Accident – car driver wants to take my bike for analysis?

Actually I think you’re right

Woohoo, I win good, another person I’ve educated.

This may be a fairly recent general change/improvement, though certainly most policies always provided cover it’s possible some didn’t and it’s not long ago I first looked at policy documents. As I said above, the wording is almost identical in all the policies I’ve looked at, so it’s possibly something which has been rolled out across the industry.

Apologies for that interlude, back to your regular programming…

My home insurance has cover for accidental damage to the bicycles, but the legal cover is an add-on that I don’t have. If I claim on my home insurance, though, surely they will seek to reclaim the cost from the other party?

That’s sounding like the easiest option at the moment, without getting the vultures* involved.

It’s her choice: she can either pay what you’ve asked for, or leave it to the insurers. Why not tell her you’re going to contact them directly?

Is that a reasonable standpoint? What if I was asking for a very unreasonable cost? I’d be very pissed off if I accidentally damaged a POS bike while I was driving, and the owner turned round and demanded £4k to put it right? I wouldn’t want to claim on my car insurance for that sort of thing?

I don’t have her insurance details currently, so I don’t have the option of speaking to them at present. The police are apparently chasing that up and will let me know, hopefully tomorrow. I’ll keep quiet until then.

*No win, no fee lawyers.

You’re being to nice to the woman. She’s trying to wriggle out of paying. You’ve had lots of advice on here which you can choose to ignore.

If I knocked someone of their bike I’d expect to have my insurers involved from the off. The fact she hasn’t tells me she will do her very best to pay you less than the excess on her policy.

If the police haven’t been able to confirm she has insurance and she appears to be mad keen to avoid going through an insurance claim, then I reckon there’s a good chance she doesn’t have any insurance.

The costs will just keep rising for her now if it is the case.

You’ve been extremely patient with her, IMO, so credit for that.

She’s lied to you (about involving her insurance, when clearly she is trying not to do it.), and is continuing to try to feed you bullsh*t about ‘claims being void’.

Either she settles up or you can go down the legal route and it will end up costing her even more.

I was knocked off my bike and the legal expenses element of my household insurance took care of everything.

Took well over 18 months to settle but they stuck with it even when she kept denying everything. Ended up with a reasonable settlement.

Same for my brother in law. The driver kept denying everything until the day before the court date, at which point she caved in. He got a very nice S-Works out of it, but more importantly, money for the physio he needed.

Try legal on your car insurance if you have that.

Buy a copy of cycling weekly, there’s 10’s of no-win-no-fee cycling lawyers in the back. I suspect (It’s the internet I’m allowed to make stuff up :p ) that most of the CTC legal insurance is them passing on your details to the same solicitors for a referal fee, why else would they be happy to back date it!

After all, she’s taking advice from her “legal reprisentative” (likley Mumsnet) and it won’t cost you.

without getting the vultures* involved.

*No win, no fee lawyers.

Not all no win no fee lawyers are the same as claims direct. Of course if you want make life better for the driver and worse for you, that’s up to you.

If you claim on your house insurance you’ll pay an excess, your premiums will go up and they aren’t obliged to put you back in the position you were before the crash, so you’ll probably not get the cost of replacing with something equivalent. There’s every chance they won’t bother pursuing the other party for what is for them a fairly low value claim, and even if they do you’ll probably still lose out.

Heard from the 5’O on the insurance front yet?

So make sure that you have some record of correspondence with her. The initial communication would be useful later if she has been trying to pull the wool over your eyes.

There seems to be some great advice here on this forum so far, I would just add my opinion. It sounds to me like she is in control of the situation. She is asking your for things and making demands. I would now say that she has had her chance. I would proceed in a proactive, professional manner. The usual number of quotes is about three i think. Get four. supply them to her by email, all scans. Then also start to include all of the associated costs that are now piling up, bus to get to work, travel to get the quotes, petrol for the car, telephone calls and everything.

