In August my boyfriend was going home on his bike around 4pm. He came into a small town with a 30 limit which he was adhering too. He saw that the traffic was going even slower following a tractors.

He checked for vehicles coming the other way and decided to overtake the couple of cars and tractor as is a normal manouvre to him, as there was no oncoming traffic and there were no obvious junctions. He over took a couple of cars and then suddenly another one in front of him suddenly took a right turn and indicated as she turned. He didn't have enough time to react as he was right behind her so he went into the side of her and his leg was crushed in her car door. The bike tried to throw him off but as his leg was pinned and it snapped the big bone at the top. His bike then went flying on it's side and he went flying to the ground. The car took a bit of time to stop (slow reactions?) (It seems she couldn't be assed waiting and decided on pop into the car wash/self service garage thing)

So there he was lying on the floor wondering why he had 2 knees and she got out of her car and came up to him and said 'Are you alright i'm sorry.' He said 'No I am not alright' in between screaming as he tried to get up. Another lady came over and asked him who she could phone and luckily his parents were only 10 miles away so they came straight away and his mother took 3 pictures. One is below.

Then he went off to hospital and the woman was vaguely looked at for having a couple of cuts on her arms as her window had smashed. The lady gave her statement and there was apparently another witness there who gave a statement. While he was in hospital on the mush diet, she phoned his parents to ask how he was,she said she was so stressed she couldn't eat and she couldn't go to work, once they indicated he would probably be ok, she said 'serves him right'.

He had an operation to put massive rod down the centre of his bone and screws in the end. it was too high in the leg to have a cast job. He waited to see if the police might come and get his statement but they did not. over time the next few weeks he recovered gradually and eventually got walking on crutches etc and got let home.

He has not worked since august now. Yesterday the police came round to see him, he thought 'yeah they are finally going to get my statement' but then they went and charged him with 'driving without due care and attention?!!' WTF? The woman had obviously been pushing for it and she wasn't hurt-she does pray to god and attend church so I think she will feel she has been forgiven now then.

I am not familiar with this procedure so now I am a little worried. It is surely clear she did not use her mirror (she would have seen him?! They seem to have a vague arguement that it was a junction, however if you look at the picture I see no white lines? If it was a junction I would acknowledge that he was more in the wrong but he is the one that is hurt and his bike written off so I don't know how much chance he has in defending this.
He has had an accident before (he doesn't remember what happens then) and been charged for the same thing so that is not going to go in his favour.

Any opinions on this?

Cat

I hope he's ok, and I'm sorry to hear he is being charged by the Police, however I personally would never overtake in a 30 limit, regardless of whether I thought there were no junctions etc. Not criticising, I have a mate who is one arm and one leg short due to a very similar situation, and now the only thing he rides is a powered wheelchair.

Hope he comes out of it without too much trouble.

Jon.

I cant give any advice, all i can say is i hope everythign turns out ok.

The only thing I can advise is to seek legal advice, no-one on here is a lawyer. I have once used RSS and once used the lawyers appointed by my insurance and they both seems allright, needed a little chasing up but I think they all do. RSS will offer advice for free, you dont have to pay anything so it wont hurt to give them a call.

What I do know is that police charges against your boyfriend will make it very VERY difficult for blame to be appointed in your favour but not impossible.

All I can say is good luck with it and get yourself a lawyer!

grey area this, but from the pic you included, hes in the wrong, there is a clear "road" that the woman driver could take & he should have been aware of it. at best its going to be a 50/50 fault, he has to prove she wasnt already indicating & by the actions of the police, its going to be difficult. not what you want to hear but i'm in a similar claim & its going to court, difference is i was filtering & the driver who hit me didnt signal or look. i have no witnesses, however my position as a professional rider & ex chair/vice chair of the local IAM does have some weight behind it. also i only sustained minor injuries & didnt come off the bike-the insurance companies have brought i this far as the driver will simply not recognise any degree of fault on his behalf-i'm only going ahead as his atitude was appaling -he wasnt arsed that i was injured, or that it was my body that caused the scuff marks & dents to his car, but that life these days.

I have plenty of opinions on this, but not sure i can express them without needing a drink to calm down afterwards

She was stressed and she couldn't eat or go to work???? FFS

I'm so sorry what happened to your bf I hope he makes a speedy recovery and isn't scared away from getting back on a bike.



