So this morning heading Eastbound towards the A13 nr East India Dock road there was a car accident on the left hand bus lane. Police bike parked up, I was moving out from bus lane with lots of room to my right, did my lifesaver, accelerated to approx. 30 mph. Woman in front of me was too busy rubbernecking at the car crash, slammed her brakes on, I had nowhere to go with the accident to my left, and traffic building to my right, even with my braking I hit the back of her car at approx. 15-20mph and nearly flew over her roof. Police chap checked I was ok, we moved the car and my bike out of the way, the woman starts barking at me, needless to say im a bit dazed, the police checked out our details, she’s got mine and vice versa, now it looks like im going to get stung with forking out from my insurers to repair her bloody merc. All I could see was a small graze on the left of her bumper, and she reckons the bumper has shifted slightly.
I did take pics, she didn’t even ask if I was ok which pissed me right off. In 15 years of biking this is the first accident or claim ive had. Do I have any rights whatsoever? I know generally the law blames the following driver, in this case I honestly believe she was in the wrong. I took some pictures of the damage to my bike and her car.
I now ache on my arms and groin as that’s where most of the impact took place.
was there any reason for her to stop? what did the copper say? id take it on the chin via the insurance, if she had no reason to stop then it would work in your favour.
i had a similar situation in sept where i was undertaking on a zig zag, i had a good enough reason why an i won 100%
Ouch Westie. Somehow I know how you feel on this one! Pity you did not have a helmet cam as this would have verified your take of events and prove with no doubt the ladies liability.
GWS and keep strong on the liability issue. Rubber neckers are a pain in the neck.
Can you still ride it? Glad you are able to walk away from it all, that is the best bit. I’m off to have acupuncture for my back as I am still waking up at 4am with muscle spasms. Total pain!
unfortunately as above not sure what you can do unless you have witnesses to say she had stopped just to see what was going on (without good reason like being a Dr or something).
Good luck mate, and if you do choose to pay out yourself make sure you get it checked or she may try and scam you!
Rest assured your insurance will do as much as possible to pay as little as possible.
about 12 years ago, I drove into the back of a car completely my fault (wet day foot slipped from break and hit accelerator), told insurance straight out all my fault no point in disputing it and my insurance spent ages trying to find something to not have to pay, or even as a much…
well I gave my details to the insurance company for her to contact Ageas. I can bet my boots that the woman in the merc will try and claim for a brand new bumper, which is not needed from looking at the pics.
It’s a bugger but looks like the liability is yours.
I don’t know the exact phrase but the highway code says something about following behind at a safe distance so you can stop in time. Of course in the real world where we change lanes in heavy traffic that is not really practical - but the rules are there.
The argument being that anyone could stop suddenly, anywhere - could be a child or dog running out in front - so it’s up t the following vehicle to take that into account. Even though she was rubbernecking I don’t thionk tahat gets you off the hook…
Unfortunately if you went into the back of someone, it’s fundamentally your fault. You must leave enough room to stop if the vehicle in front of you does – irrespective of the reason that the vehicle stopped. What if her “for no reason” had been because a child had run out onto the road?
Many years ago, I had a car drive into the back of me when I stopped to avoid running a dog over. The dog ran away, and the guy who hit the back of me tried to claim that I had “stopped for no reason” and that therefore the accident was my fault. After some wrangling, 100% of the blame went to the guy behind me, because he should have left enough distance to stop in the event of an emergency. Whether the dog was real or not (it was) was neither here nor there.
I rear ended someone many moons ago and was my fault, pulling out of a junction behind someone and thought they had gone, was checking it was safe for me and rolled into them. They tried to claim a new bumper, spoke to my insurance company saying I couldn’t of done any of the damage they was saying I had. I was told not to worry their insurance assurer would check.
I didn’t pay anything and it was cleared off my record too
Unfortunately it isn’t always as simple as this. You might try going doing this route, but then in a couple of months time you get a phone call from insurance regarding an incident you were involved in, accused of leaving the scene without stopped, and being sued for car damage and whiplash injuries… How would you explain it all then?!
Either way, you’re still standing, so you’re lucky you didn’t come off worse. Insurance will sort out the bike/car, it’s your health that can be tougher to sort out. Hope you get well soon anyway.
You need to call your insurance company and report it even if you are settling outside of insurance. A removal van reversed into my car (it was actually a removal van which was moving my stuff), we settled outside of insurance and Volvo Charged £300 to refurbish the bumper. that included the dent which they made and pretty much every other blemish on the bumper. I had a colleague who was rear ended in his BMW and I think it was a bit more expensive that £300 but not much more.
