Claim from a track day

Claim from a track day

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Discussion

Elliott_3R

Original Poster:

291 posts

257 months

Thursday 19th September 2013
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Never lift! wink

andygtt

8,344 posts

264 months

Thursday 19th September 2013
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well there are 2 sides to this... I've seen some stupid driving on track and if someone causes major damage to your car by unreasonable driving I suspect you would be unhappy with a gentleman agreement and a huge cost to repair your own car...

Given the recent virus's of 'someones to blame lets sue them' outfits that have increased all insurance recently I dod wonder how long it would be till this hit track days.

Personally I insure my car for track for this very reason, to protect my investment in my car... I suspect what will happen is that it will become mandatory to have your car insured on track OR sign a very strong legal document signing away rights to even potentially have these non win no fee virus attack us if an accident occurs.


Steve57

2,159 posts

242 months

Thursday 19th September 2013
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Sitting reading all the comments etc got me thinking, would this be better in the legal forum? for some legal eagles views?

Snowboy

8,028 posts

151 months

Thursday 19th September 2013
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But, the question would be to define the difference between;

An honest accident.
Negligence.
Deliberate Damage.

Even with a disclaimer, if someone sideswipes you 'deliberately' you'll want them to pay.


On a more realistic note.
When was the last time you saw one car trash another on a track day.

I know it happens all the time in racing - but on an open track day it's pretty rare.

m444ttb

3,160 posts

229 months

Thursday 19th September 2013
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A disturbing development indeed. I hope there is more to this as on face value it could ruin track days for many of us.

spyderman8

1,748 posts

156 months

Thursday 19th September 2013
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All of the TDOs need to jump on this ASAP - this will open the floodgates and our hobby will be ruined. Just the mere threat of being sued will be enough to put people off.

CDP

7,459 posts

254 months

Thursday 19th September 2013
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I can't say I've ever seen or heard of a coming together on a trackday before so if an insurance company wanted to get into the third party market it's probably not that bad a risk. Especially if they insist on cameras and run a fairly large excess.

TonyHetherington

32,091 posts

250 months

Thursday 19th September 2013
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andygtt said:
OR sign a very strong legal document signing away rights to even potentially have these non win no fee virus attack us if an accident occurs.
We all assumed we did that already - but apparently not! I can't see how the statements we sign ("I accept ....etc....regardless of fault") are anything other than clear. Apparently not!

LBduck

35 posts

130 months

Thursday 19th September 2013
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Suspect the waiver is not strong enough to hold in court and probably hasn't been tested. Very few are.

Surely we need to know who the track day insurer is and avoid them like the plague. This is not the conduct of a company looking out for our interests.

andygtt

8,344 posts

264 months

Thursday 19th September 2013
quotequote all
TonyHetherington said:
andygtt said:
OR sign a very strong legal document signing away rights to even potentially have these non win no fee virus attack us if an accident occurs.
We all assumed we did that already - but apparently not! I can't see how the statements we sign ("I accept ....etc....regardless of fault") are anything other than clear. Apparently not!
its clearly not legally binding though hence the claim... since it was the insurance company that have persued this its now going to become the norm as they don't follow any gentleman's agreement and are just interested in recouping their cost.

TonyHetherington

32,091 posts

250 months

Thursday 19th September 2013
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Indeed. A very interesting, and worrying, turn of events.

Snowboy

8,028 posts

151 months

Thursday 19th September 2013
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Consider it from the other drivers perspective though.

He's come off.
He's on the grass, off the track.
Stationary or hardly moving.
Then someone crashes into him and wrecks the car.

This isn't an overtake gone wrong or a bit of debris in the front grill.
It's a full on wreck from someone who should have been carefully avoiding the off car.

I don't particularly like the precident that this might set, but I have a lot of sympathy from the injured party here.

I would have liked to see the footage myself, as I think it would be important when deciding the difference between accident vs blame.
(For want of other words.)

Dakkon

7,826 posts

253 months

Thursday 19th September 2013
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Snowboy said:
Consider it from the other drivers perspective though.

He's come off.
He's on the grass, off the track.
Stationary or hardly moving.
Then someone crashes into him and wrecks the car.

This isn't an overtake gone wrong or a bit of debris in the front grill.
It's a full on wreck from someone who should have been carefully avoiding the off car.

I don't particularly like the precident that this might set, but I have a lot of sympathy from the injured party here.

I would have liked to see the footage myself, as I think it would be important when deciding the difference between accident vs blame.
(For want of other words.)
I disagree entirely, I do trackdays, entirely accepting that my car may be written off in someone else accident, through no fault of my own, but that is the risk I am prepared to take for the fun of a trackday.

This is extremely worrying and the first step to trackdays being a thing of the past.

Mr E

21,614 posts

259 months

Thursday 19th September 2013
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Snowboy said:
Consider it from the other drivers perspective though.

He's come off.
He's on the grass, off the track.
Stationary or hardly moving.
Then someone crashes into him and wrecks the car.
So the first car spinning and ending up on the grass is a track day accident, but a second car doing *exactly* the same thing is negligence?

edh

3,498 posts

269 months

Thursday 19th September 2013
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we don't know the details of the defence.. (maybe AGT does?)

negligence vs inept driving (or just bad luck)? - what level of driving ability should we "reasonably" expect track day participants to have?

Munter

31,319 posts

241 months

Thursday 19th September 2013
quotequote all
agtlaw said:
LBduck said:
Suspect the waiver is not strong enough to hold in court and probably hasn't been tested. Very few are.

Surely we need to know who the track day insurer is and avoid them like the plague. This is not the conduct of a company looking out for our interests.
English law doesn't allow any party to disclaim negligence. The court found negligence proven. It really is that simple.
The only way I can see negligence is something like driving at full chat around a track under yellow/red flag conditions. But no mention of flags in the OP....

Tonsko

6,299 posts

215 months

Thursday 19th September 2013
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I've not done many track days (3), and have never bothered with insurance (yet!), as I felt it was just too large.

But yes, a worrying development. Will certainly put a stop to me coming again.

git-r

969 posts

199 months

Thursday 19th September 2013
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This is really bad news frown

Please someone tell us it's not true frownfrownfrown

agtlaw

6,702 posts

206 months

Thursday 19th September 2013
quotequote all
edh said:
we don't know the details of the defence.. (maybe AGT does?)

negligence vs inept driving (or just bad luck)? - what level of driving ability should we "reasonably" expect track day participants to have?
I do know a bit about it but can't much as legal professional privilege applies. I wasn't instructed to defend the case.

There was a previous thread, I think?

Snowboy

8,028 posts

151 months

Thursday 19th September 2013
quotequote all
Mr E said:
Snowboy said:
Consider it from the other drivers perspective though.

He's come off.
He's on the grass, off the track.
Stationary or hardly moving.
Then someone crashes into him and wrecks the car.
So the first car spinning and ending up on the grass is a track day accident, but a second car doing *exactly* the same thing is negligence?
I don't know the exact details of either accident.
But I would say tentatively Yes to your question.

If you can see someone has binned it on a corner it's sensible to slow down and pass safely.

The questions I would have would to do with how long the offed car had been sitting there and how visible it was to the second car.

Two cars binning it on a blind corner is an accident.
A second car crashing into a clearly visible offed car is negligence.