*deep breath*

1st off, best wishes to your fella.

My accedent 2 1/2 years ago involved a driver truning right without indecatiors, though there was no road to the right and we were not in a 30...

I had always thought that overtaking in 'controled zone' was a no no. but a mate who has just done the advanced thing says its not, as long as its safe. (But then i have ridden with a few advanced riders and they ALL scare me.)

Slightly different but might be relevent.
The 'rules' are according to the fuzz that 'flitering' is NOT illegal. But if you get hit its your fault.
Not sure if this is the case for the over taking in a 30?

Fight it. fihght it all the way. ask why they are prosecuting? what was he doing wrong?
Do you have any witness?

Find a good bike lawyer as has been mentioend.

I remember reading an article in one of the bike mags to the effect that if you are involved in an accident whilst filtering the best you can hope for is a 50/50 blame. The reasoning being something along the lines of filtering puts you in unnessesary danger which you do not have to be in.

I'ms really sorry for you and your bf and hope he recovers fully from this. But to filter past a right turning is pushing your luck. Most people on here will agree that bikers have to adopt a fairly paranoid view of car drivers... as such to put yourself in this position is asking for trouble.

Again, I hope he recovers and is able to get on with his life. But I wouldn't expect blame to land on the other driver at all.

The fact that she dealt with it badly afterwards is unfortunate, but neither here nor there in terms of placing blame.

You say that he has had this sort of thing levelled against him before? That sounds a bit dodgy...

Only advice is as above... talk to a specialist bike lawyer and good luck.

Doe's Mirror, Signal, Manouver not count for the bint?

If she had looked she would have seen him,

I dont see how it could be your BF's fault, as others have said get a specialist bike lawyer, there is one magazine that has a page dedicated to legal advice, Fast bikes i think.

I hope you get the 'best' outcome you can and your boyfriend is back on the road as soon as.

I do feel that mirror, signal, manouver is a major point and whether it is counted as a junction too.
Thanks all. He does have a solicitor on it but it's hard to know the right one and this one is insurance company provided so it isn't so easy to get out of using them. There are cancellation charges and all so I am hoping that this guy can do it!

I wish we'd got in there and charged her first!

Boyfriend should be back on the road soon but wonders what might happen to the metal rod in his leg if he was to even drop a bike.

He got a Suzuki 1979 GS 1000 that he had bought the week before in August so maybe it'll get on the road.
His poor TRX is written off tho.

Ah cancecllation fees.

One solicitors company is trying to screw 1600 quid out of me,

but i think im winning.

This could just be me living in the land of naive, but... one would hope that an insurance provided solicitor for a Motorbike Insurance Policy, should be a specialist Motorbike solicitor... I think my insurance details specify I get a bike one provided should i need one...

But what do I know... Im young and impressionable...

Not neccessarily - the solicitors that represented me didn't even contact me and afaik were not specialist biker solicitors - though there are a few out there - mine just worked from my claim form
I just re-read the thread and it doesn't sound a bit like what happened to me - I just meant that they automatically blamed me for the accident. Unfortunately this seems to be the norm when there is a collision between a car and a bike - the motorcyclist is guilty until proven innocent

Cynic? Me?

What has the other witness said?

its seems very strange that there has been NO contact from the police to your bf then next thing he hears is hes being charged.

is it known what the woman has said or how she has gone about it

this also unsettles me bit: 'once they indicated he would probably be ok, she said 'serves him right''. give some insight to her attitude towards what has happened

hope he recovers ok and this is sorted out for you

My wife has a titanium rod in one femur after a skydiving accident. In the ten years since she did it I have asked a few bone specialists that skydive in their spare time and they're equally devided on whether it is best practise to have the rod removed once the bone has healed, or not.

She had to make a judgement call on whether to remove the rod & pins and undergo possibly 18 months of recovery, or leave it alone- what were the risks?

One thing they all agree on is that if you leave the rod in and then have another accident, the outcome would definitely be changed by the presence of the rod:
a low to medium impact would probably result in less likelyhood of a break, because of the extra strength with the rod inplace;
BUT
a high impact could result in the knuckle of the femur shattering, because it's weaker than the titanium rod- obviously this would be disasterous...

As far as the accident and the chances of a 100% recovery, what people have said about filtering is true in terms of the likely outcome- you're very unlikely to win. But it can be done, in the same way that you can win the lottery. I believe that 100% recovery has been achieved following a filtering accident, but you'll have to search hard to find it. A good bike orientated lawyer should know the case.

