Bicycle/Taxi interface - Who's at fault?

[Blue Oval84]

Junction with no road markings, effectively neither of you had priority (there's no such thing as right of way), and you hit each other (I presume you were both moving at the time?).

50/50 fault

It's a common one that surprises people when a cross roads is unmarked and signed, people on the "major" road think they have priority when in fact nobody does...

[Mr GrimNasty]

Looks more like an entrance/driveway than a road.

[intrepid44]

flemke said:

intrepid44 said:

flemke said:

The spot where the collision happened - is that considered to be "public" road, or privately-owned with public right-of-way?

The part that I was initially cycling down before the "junction" is a council road, there are however no signs that indicate when/if this transitions to a private road, so I'm unsure with that one.

A clearer overhead view (better focus, fewer shadows) is available on Google Earth ("Radisson Blue Hotel Durham Frankland Lane"). If you could post that better, bigger image here, it would help people to understand the geometry.

It appears that the "left fork" that you had just begun to take was onto private property. The road you had just exited was Frankland Lane, a council road.

Just after leaving Frankland Lane and joining the private road, one can go straight on, or one can take a 45° left turning, leading to a large garage or warehouse.
This is in the centre of your image.
If one does not turn 45° left towards the garage, going straight ahead appears eventually to lead one to a breaker's yard. This is not quite visible in your image. Both the turning to the garage and the road straight-ahead to the breaker's yard appear to be dead-ends.

According to your yellow line, the taxi was coming from the warehouse, whereas you were headed straight towards the breaker's yard. Is that correct?

Next question: at every point through that area, the road is wide enough for at least 2 vehicles. At the point where you and the taxi made contact, where was the taxi's lateral position in relation to "his" road: was he all the way over on his left, as he should have been if there had been a centre line?

Yes I've just posted that now to hopefully give a better understanding for people.

I was headed straight on, this leads to a turn off and then on towards Hoppers Wood which is a bicycle trail/bridleway.

The yellow line on the second picture is pretty much what would have been the centre of the taxi, so yes he would have been out of position on the road.

[Pete317]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Pete317 said:

Which part of "and probably would have hit you even if you had been standing still" are you having problems with?

OK, I'll rephrase my original question: Given the circumstances, when a cyclist cuts a blind corner and is only visible to you for around half a second before the collision, what would you have done to avoid the collision?

Edited by Pete317 on Friday 28th August 11:02

Errr...perhaps approach the junction at a slower speed.

So, given his estimated speed was around 10mph, besides which he was probably slowing down for the junction anyway, at what speed should he have approached the junction? 8mph? 5mph?
And if he had been doing 5mph at the time, what speed would you suggest he should have been doing? 3mph? 2mph?

Edited by Pete317 on Friday 28th August 11:48

[Centurion07]

My two pennethworth:



Taxi should have been as close to the left of his intended route as possible to negate exactly this kind of accident and you should have made more of a 90 degree turn from the main road or been prepared to stop in the distance you could see to be clear. If either one of you had done that then you both would've been more visible to each other & more able to avoid a coming together.

50/50 for me.

As an aside, I see more and more new housing developments with stupid unmarked road layouts like this and I think it's because some idiot (probably the same one that thinks pedestrians "sharing" space with motor vehicles was a good idea), at some point has had the thought "how about we don't paint any markings on the road, that way everyone will be far more cautious because no-one knows who has right of way therefore will be moving much more slowly, so there will be no accidents", when in reality what happens is the exact scenario in the OP.

Edited by Centurion07 on Friday 28th August 11:50

[TooMany2cvs]

intrepid44 said:

My centre of gravity is above the point of impact for the car and bike, this force causes a rotation about the centre of gravity, rather than simply pushing away from the windscreen.

Surely the centre of rotation wouldn't be the CoG, but the contact point with the road?

[Nightmare]

while im sure it'll count as 50/50....i personally think that the taxi driver is largely at fault here as he clearly chose to drive as straight a line as possible to get back to the road rather than treating it as a road in itself (exactly as flemke and Centurian have pointed out). A car should NOT have been appearing from just behind the hedge of trees.

I disagree with centurion about the OPs line tho. I don't believe that ANYONE would do that - the road clearly forks and he was following the left hand edge of the new road. basically the taxi pulled out of a business entrance. Unless the OP actually went further left (and onto the business property) i cant really see how its his fault (real work avoidability fault rather than insurance fault) The lack of any paint on the floor is why this looks more complex than i believe it actually is.

