i had a bit of an incident the other day with a motorist that got pretty heated to the extent that i was getting prepared to be hit, which after made me think that had it come to that i would have needed legal assistance.

my first thought was the british cycling scheme but when i looked, unless i’m very mistaken, the legal cover is noting more than a glorified ‘no win no fee’ scheme as in they wont do anything unless there is a cash claim to be made. i was a bit shocked by that to be honest.

does anyone know if there is a way to get some form of basic cover should the worst happen and you need either advice and/or legal assistance/representation?

the legal cover is noting more than a glorified ‘no win no fee’ scheme as in they wont do anything unless there is a cash claim to be made.

that’s what they all are isn’t it (Cycling UK, etc).

Does legal cover on your household insurance not just cover anything else?

EDIT: looks like separate “legal expenses insurance” is a thing http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/legal-expenses.html but they say

most policies are added to household buildings and contents policies as an optional (sometimes free) extra.

Exactly what sort of legal assistance were you thinking you might need? I thought all legal assistance bundled in as part of other policies only covered you for civil claims.

Had the chap hit me I would have instantly called the police, it’s the legal bit after I wondered about as in how to pay for a solicitor or layer should it go to court. Not necessarily to claim damages more to see the f@cker get the punishment he deserved for being a ****t.

Surely unless you bring a civil case (for damages) it will be up to the police/CPS to put a prosecution together, you just turn up to court to give evidence (if required)?

I think you’re misunderstanding the legal process in that case. If the other chap hit you, you call the police and let them and the CPS deal with any court proceedings. You can’t hire your own lawyer to take somebody to court for criminal charges (well you can, but it’s far from straightforward, and certainly wouldn’t be covered by any legal assistance policy!)

The only reason I can imagine you’d need to lawyer up in those circumstances is if you were charged by the police with some offence, but again standard legal assistance wouldn’t cover that.

I thought CTC or what ever they call themselves now would deal with this.

^^^ no, that is what you might assume, unless you have read the T&Cs properly (or read this thread a couple of years ago) http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/british-cycling-legal-covernot-very-good-a-word-of-warning (granted it’s about BC but I’m sure CTC/CUK would be no different seeing as they don’t get involved themselves but just hand off to the ambulance chasers lawyers they’ve partnered with who are only interested in RTCs)