Son1 was cycling to friend’s house with said friend. Friend has been told to ride on the pavement as it is a busy road out of Windsor. Pavement is on only one side of the road, boys travelling contra to traffic flow. Modest pace.

Car pulls out of ajoining entrance, hits Son1 side on and pushes him out into the road and into path of oncoming traffic. Son1 satys on (not bad as it’s my fixie) and there are no cars coming (thank goodness).

Front numberplate is broken off (it’s a fixie) and scratched, Son1 apologised, driver expect us to pay.

X-rays reveal no serious injury to Son1.
Reported to police – as has the driver.

Discuss…

Extra points – most pavements are dual use out of Windsor, this one was not. Son1 is 13 so over age of responsibility son1 is an experienced road rider.

Damaged someone’s precious car?

30 years if lucky, I’d say. 😐

bombers……

Seriously though if they hit son1 on a bike then they in all likely hood would have hit a jogger. Driver was not paying enough attention (imo)

Cyclist at fault would be my guess

Could have been someone jogging that the driver hit. Car at fault sue him.

can we have a goggle map of the location please, not that it matters tbh 😉

sorry, forgot to add, hope your son is ok

How can the car driver be at fault – he does not have to anticipate a cyclist on the pavement

A bike is far quicker than a jogger

car at fault, should check pavement is clear before pulling out.

A bike is far quicker than a jogger

so a couple of children cycling on a pavement are faster than a good club runner? I doubt it very much

Probably a case of joint responsibility tbh bike riding illegally on the pavement, driver not paying ‘due care’ (although why would he be expecting something like a bike on pavement) to his surroundings.

[edit] reread OP.

A bike is far quicker than a jogger

Surely that depends on the speed of the bike/jogger.

he does not have to anticipate a cyclist on the pavement

True, but checking for a pedestrian would have resulting in them seeing the cyclist.

Offer to go 50:50. Its probably what an insurance company would do. Aren’t number plates under a tenner?

By the sounds of it neither driver nor cyclist were paying enough attention so must both accept a bit of responsibility for what happened and be thankful no one was hurt rather than looking for blame

yes 50/50 is hwta insirance will try but if push comes to shove I blame the driver he crossed the pavement and hit something on it. Ergotthey did not look very well assuming your son was not travelling at interstellar speed [ and chose not to brake] he could have avoided this. I assume he would have hit them if they were on the road??
PS Could have been a jogger with a pram or a small child or a badger chasing a gay Islamic swam. Can we stop the hyberbole/hypotheticals now STW and try to answer his question?

Depends on visibility for both parties, speed of both parties. Illegality of riding on pavement in itself is irrelevant – issue is what duties were on both parties in the circumstances.

IMO generally a driver would have a duty to look out for whatever is known to commonly use thae pavement – which could include pedestrians, electric wheelchairs, wee kid on a bikes – and even adults on bikes at speed if they commonly use the pavement.

Prima faciae if he’s no visibility and gone out fast enough not to give your son time to brake (assuming he wasn’t going silly fast) then it’s probbers the driver’s fault IMO.

IANARTL

if you put a drive in now then there are regs covering visibility either side – can’t remember what they are and to be honest on our drive because is very steep though walls are turned back as required have to edge out to make sure any joggers / pavement cyclists see front of car appearing before i can see them – older houses i assume no regs or is the drive recent but not to standard?
glad young man is ok

sadly i’m away so cant give google maps location. suffice to say it is a large exit with good visibility and all monitored from cctv from the doctor’s surgery where the car was emerging from. if it had been into the side of the car then yes i am liable. but to drive into the side of a cyclist from an exit is pretty much unforgivable. As i sid, if this was on a similar road with small blue signs, there would be no contention. And yes joggers and small kids could also have suffered a similar or worse fate.

police were pretty understanding, actually. And I’d pay the fine to see three points added to his license

I reckon it’s the driver’s responsibility to avoid hitting anything when he’s basically driving across the pavement. And I don’t know that he shouldn’t be expecting bikes (or runners, or dogs, or whatever) on the pavement- it’s not exactly unheard of for them to be using the pavements. Surely it’s better to pull out carefully assuming something’s coming than just pull out assuming it isn’t?

split responsibility IMO. Sounds like the driver pulled out without paying attention to the pavement but son is riding on the pavement. Tough one. I’m amazed the driver bothered to be honest. I’d be pissed off it was me but it’s a teenager and teenager do silly things and also deep down think actualy I should have been more cautious pulling out. Get you son to write a letter of apology from your son to smooth the road politically.

What a jerk ! Hits a kid on his bike, whatever the circumstances, and wants money for his number plate ?? He was driving on the pavement.

