Advice Needed, Car vs Bicycle Accident
Discussion
Need some advice if possible guys (and girls)
Was with my father, funnily enough on the way to a Super Sunday earlier this year, when we had a coming together with a cyclist on a roundabout. We were coming upto the roundabout and saw him at the last minute. By the time of impact my dad had stopped his car, so the impact was with actually with a stationary car on the OSF wing. Not a hard impact. Cyclist suffered cuts to his right leg which hit the ground. No injury to the side that hit the car and no damage to said car. As soon as it happened, dad moved the car to protect the cyclist from other traffic until the police and ambulance arrived.
Police involved, just wondering where dad stands as after almost three months has been asked to give an interview/statement and I've had to give a written statement
Was with my father, funnily enough on the way to a Super Sunday earlier this year, when we had a coming together with a cyclist on a roundabout. We were coming upto the roundabout and saw him at the last minute. By the time of impact my dad had stopped his car, so the impact was with actually with a stationary car on the OSF wing. Not a hard impact. Cyclist suffered cuts to his right leg which hit the ground. No injury to the side that hit the car and no damage to said car. As soon as it happened, dad moved the car to protect the cyclist from other traffic until the police and ambulance arrived.
Police involved, just wondering where dad stands as after almost three months has been asked to give an interview/statement and I've had to give a written statement
Coming upto roundabout, at first look to the right no cyclist. At second look the cyclist was there (Was he hidden by roadsign, Cannot say). dad braked hard to the left and stopped just before cyclist hit OSF of car. Cyclist went over his handlebars and landed heavily (we think) on his right hand side. As dad moved his car to block one lane of the roundabout, I checked on cyclist and called ambulance.
Dad admitted at the scene he didn't see him and to be fair I didn't either, but then I didn't expect a cyclist to be on a dual carriageway. My bad.
A month after I got a letter and witness statement form to fill in and return, which I did. And befoire anyone queries YES I did state that dad was at fault as he didn't see the cyclist (causing friction but he brought me up to tell the truth, what can I say)
He has now been called in to make a formal statement. As he has not had any violations on his licence since the 60's (and that includes his motorbike and his HGV1) he is slightly worried as he is due to retire and hand his company car back getting his own insurance for the first time in 30 odd years.
he, should I say We, are wondering if anyone can shed some light on what the possible consequences are that he is facing if anything as it seemed to be a genuine accident. he did stop in time, but the positioning wasn't the best.
As far as we are aware the cyclist is fine, just trying to claim damages. But that's another story
Dad admitted at the scene he didn't see him and to be fair I didn't either, but then I didn't expect a cyclist to be on a dual carriageway. My bad.
A month after I got a letter and witness statement form to fill in and return, which I did. And befoire anyone queries YES I did state that dad was at fault as he didn't see the cyclist (causing friction but he brought me up to tell the truth, what can I say)
He has now been called in to make a formal statement. As he has not had any violations on his licence since the 60's (and that includes his motorbike and his HGV1) he is slightly worried as he is due to retire and hand his company car back getting his own insurance for the first time in 30 odd years.
he, should I say We, are wondering if anyone can shed some light on what the possible consequences are that he is facing if anything as it seemed to be a genuine accident. he did stop in time, but the positioning wasn't the best.
As far as we are aware the cyclist is fine, just trying to claim damages. But that's another story
My guess is that your dad will be offered a Driver Alertness course that will cost him approx £165 and take a full day to complete. The police will offer this as an alternative to charging him with an offence. Hard to say how his insurance will be affected as it'll take quite a while for the total damages that the cyclist will claim to be calculated.
Just a hunch, based on something a bit similar.
Just a hunch, based on something a bit similar.
monktoc said:
Coming upto roundabout, at first look to the right no cyclist. At second look the cyclist was there (Was he hidden by roadsign, Cannot say).
http://www.londoncyclist.co.uk/raf-pilot-teach-cyclists/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqQBubilSXU&fe...
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...
Personally, I don't find a complete side-to-side of the lane weave necessary, just wobbling my light is usually enough.
defblade said:
monktoc said:
Coming upto roundabout, at first look to the right no cyclist. At second look the cyclist was there (Was he hidden by roadsign, Cannot say).
http://www.londoncyclist.co.uk/raf-pilot-teach-cyclists/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqQBubilSXU&fe...
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...
Personally, I don't find a complete side-to-side of the lane weave necessary, just wobbling my light is usually enough.
I personallly don't weave when comming up to junctions because I think it sends ambiguous signals
julian64 said:
And to be honset if the chap has really gone since the 60's with no accidents in a combination of both cars and HGVs then I suspect he doesn't really need a driver awareness course.
I'd have thought it's a situation like this where a driver awareness course is far more appropriate than 3 points and a fine. The course will not affect his insurance going forward (unless insured by Admiral) and will hopefully have a far more positive impact than a financial penalty.JQ said:
julian64 said:
And to be honset if the chap has really gone since the 60's with no accidents in a combination of both cars and HGVs then I suspect he doesn't really need a driver awareness course.
I'd have thought it's a situation like this where a driver awareness course is far more appropriate than 3 points and a fine. The course will not affect his insurance going forward (unless insured by Admiral) and will hopefully have a far more positive impact than a financial penalty.I think it should still happen, but I don't hold out much hope it will change his future risk.
julian64 said:
Oh don't get me wrong, its the best result for the driver from the point of view of least impact to him personally. But in the greater scheme of things a chap who has the observational skills to go that length of time with no accidents is probably better than most of us at it.
I know it was the OP that said it rather than his Dad, but OP said:
I didn't expect a cyclist to be on a dual carriageway.