[Centurion07]

Nightmare said:

I disagree with centurion about the OPs line tho. I don't believe that ANYONE would do that - the road clearly forks and he was following the left hand edge of the new road. basically the taxi pulled out of a business entrance.

I doubt anyone would do it either, but if you're going to take OP's line then you have to realise that there may be something around the corner, as in this case.

OP may well turn out to have had the legal right to take the line he did, but he's the one with concussion and an iffy neck.

OP, is the left part of the "Y" that passes between the two buildings definitely a road? If so I would tend to agree with Nighmare that the taxi was pulling out of a business entrance to join this road therefore making him more, if not wholly liable, than you.

Edited by Centurion07 on Friday 28th August 12:14

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Pete317 said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Pete317 said:

Which part of "and probably would have hit you even if you had been standing still" are you having problems with?

OK, I'll rephrase my original question: Given the circumstances, when a cyclist cuts a blind corner and is only visible to you for around half a second before the collision, what would you have done to avoid the collision?

Edited by Pete317 on Friday 28th August 11:02

Errr...perhaps approach the junction at a slower speed.

So, given his estimated speed was around 10mph, besides which he was probably slowing down for the junction anyway, at what speed should he have approached the junction? 8mph? 5mph?
And if he had been doing 5mph at the time, what speed would you suggest he should have been doing? 3mph? 2mph?

Edited by Pete317 on Friday 28th August 11:48

At 10 mph he was involved in a collision which was 50% his fault. Therefore, by going slower, there would come a point where he would not be involved in that collision, or his percentage blame would have reduced. If, as you suggested at one point, he would have stopped completely having seen the bike coming and still been hit by the bike, it wouldn't have been 100% the bikes fault.

Honestly, I don't know why you are finding this so hard to grasp.

[Johnnytheboy]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

At 10 mph he was involved in a collision which was 50% his fault. Therefore, by going slower, there would come a point where he would not be involved in that collision, or his percentage blame would have reduced. If, as you suggested at one point, he would have stopped completely having seen the bike coming and still been hit by the bike, it wouldn't have been 100% the bikes fault.

Honestly, I don't know why you are finding this so hard to grasp.

Because it's bks?

[Prizam]

Even if you marked up that junction with give way lines it would still go 50/50.

Unfortunately you should have both given more care.



Anti-Cyclist mode :- Cyclists like to straight line things to keep momentum going. You should have probably slowed down.

Anti-Taxi mode :- Taxi drivers just belt around like they own the place, he pulled out on you.

Balanced PH mode :- Neither of the above positions can be proven unless you have CCTV on your head. And even then it would be dubious. 50/50 unfortunately. Hope you have insurance on the bike.

[mikeveal]

Is this one of those weird logic problems? Applying standard PH rhetoric...

If there is a accident involving a bicycle, the cyclist must be 100% at fault.
Similarly, if there is a accident involving a taxi, the taxi driver must be 100% at fault.

So the answer is, errr, you're both 100% at fault?

I'm probably not helping very much. Sorry .

[johnao]

Sorry to hear about the collision - pleased that no one was seriously injured.

It would appear that you weren't applying Rule 0 of driving/riding on the highway... "You must always be able to stop on your side of the road in the distance seen to be clear and which is reasonably likely to remain so".

So, I'm afraid the collision seems to be down to a lack of observation on your part; a lack of a riding plan based upon what can be seen, what can't be seen and what is reasonably likely to happen; a misunderstanding of what constitutes a "right of way", (there aren't any "rights of way" in this country in the sense that you mean. In the UK we have a system of priorities and, as someone has already pointed out, there are no road markings indicating priority at this junction which means you have to be very circumspect when approaching this particular junction); failure to apply Rule 0; failure to accept one's own mistake, etc, etc

Are you insured for the damage that you caused to the taxi driver's vehicle?

[untakenname]

intrepid44 said:

Just to clear up few things.

He hit me, I did not hit him.

His front bumper hit my front wheel/forks at around where the number plate begins, you can see this from the damage where the handlebars dented the bonnet as it pivoted about that point.

Edited by intrepid44 on Friday 28th August 09:43

Surely this makes it the more Taxi drivers fault? If the OP had been driving a car that was T-boned then what would the expected outcome be?

