Accident advice

After some help.

Had a collision with a car door on my way riding home, resulting in me landing on my shoulder a few meters infront of the car. Some damage to my shoulder but generally bike and my body in fairly good nik but may need to claim for some damage to helmet and bike.

Never done this before, so any advice, has someone else claimed and how best to go about it?

Certainly not looking for injury lawyers for you type claim.

Thanks

Dave

Did you swap details with the driver? If so give him a shout tell him you want re-imbursing, if he says no then talk about contacting his insurance company.

This is assuming it was his fault and it was the driver who opened the door, no idea what you do if it was a passenger.

1st thing to do whenever you have an RTA is get drivers details and witnesses names/numbers before you say whether you and your bike are OK and you work out whether you will be claiming.

thanks

police are investigating and have driver details and have asked me not to get in contact with them for a couple of weeks while they carry out their investigation.

So the police have the driver details, or rather the person who opened the door on me.

Just waiting game at mo, and will contact driver when police comptleted their investigation.

CTC have laywers who are experts in this kind of thing.

http://www.ctc.org.uk/

http://www.bikeline.co.uk cycling solicitors.

Lets hop ethe car owner was insured,and also was the driver insured,if so theres going to be some big rows between driver and owner.

Thsnks for all the advice, hopefully will all work out!

How did you manage to hit a car door? Should you not always be far enough from stationary cars that if they open the door they don't hit you? Especially if there is someone in the car?

How did you manage to hit a car door? Should you not always be far enough from stationary cars that if they open the door they don't hit you? Especially if there is someone in the car?

Car doors open ~ 4ft from the car, you'd have to be riding ~6ft into the road at all times, which isn't always sensible in heavy traffic situations. I tend to skirt around cars fairly closely to allow other traffic to pass if I'm going relatively slowly, I just hope the person opening the door has a brain and will check behind for cars/bikes when opening the door.

Sorry – should have added a " hope it gets sorted without a load of hassle"

CTC have laywers who are experts in this kind of thing.
http://www.ctc.org.uk/

They won't necessarily do an awful lot to help non-members though.

Leave it with the police for a bit, in the meantime keep a record of what injuries/treatment you have and any receipts for bike repairs. Then go through the drivers insurance company – if things get complicated (and you consider it worth it) you probably won't have much choice but to get the no-win no-fee vultures involved.

Cycling Weekly has a good list of cycling specific solicitors in the back of the magazine, new issue (Sat 14th) is out in the shops today.

Then consider joining CTC or British Cycling for the insurance cover, it's well worth it!

thanks for all the advice.

Tandem jeremy – few points to pick you up on, the car that opened the door on me was in line of cars so not really feasable to see if someone in car or not, and not able to check every car that I am about to pass to see if a person is in the car. Also how do you see past head rest etc.
Had cars outside me that were stopped so riding in a 2 foot gap, no way could have avoided car door.
However, as always experience makes you wiser and will be giving parked cars more room in future.

Also how do you see past head rest etc.

I use the wing mirrors.

Yes, get on to a cycling specific lawyer straight away.

If you were riding between a line of stationary traffic and a line of parked cars he will almost certainly be making a claim against you, and will probably succeed.

Unlikely. The OP was doing nothing wrong in cycling between parked and stationary traffic, whereas the driver a car legally has a duty of care to ensure that they or any passenger doesn't open a door into someone's path. A good friend of mine was punted off his motorcycle recently in exactly the same circumstances, and the car driver's insurance company paid out without a quibble and really fast. Which says a lot about who is in the wrong.

But I agree with the cycling specific solicitor.

Let me guess, was it a woman? 🙄