Then politely tell her your plan of action how to get this resolved (i,e, through the insurance comany), and give her a couple of days to respond. Oh, while I recommend the proactive approach, it might be useful to have some legal help with this too. Some solicitors do a 30 mins free consultation, I have used this before to see what my chances are like. If there are further fees, she will have to pay. Again more cost for her.

My guess is that she has no idea how much a bike costs. Many people don’t.

If I claim on my home insurance, though, surely they will seek to reclaim the cost from the other party?

possibly not. I was hit and run-ed, claimed from my home insurance expecting them to chase the driver they just said they weren’t bothered, “Our priority is you, our customer” bet if it was a few grand for a carbon road bike instead of a £100 wheel they’d have chased.

bet if it was a few grand for a carbon road bike instead of a £100 wheel they’d have chased.

A couple of grand is still small beer compared to the legal cost of chasing (and the scale of other claims on household insurance) – I bet they wouldn’t.

some good advice above.
My tuppence worth is to echo comments above, cut off contact with the driver and seek legal advice. I got hit by a post office van and their lawyers were quite aggressive.
I engaged the services of bikeline and they were great, once they decided there was a good chance i’d win (they were upfront in that they didnt want to take hopeless cases) the first thing they did was contact my insurers to ascertain my legal cover.
They were helpful, efficient and knowledgeable.
Keep the bike, go get legal advice.

I bet they wouldn’t.

Guess you may well be right, no idea what the threshold would be for them to try to recoup TBH. Just rankled a bit that the driver “got away with it”

admittedly the registered keeper got points and a fine.

Was knocked off by a bus and I dealt with the insurance company for compensation up,to a point 10 months down the line before they started to piss me about. I eventually got a bike specific solicitor to fight my case. 2 quotes from an independent and one for Evans and both wrote off bike. At no point did the other company want to see bike. Take plenty pics and get the qoes and send directly to your solicitor to send to her insurance company. You don’t deal with her directly in anyway, let the solicitor and insurance company fight it all out.

Any update on this?

Any news?

Ha, just did a search for this thread because I wanted to know if there’d been any further developments! 😛

Alas, the life of the pathologically nosy is a trying one. 🙁

100

Yes, I need closure, update please!

project – Member

http://www.bikeline.co.uk Like i said earlier try , have a look at their website for further info and its free.

If you dont do it legally and correct then she may well go down that road and turn the tables on you.

and stop talking to her, unless you wannt a date.

+1 for Bikeline, they understand cyclists. They were a great help to me a couple of years ago after I got knocked off in the City of London and I can’t praise them highly enough.

Sorry everyone I’ve been busy (getting married) and stuck this on the backburner. We’re at a bit of an impasse though; she doesn’t want to pay full price and I don’t want to settle for less. Neither of us really have a clue how to proceed. But I shall send her an ultimatum email and if she doesn’t go for that, speak to the bike lawyer types (shudder).

Put a claim in to her insurers. That’ll cost her.

Neither of us really have a clue how to proceed.

You really dont know how to proceed, despite what just about everyone is telling you to do?

Police and Lawyer and get a claim in pronto

Yep, don’t let her off. Unleash the legal types on her insurance.

If she gets away with this one, what next?

Issue a mall claims court summons for what she owes you (including expenses but don’t take the wee wee), the limit is £10,000 now.

She will have to respond to that, keep records/copies as evidence and all correspondence from everyone.

Nope, I have no intention of letting it slide. I was hoping to get some money from her without resorting to the lawyers (which will only add to her bill) but if I can’t do that then I’ll speak to bikeline.

You are supposed to report the accident to the police inside a certain time so don’t leave it too long! Is it 14 days? Could be in trouble already

I was knocked off on May 3rd still have a very sore neck and damaged hand. I’m unable to ride but have had a replacement bike already as I had cover via my home insurance.

My insurers looked at the photos of my bike and just said replace it.

Waiting to see how much surgery my hand will need, dislocated finger, displaced bones and sore neck mean at least another 6-8 weeks off the bike!