Good luck with it all

Not that hard, it bought my DSLR!

Although in my case the car was turning right from a side road so I had right of way.

The same thing happened to me whilst I was filtering. A car pulled out a junction and drove into me. It went 1oo% my way.

I'd very happy to be wrong, but I believe yours & Finn's filtering accidents were fundamentally different to the one described by the original poster. You had a considerably stronger case as you both had right of way.

I think that 100% recovery has been won by a filtering biker knocked off by a car travelling in the same direction as them turning right though...

I completely agree, it just seemed like your original post said it was very difficult to get a 100% claim in any filtering accident.

I remember Roddas' accident was filtering when a car (maybe a taxi?) U-turned. I cant remember what the outcome of it was though.

Edit: After a quick search it was 90% in his favour, so he was still to "blame" for 10% (legally speaking I mean).

To be brutally fair, in my accident I actually consider myself partly to blame (impatient and distracted), but I sure as hell wasnt going to tell anyone that before compensation was settled!

That's exactly what I meant, but at the time I wasn't thinking about your off at all- I see your off as a much more straight forward accident, just that you happened to be filtering at the time.

I think Roddas understandably wasn't that chuffed with the outcome of 90% recovery, but I thought it sounded like a positive result- perhaps it was the way it dragged out forever that annoyed him as much as anything.

I think that Roddas' case was stronger than the original poster's case (but not as strong as yours and AlexT's) because the car driver swung a u-turn, rather than "just" turning right.

Just talking objectively, for the sake of learning from it, but you're right to partially blame yourself- it takes two to tango & whether you have right of way or not, staying out of the way of trouble has to be the higher aim of a biker. Apologies if that sounds arrogant- I try to apply those same standards (with occasional success) to my own riding. No good being right, if you still end up crippled or dead.

AlexT i have a good mate who was hit in a simalar way. hes fighting it ALL the way. after 2 years vhe seems to be getting somwhere...

Just keep at it. don;t take no for an answer.

And if by any chance your with Shoosmiths soliciters, ask for a girl called Kirsty. shes ace and very careing about every thing.... just an off chance...

I had a similar accident a while back

I was filtering and the car in front turned without indicating...

However there was no junction,, the driver tried to do an U-turn without looking or indicating,,

after much back and forth,, My insurance company reccomended that I accepted 90/10% in my favour as they could see no financial reason to argue for 10%.

but as I said,, there was no juntion....

How bad was it did you get hurt?

Without having expert knowledge of Finn's or AlexT's crunches it does sound like they were right of way violations as the other vehicles emerged from a side road (it is a legal duty to give way if there are parallel broken white lines marked on the junction), so they would have a strong case in the first place.
Your bf situation is a bit trickier as it would be compared to filtering accidents where the rider has struck the rear or side of a car. There is no legal requirement to look in the mirrors or signal for a turn as these are advised by the highway code. There was a case involving a female rider in London (I think) where the majority of her claim was based on highway code rather than the law but I do not have the details. It is a shame we no longer have TC on forum as this is one of his areas of expertise.
You do not necessaril have to go with your insurers solicitors; White Dalton are one of the specialist bike/biking solicitors around and there is a mention on their home page that you do not have to use your insurers solicitors (to do with contracts and 3rd parties etc - not a solicitor so I am not au fait with the nitty gritty). Most biking solicitors have a freefone number and/or FAQ pages where you can probably glean some more info.
Hope your bf's feeling a bit more chipper. His GP can advise about riding with a rodded leg; may advise against it initially as the rod is there to help the bone mend and the extra vibration from a bike will only hamper this (mate went against GP's advice and got back on his bike - caused a bit of septicaemia but no extra damage other than prolong the healing process)
Sorry to p*ss on your chips

Well it's been 4 months now and the final appointment is on in a couple of weeks. He has been told he can 'drive' and has his other 2 bikes insured. He hasn't needed to get on the bike as he hasn't gone anywhere but commuting will be back on the agenda soon and we'll see how it affects the healing.
That White Dalton looks good. Thanks.

it was not bad at all, thanks for asking

I was going slowly,,,, plus full gear on..

and hurt my leg and foot, had it checked was only sore and brused etc,, nothing broken...



I hope your boyfriends getter better soon,,,,,