Last year, one week after passing DAS, I was filtering in New Cross. Single lane road with all traffic going my direction stationary and it’s raining. I come across the bonnet of a Clio pulling out from a road on the left in front of a transit. Act like a novice and swerve at the same time as hitting the front brakes. Down I do and the bike slides down the road stopping an inch from the Clio – no contact with other vehicles.
I thought I had got away with it as come renewal time this year I had 1 year NCD and it said on the notes that third party had admitted liability. I thought this might be a clerical error so didn’t mention anything to the company.
I have just received a phone call today stating that the third party does not admit liability and is proposing an 80:20 split as per Power v Moody case.
I can accept this and get 20% of the excess back and lose 2 years NCD or fight the case.
I am pretty sure that I should just take the hit and take more care but I was just checking if anyone had any knowledge/ tricks to use in getting better terms?
If the 80 - 20 split is in your favour then why not! Ask your solicitor about it. I’m no legal expert however I know if you go to court and the judge decides against you you could come off worse. This case law and others like it are used to show that a rider, whilst filtering is accepting partial liability for any accident.
There was a test case a little while ago that sort of negated the current case law, however there is still a long way to go before this out of date case law is replaced by a more modern example…
I’m sorry I don’t think 80 - 20 in their favour is normal - but then I might be worng. What does your solicitor say? Do they indicate you should accept the offer?
Normally if you’re claiming against the third party they come back to you with a heap of case law to show you were at fault. Ask your solicitor for other case law examples. At the very least you should be looking to bump this up more in your favour.
All this depends on the circumstances of the case though and I don’t know them. That’s why you have a solicitor!!!
this sounds a little fishy to me. Like drei said, if there was no claim by you and no damage or contact was made with the othr vehicle there is no case here!!!
there was a case a few months back that negated the automatic deposition of liability onto the motorcyclist - however it is not suitable to use as case law authority as it wasn’t a court of appeal case or house of lords case so it doesn’t really hold much weight.
i would speak in detail with your solicitor and get the exact details of what is going on here. I am assuming from my knowlege of law that when you say you have been offered an 80:20 split - they are expecting you to claim 80% liability.
Yeah! Re read the first post. There doesn’t appear to have been a collision. Did you make a claim on the third party who pulled out on you? Or are you being claimed against?
There is loads more case law out there then this and powell v moody is not the most appropriate. This is a worsfold v howe case get your solicitors to re -read binghams on negligence!
Correct - no actual collision. I was a new biker and didn’t know any others at the time so when the repair bill came in at nearly £3k I had to claim on my insurance. I now know that not all of this was necessary and I could have spent £500 getting it running and live with the scrapes. You live and learn.
My insurance company decided to claim against the driver’s company, against my thoughts, and this company have offered to cover 20% of the total. I know this is normal and had expected this to be the case.
The reason for the post was cost minimisation – to see if I could get a bit more back before accepting the 20%. Just thought I’d ask because I’ve now learnt how to get out of a parking ticket so wondered if there was anything I could do on this one. Greedy.
It’s handy having a barrister for a flatmate too. All sorted now I hope.
glad to hear you got a flatmate who’s a barrister - thats always handy. well if i were you i wouldn’t accept that liability split - frankly the accident was caused by their incompetence just as much as your inexperience at the time
There was no collision. I think that you are lucky that they are offering 20%.
They would argue that if you managed to deck the bike and it still not hit any car, means that you grabbed a handful of front brake (not a critisism, just down to inexperience… we’ve all done it and sometimes still do… must remember to practice emergency stops on a regular basis) and that you had plenty of time and room to react.
Take the 20% mate, dont think that you are going to get more.
I thought though (correct me if I’m wrong) that if it can be proved that there was no avoidable action other than the outcome then you could claim against them just because you did not actually hit the car does not mean it was not their fault.
If you have a witness that said it was not your fault I would go for it and try and claim as much back as possible, also bare in mind the 3rd party insurer is going to have a mandate in that they will go lowest possible 1st so it may be you can get 50/50 or better but you have to nego…
I work for a law firm that deals with RTA’s so if you need any advice let me know there are a few people I can talk to and get some more sound advise.
but if it was me I would not accept that…
All you have to do is prove that it was “safe” to filter as well, I read in MCN a few months back that a guy tore apart the 3rd party bt gathering all the evidence himself and proved that the 3rd and witnesses on the 3rd parties side had no idea how to judge a bikes speed etc etc…
The article linked to by Steve Whitlow spells it out cleraly in the section re legal prejudice to motorcyclists. This is a Worsfold v Howe type case and you should get 50%. Unless, there is some evidence which you have not shared with us!
