems clear enough to me. Lorry made a right turn across cyclist. Do you understand now, since things have been clarified for you?

I just love (in the sense of meaning 'oh, FFS!') how the independent witness who was so keen to apportion blame is now not wanting to be a witness, since they realised they partly caused the whole thing....

Exactly, had a similar situation the other day with a stupid flashing lights person!

 

[bad boy]

The police's criminal investigation has nothing to do with any civil action brought about by the injured party against the driver. They are totally separate. The police investigation will be trying to determine whether any offences have been committed and whether it is worthwhile or in the public interest to prosecute an individual. The civil action is where one party, the claimant, generally an injured party in PI cases, claims the other party, the defendant, is liable for either damage to property or has caused injury due to his negligence. The claimant has to establish that the defendant was negligent on the balance of probability. But as I have already stated if there is a previous finding of guilt in a criminal prosecution (beyond all reasonable doubt) against the defendant this can be used as prima facie evidence of liability in negligence in a civil claim brought by the claimant.

Where the claimant's own actions have contributed to events that caused their property damage or them injury, it can be held that they showed contributory negligence. However, in this instance I just don't see it arising and certainly not if the driver is found guilty of driving without due care and attention. It has nothing to do with apportioning blame.

The CTC are acting as forwarders to the solicitors RJW with whom they have an arrangement. I suppose the CTC could monitor your case if you felt it was not progressing as well as you had hoped and could on your behalf take your concerns to RJW or the particular solicitor with in the firm handling your case. You can still sign up with RJW - on a no win no fee basis, but obviously if you weren't a CTC member you couldn't rely on them if in the unlikely event you experienced difficulties. The solicitor should also have a proper complaints procedure which they must tell you about when you sign up with them or failing this you can contact the Solicitors Usery Authority. A solicitor has a code of conduct to adhere to and a duty of care toward their clients. If they make a balls up of your case, they are at risk of being sued.

AVOID CLAIMS MANAGEMENT COMPANIES - VERMIN.

Your right Crankarm thats what I was sort of trying to say, I did have an accident a while ago and was recalling from my own experience but I think your better more detailed explanation clearly covers all points exactly.

 

[tricyclista]

Thank you to everyone posting messages of support, and information and advice I must admit I was quite nervous about checking back on this today, just in case.

Thank you Crankarm for all the info - I'm sorry your case dragged on for four years. I very much hope that won't happen to Dave as well. It must have been a nightmare having it hanging over you for so long.

I haven't spoken again with the investigating officer, so no update on any of that. He seems strangely forthcoming with information regarding the driver's statement etc, but as I said yesterday I am just incredibly relieved that he is now being supportive.

Dave's latest xrays show that his lung has still not reinflated. On the positive side it looks as though they won't now be operating on the collarbone, so hopefully that means the break is less 'complicated' than they originally thought - although the consultant has yet to explain the reasons.

Anyway, thanks again for everyone's help and advice.