I think he is one of those “attack is the best form of defence” personality types. I would offer to see him in court.

actually plotting stuff on a development site as we speak. It varys a little but where my site is it requires a visbility zone of 2m by 2m where access crosses a footway to enable emerging vehicles from private drives to see pedestrians.

Now for cycling it’s a little vague. Even the Sustrans Manual only goes as far as saying adequate visibility should be provided. Digging a little further gives you data from TfL/LCN. This suggests that you should use a design speed of 10mph for cycle ways but does not state visiblity distances.

You then revert to Manual for Streets which suggest a stopping site distance of 11m for 10mph. Typically you use a setback of 2.4m for cars (you might be able to argue 2.0m for lightly trafficked accesses) so this gives you a visibility splay of 2.4 x 11.0m. Quite a jump up over what you need for see pedestrians.

Okay, who needs a transport planner? 🙂

Does having a fixie (no ‘brakes’) matter here or is that irrelevant as it was the son who was hit rather than the other way round?

How can the car driver be at fault – he does not have to anticipate a cyclist on the pavement

Fek me TJ, you should know better than that. Does he not have to anticipate peds either?

Matters not to me, you give way to pavement users.
Driver at fault. End of.
Tell him to swivel.

PP – as MacGyver expalins above he could have looked for and seen any pedestrians but been unable to see a cyclist ‘cos of the greater speed / distance.

Is it reasonable to expect to have to allow for a cyclist being where they should not be?

Just to be clear

The car is driving forwards out of the drive of a doctors surgery and drives into the side of your son on his bike. The visibility was good, I mean the potential existed for him to see your son

I’d go for drivers fault. What about some one in a wheel chair or an electric mobility scooter

I think asking for cash is to wrong foot you when deep down he knows he’s in the wrong

Moments like this when a family membership of the CTC would be handy…

Get hold off the CCTV footage. I think seeing a video of a car pushing a kid into the road would carry alot of natural justice. I bet the doctors surgery has some potential liability

Is it reasonable to expect to have to allow for a cyclist being where they should not be?

Yes. 100%.

techknickerally the driver could spout on about:
S.28 RTA 1988 Dangerous Cycling
S.29 RTA 1988 Careless Cycling
S.72 Highways Act 1835 Any person wilfully riding upon a footpath blah blah blah

but as already mentioned he couldn’t see a person and drove into them so you could throw it all straight back at him

And electric wheelchairs/scotters, some of which can do the best part of 10mph

Not read thread but it won’t be simple! Cyclist shouldn’t have been on the pavement it’s illegal, driver should’ve been paying more attention however cyclist are also way quicker than joggers. Reality, it’s not going anywhere.

Driver at fault. Even more so if the driver was illegally reversing out of their driveway.

Illegally driving out of driveway? What does this mean?

Just because someone is doing something they shouldn’t, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t anticipate them doing it, or the possibility of them doing it, if you see what I mean. 😕

Djaustin,

I assume that your son has now developed some soft tissue damage which was not immediately apparent at the time due to the adreneline etc and will be issuing a counter claim for several thousand pounds of compensation. I’d also be going over that fixie with a fine toothcomb as any paint damage may just possibly indicate structural damage to the frame which will add to your claim (perhaps if you are lucky you’ll get enough for a ‘big boys bike, with gears and stuff!).

All of that as a claim against the drivers insurance / no-claims should cost him much more than a number plate – even if he is not at fault and has no claims protection!

I’d say that a reasonable and careful driver would look across a pavement for all sort of users including cyclists before driving over it. Just because they shouldn’t be there doesn’t mean they won’t. Do you turn into 1 way streets without looking both ways?

munqe-chick – it doesn’t say illegally driving out of their driveway now does it. Reversing is a different matter.

Poly the answer to your one way question it most people don’t look both ways! The standards of driving on UK roads is shocking.

now wonder our country is f**** and insurance costs are going up! Something so minor what happened to “sorry”, “yeah no problems mate” sighs….

As far as i’m concerned the driver can do one. Number plate. tut

munqe-chick – it doesn’t say illegally driving out of their driveway now does it. Reversing is a different matter.

Is it illegal to reverse out of driveways in these isles? (I’m not too hot on finer points of the road code, being on an exchanged licence)

yes if he hit you son with hi snumber plate ther is no way he can claim he did not see him. not seeing him would be him carefully pulling across the path and your son hitting the side of him. he hits the side of your son with the middle of their car = their fault

blimey if i hit a kid of his bike in that situation, regardless of the legalities I wouldn’t be chasing him to pay for new number plate. class a **** imo.
actually if it was my kid i’d tell him to f off, look before he pulls out his drive and stop being so cheap.