[anonymous-user]

I am erring towards it being the Taxi's fault.

It looks to me like the bike was established on the road and the taxi was joining from the left.

Not exactly straightforward though.

[flemke]

johnao said:

Sorry to hear about the collision - pleased that no one was seriously injured.

It would appear that you weren't applying Rule 0 of driving/riding on the highway... "You must always be able to stop on your side of the road in the distance seen to be clear and which is reasonably likely to remain so".

So, I'm afraid the collision seems to be down to a lack of observation on your part; a lack of a riding plan based upon what can be seen, what can't be seen and what is reasonably likely to happen; a misunderstanding of what constitutes a "right of way", (there aren't any "rights of way" in this country in the sense that you mean. In the UK we have a system of priorities and, as someone has already pointed out, there are no road markings indicating priority at this junction which means you have to be very circumspect when approaching this particular junction); failure to apply Rule 0; failure to accept one's own mistake, etc, etc

Are you insured for the damage that you caused to the taxi driver's vehicle?

I think the point is (and unfortunately we still don't have a good Google Earth view from sufficient altitude but in sufficient clarity to demonstrate clearly the site) that, after he took the "left fork", the OP could indeed see in the distance that he could see to be clear, as the road he was on went straight ahead for hundreds of metres.

The taxi driver was the one who could not see that his way forward was clear. His view to his right was blocked by foliage.

The taxi driver presumed - as I daresay most of us including myself might have done, or at least have done at some point - that, because he was about to join a very quiet "private" road leading only to a breaker's yard, that nothing would be coming from his right.

The OP made a similar presumption. He could have done more to protect himself, such as positioning himself farther to his right, taking the edge off his speed, and covering his brake levers.

Nonetheless, it was the taxi driver who went too quickly into a space he could not see to be clear. The OP was merely going straight ahead when a vehicle appeared from a blind turning on his left.

It may well end up being 50-50 but, based on what we have been told, I'd say the taxi driver was much more at fault.

[Pete317]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

At 10 mph he was involved in a collision which was 50% his fault. Therefore, by going slower, there would come a point where he would not be involved in that collision, or his percentage blame would have reduced. If, as you suggested at one point, he would have stopped completely having seen the bike coming and still been hit by the bike, it wouldn't have been 100% the bikes fault.

Honestly, I don't know why you are finding this so hard to grasp.

So the trajectories of the bicycle and the taxi happened to randomly intersect in time and space, and you imagine that by changing one of the prior conditions (the taxi's speed, or anything else for that matter) without any prior knowledge of when and where or even if their trajectories were going to intersect, that you can have any control whatsoever over whether or not some chance event occurs?

That comes straight from the Alice in Wonderland school of physics.

Now had you said that he could have avoided the collision by coming to a complete stop before the Y-point, that would have at least made some sense.
But then I would ask whether you consider it to be reasonable practice to come to a complete stop before the entrance to each and every alleyway you encounter along any road, just in case some cyclist comes flying out of it and into your path?

Edited by Pete317 on Friday 28th August 15:08

[Pete317]

Here's the view which the taxi driver would have had.

https://goo.gl/maps/onBHc

There's little or no indication that there's another approach from the right just beyond the bushes on the right.

[flemke]

Pete317 said:

Here's the view which the taxi driver would have had.

https://goo.gl/maps/onBHc

There's little or no indication that there's another approach from the right just beyond the bushes on the right.

But it is obvious that there could be traffic coming from the right, at any point where there is asphalt beyond the foliage.

This is a helpful image, and makes it clearer that, if the collision happened just in the foreground where there is a change in asphalt, the taxi driver ought to have allowed for the possibility of something coming across his bows from the right.

[Pete317]

flemke said:

But it is obvious that there could be traffic coming from the right, at any point where there is asphalt beyond the foliage.

This is a helpful image, and makes it clearer that, if the collision happened just in the foreground where there is a change in asphalt, the taxi driver ought to have allowed for the possibility of something coming across his bows from the right.

There's no indication that there's another road coming in from the right before the intersection with the main road up ahead.
It just appears that the road he's on curves around a little to the right before the intersection, and he was probably planning to straight-line it in order to end up on the left at the intersection with the main road.

Edited by Pete317 on Friday 28th August 15:39