Is fairly classic when it comes observation issues. We are not good at seeing things if we don't expect to see them. Or to put it another way, we only tend to see the things that we're looking out for. So if you're looking out for fast moving cars, you might miss a slow moving bicycle. So an awareness course to remind the OP/dad that you need to keep a look out for all road users doesn't sound like a bad idea - more likely to gain something useful from that than simply getting 3 points on your licence.
OP said:
As far as we are aware the cyclist is fine, just trying to claim damages. But that's another story
It should just be a matter for the cyclist and your dad's insurers - any attempt to make it anything else is likely to prove an unsatisfactory experience. Just let the insurers deal with it and move on - that's why he's been paying their premiums for decades, after all.MrTrilby said:
Is fairly classic when it comes observation issues. We are not good at seeing things if we don't expect to see them. Or to put it another way, we only tend to see the things that we're looking out for. So if you're looking out for fast moving cars, you might miss a slow moving bicycle.
As Mr Trilby says !It doesn't matter how large the object is, it may be a car on its side, a trailer skewed across the road, whatever, generally if we don't expect to see it we wont.
We were never designed to move as fast as we do in/on vehicles, we scan rather than "look".
monktoc said:
Ok, Thanks guys. I realise we were both at fault (even if I was passenger) but now just trying to move on and reassure the old man .
You weren't driving, so I certainly wouldn't consider yourself at fault.In terms of reassurance - I went over the bonnet of a car earlier this year - 100% driver fault. I did a fair bit of damage to the car - nearside wing and bonnet. I was on a pretty indestructible MTB which had been in the wars previously, so any damage caused was indistinguishable from earlier battle scars. The fall hurt and after a couple of visits to hospital it was concluded there were no broken bones, just some sprains, cuts and bruises. It stopped me playing hockey for a month and I was also off the bike for a similar amount of time. I reported it to the police, but only to secure my own position as I'd done a fair bit of damage to the car, and I didn't want her changing her story at a later date and making a claim off me, despite me being insured!
The lady who hit me was lovely, phoned me several times to make sure I was ok and was full of remorse. And that was the end of the matter - I took it no further with the police and have made no compo claims. Has your dad phoned the cyclist to make sure he's ok? In all honesty if she'd been an idiot over the whole episode I probably would have made a claim as I was in a fair bit of pain for a month and it did cost me money. But that's no different to my attitude to car accidents - I've had someone knock a wing mirror off and be a total arse about it, his demands that he pay for the damage were rebuffed and a full insurance claim was made against him. Similar thing with someone else and it was all sorted amicably outside insurance and a cheap repair at an indy bodyshop.
Hope all goes well, but don't worry about it, these things happen.
Few things to take into consideration.
1. Don't assume that all cyclists have a £50 bike. The insurance payout could be hundreds or possibly thousands.
2. The cyclist will if (he?) is sensible, get checked out properly at the doctors. Sometimes the adrenalin and shock can mask more serious injuries. It is possible, again, there are costs for time off work etc.
I hope, firstly, that the cyclist is ok. I appreciate the driver has many years experience, but it just goes to show, even the best drivers sometimes fail to look properly. A quick glance, as would appear form the OP, is not enough.
I hope lessons learnt all around from what is, again, hopefully, a minor collision.
Also, nice to see form the OP a reasonable response, ie helping out the injured party in the aftermath and no immediate blame of cyclist doing something wrong to warrant being hit.
1. Don't assume that all cyclists have a £50 bike. The insurance payout could be hundreds or possibly thousands.
2. The cyclist will if (he?) is sensible, get checked out properly at the doctors. Sometimes the adrenalin and shock can mask more serious injuries. It is possible, again, there are costs for time off work etc.
I hope, firstly, that the cyclist is ok. I appreciate the driver has many years experience, but it just goes to show, even the best drivers sometimes fail to look properly. A quick glance, as would appear form the OP, is not enough.
I hope lessons learnt all around from what is, again, hopefully, a minor collision.
Also, nice to see form the OP a reasonable response, ie helping out the injured party in the aftermath and no immediate blame of cyclist doing something wrong to warrant being hit.
The cyclist was sat up in the Ambulance when we were allowed to leave the scene. The police have updated us on his condition, but dad's solicitors won't allow him to have actual contact with the cyclist for some reason. Something to do with being a company vehicle. The car itself was actually undamaged!!
I was hit by a car whilst cycling in broadly similar circumstances a few years ago - Driver was offered and accepted a Driver Improveness Course (as they were called then).
As someone else has said - whilst it varies from region to region most police forces standard procedure is to offer Driver Alertness Course as an alternative to prosecution where there is evidence of Careless Driving resulting in minor injury to a third party.
Once again as someone else has said - there's little you can do to influcence the outcome of the insurance claim other than provide your description of events to your insurer and answer any subsequent questions. It sounds like your Dad was at fault and it will result in an at fault claim on his record - realising your error after you've pulled out on someone who has priority and then stopping before they hit you doesn't absolve you of liability. Play with some online insurance quote websites to see what effect this will have on his premium.
As someone else has said - whilst it varies from region to region most police forces standard procedure is to offer Driver Alertness Course as an alternative to prosecution where there is evidence of Careless Driving resulting in minor injury to a third party.
Once again as someone else has said - there's little you can do to influcence the outcome of the insurance claim other than provide your description of events to your insurer and answer any subsequent questions. It sounds like your Dad was at fault and it will result in an at fault claim on his record - realising your error after you've pulled out on someone who has priority and then stopping before they hit you doesn't absolve you of liability. Play with some online insurance quote websites to see what effect this will have on his premium.
Edited by Seight_Returns on Thursday 26th June 14:01
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