Yeah, rubbish from the officer - he can do whatever he sees as suitable, and I'd agree that in this case depending on the women's previous driving history a driver improvement course or a straight due care charge would have been much better. I'd also, like Gaz, be interested to know what the ticket was for - I'd guess it was for failing to conform to the traffic sign, the Give Way but that's me guessing.
Either way, that won't affect your insurance claim which is a seperate matter from the police side of things. As everyone else suggests, go see a lawyer. Hell, go see a few and pick the one that seems best for you. They all tend to work in different ways - some will find some insurance somewhere that you have that covers you - sometimes this can even be your car insurance - and get their costs from that. A friend which made a claim at work found the Police Federation covered him as he was travelling to work - if you're in any sort of Union they may do the same. Others take some of your compo. If the CTC do offer retrospective insurance then that might not be a bad call at all.