Not sure about the limit for reporting to the police, they say within 24 hours but I don’t know if that’s concrete. I think the onus is on the car driver to report it – I don’t know if she ever did or not, but I did. Either way, the police have been to see her and verify her insurance details etc.

You can claim for damages at any point in 3 years after the accident.

Superficial – Member
We’re at a bit of an impasse though; she doesn’t want to pay full price and I don’t want to settle for less. Neither of us really have a clue how to proceed.

I’m sorry, but it needs to go to the lawyers now, it doesn’t really matter if she does or doesn’t want to pay full price, she needs to put things back as they were before the accident, if I, or any reasonable person for that matter, hit, knocked someone off or damaged someone else’s property I’d be doing my upmost to put things right, not trying to wriggle out of paying a few pounds, things could have been a lot worse after all.

I think I’d try once more, out of courtesy saying she has x amount of days to pay x amount or you’ll be going through the insurance/small claims, it seems to me as if you’ve been more than reasonable enough so far, a lot more reasonable than I’d have been.

Yep, take it to court ASAP. It takes ages to get seen anyway, and there’s nothing to stop her just paying up before it gets there once you’ve got the ball rolling.

please just file this with the police and get her insurance details and make a claim. Use one of the bike specific lawyers if you need to but this has gone on long enough with enough lies.

This Simple and effective and means that another bike getting hit actually makes it onto the stats. If you don’t report it you have let every other vulnerable road user down. Forget any kind of poor feelings go for that route.
When you have her insurance details (which is why it’s compulsory to have insurance) tell her you will be claiming from HER insurer. There is not much she can do about that as you are making the claim. She will be forced to deal with it then.

I was hoping to get some money from her without resorting to the lawyers (which will only add to her bill)

Why on earth are you worried about the size of her bill? She’s had her chance, all that’s happening here is extra trouble for you.

Neither of us really have a clue how to proceed

No you don’t know how to proceed. She is hoping that she gets away with it. Which at the moment she is!

Ask her either for the value of the bike or her insurance details. If she refuses to provide her insurance details go to the police.

I was hoping to get some money from her without resorting to the lawyers (which will only add to her bill)

Remember it isn’t her bill. It’s her insurance companies bill.

What are insurance companies for? You damage somebodies property. You can’t afford to repair the damage. The insurance steps in and pays for/repairs the damage. Simple!

Superficial – Member
Not sure about the limit for reporting to the police, they say within 24 hours but I don’t know if that’s concrete. I think the onus is on the car driver to report it – I don’t know if she ever did or not, but I did. Either way, the police have been to see her and verify her insurance details etc.

You can claim for damages at any point in 3 years after the accident.
If owing to the presence of a motorvehicle on a road, damage is caused to any other vehicle then the driver of that vehicle must
a) Stop
and
b) furnish the registered number of that vehicle
c) details of the keeper of that vehicle
blah
to any person who could be reasonably expected to want those details

Now the 24 hour bit.

If there is no one about who would have an interest in being furnished with those details, then the driver of that motorvehicle must report the collision to the police as soon as reasonably practicable, AND IN ANY CASE within 24 hours.

In other words if they hit another car/cyclist/pedestrian/animal/bit of roadside furniture/fence/wall/shrubbery then they must stop and tell them or the owner of that object their reg number and name and address of teh keeper and driver if different.

They only have to give insurance details (and then only the name of their insurers) if they have caused personal injury to any person.

If there isn’t anyone around to give their details to (eg they hit a wall in the middle of the night) they need to report the accident to the police as soon as they can. That means they go to the nearest police station to report it as soon as that station is open. The 24 hours bit is only in the worst case scenario,. It assumes even the most catastrophically stupid people would fail to find a cop or an open station within 24 hours. It doesn’t give them a leisurely time period to think about telling the cops while they tweet or post the incident on facebook.

when I was hit I was just required to get an lbs to check it over and assess damage, which was charged to the insurance company.