I have some sympathy for the guy. I am in my fifties and rode BKB (and Surrey) for the first time last month

I have introduced quite a few roadies to MTBing over the years and I always take a few minutes teaching them to get their saddles down and get their arses onto the back wheel when descending.. Avoiding an OTB is never best learnt from personal experience

A few years back a guy I would regard as an expert rider both fast and technically proficient fell in that exact same place on barrys breaking his collar bone IIRC. It was just one of those things. Anyone can fall anywhere and in my view Barrys is as simple as trail as it’s possible to ride barring towpaths. It’s fun the faster you go but it is without a doubt within the capabilities of anyone who can ride a bicycle. What happened to this chap is truly tragic and absolutely shit luck but life happens and I can’t see it being the instructors fault unless this guy was at “using stabilisers” level..

if I go to the climbing wall for example I sign a disclaimer accepting that climbing is a dangerous sport, so if I injure myself from falling off and there is nothing wrong with the wall I can’t sue them for my injuries.

However if one of their top ropes failed such a disclaimer would have no value, because that’s not an expected risk.

Not sure of the comparison between this and a skills course where the participant wants to ride challenging and technical tracks. As I said earlier, you can’t learn this without doing it.

Barrys is as simple as trail as it’s possible to ride barring towpaths

You’d really say that? I’ve only ridden it years ago, before it was changed, but there are tons of trails, even in the Surrey Hills that are simpler than BKB, yet not as simple as towpaths. Can’t believe it’s changed that much.
Totally agree with it being shit luck though.

buckster – Member
Was this it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvAhJ81dCss
18 and or 39 seconds…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgdDPdfuGfM
…42 seconds?
Edited as original still is wrong I think

10 years ago I remember seeing a very good rider go OTB on that gully at 18 secs above. He was fine and we had a laugh about it. But that – along with loads of other offs over the years – highlight how easy it is to get it wrong, even on the insignificant stuff.

Modern BKB on a Boris Bike 😉

http://www.pinkbike.com/video/419489/

(BKB from about 3mins)

I notice the infamous roll/drop in question is edited out.

I wasn’t – I was simply using it to illustrate the point of having a disclaimer as it’s a bit simpler.

Have mixed views on this having been a claims manager back in the 90s just as ambulance chasing began to take off here on the mainland.

I’m struggling to see from the reports we have seen that the instructor was negligent. Someone fluffs a line once, you tell them what to do, they do it again – fixating on the wrong thing probably – then you step in. Only it was already too late in this case.

It’s years since I worked in that field, but I’m assuming the defence of “volenti” still applies? You do something with risk you accept the risks.

Tragic for the claimant, obviously. Could have real repercussions for the outdoor activity industry if the standard of care required is raised too high if the claimant wins – from the facts that I have seen, anyway.

Big implications for those who instruct youngsters as well. I’ve got friends who run the county Scout cycling group, one of whom is about to set up his own business doing training and kids cycling holiday clubs.

Been out of the loop for a while. Any updates on this?

http://road.cc/content/news/210799-paralysed-cyclist-set-%C2%A33m-damages-mountain-biking-instructor-after-winning-high

That might upset the outdoor industry…

If you’re a mtb instructor expect a huge hike in your premiums 😯 . I would have thought £3,000,000+ is more than insurer’s have ever taken in premiums since mtb instruction started.

ooft!

Given his reasons/ruling I would think more 50/50 or 60/40 – not sure how much of this proportioning actually translates into damages though.

More concerning given the high profile of BKB & this kind of ruling in the sport. What is there to stop people now from riding S.Hills and the like and suing the LO? Does it get even more complicated for official trails in areas like this thinking more S Lightning in Leith?

So the court finds negligence on two counts
1) that the instructor did not find out the trainees level of skill beforehand. seem negligent to me. I would expect and instructor to do so both by asking and by assessing folk over simple obstacles first

2) that he encouraged him to ride it a second time at speed. More dubious this one. going faster is often safer and not braking on the downslope of a bombhole is the right thing to do usually. this one is more arguable.

Nothing in this judgement changes anything. YOu have a right to expect your instructor is competent and the court found this one wasn’t

tuskaloosa – very different with the landowner. Does a duty of care exist – perhaps yes but the whole legal relationships are very different and much harder to make a case. ONly if the landowner knew there was something dangerous on the land and did nothing about it and the danger was unavoidable by landusers.

some reasonable definitions and explanation of negligence for anyone interested.

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/negligence

Sad accident and story with no winners. Still find the whole story incongruous frankly.

Total farce. Poor instructor. Don’t have the words for the money grabber.

Just a point on disclaimers – you can’t be asked to sign away your legal rights to recover losses due to someone else’s negligence.

break a nail or get a harness wedgie from a small fall at a climbing wall – difficult to complain if you’ve signed to say you understand it can be dangerous.

If you fall, the rope breaks and you get badly injured because they set up the top rope with hairy string instead of climbing rope, they’ve been negligent, they’re liable for your injuries, and you should get a recovery from them, disclaimer or not.

Same thing with “at owners risk” in car parks – open town centre car park, someone keys your car, your problem. The “at owners’ risk” sign falls and scrapes your paint because someone’s used blu-tac instead of screws – they’ll be paying.

Another point is your held to different standards depending on the level of skill you claim to have. For example as a nurse if I render first aid to someone I am expected to be more skilled than a person with no training. An A&E consultant would be held to a higher level. So I could do something when rendering first aid and if I make a blunder I could be sued but a layperson making the same blunder would not.

In this case the instructor is held to a higher standard than a layperson would be.

Could be the end of mtb instruction ? If they can’t get liability insurance at a reasonable cost the sector will be die.

Its a horrible thought / scenario, Jamba…

and a complete nonsense. This case changes nothing at all

Will the insurance just pay out now or are they likely to take it to appeal?

TJ, we don’t know it’s a nonsense yet. I don’t know any rich instructors. They might choose to find another way to make a living. Most I know do it for the fun/lifestyle aspect but a worry of something like that over your head could easily suck the fun out of it.

Is the guy still coaching? I’d take a session with him out of curiosity if he is.

I’ve been coached by good and bad but neither made me feel particularly at risk.

Crap judgement in my view ‘steep’ ‘novice’ – important words used that mean nothing in the facts of the case.
How can you not know something is beyond your limits when you’ve already bloody ridden it!
Angry. Doesn’t effect me in the slightest, but it’s made me angry!

Perhaps golf is a better pastime for some people. I do feel for the guy, paralysis is no joke but to then royally screw someone over for your own obvious mistake is awful. The bottom line is that Barrys is now and has never been anything but a fully green super easy child friendly run. This was an accident pure and simple.

Perhaps we should regress to the state when mountain bikers taught themselves or learned from friends, put a £ on it and this shit happens. Can I expect to get sued for showing a tourist a new run in the hills if they cock up and stack it?

Could be the end of mtb instruction ?

No. It isn’t.
Plenty of cases of damage being awarded in similar cases, in the outdoor industry and others.
This *is* the point of insurance for such things.

Can I expect to get sued for showing a tourist a new run in the hills if they cock up and stack it?

A *very* different situation from being a paid professional – trained, competent and considering the needs and risks of students with a clear contract.

This changes nothing.
(I say that as an outdoor instructor close to a few incidents, up to and watching my boss go through a fatal accident enquiry in the outdoors.)

£3M for falling off a bike. Brilliant. What a joke.

Bloke sounds like a total prat to me.

As said before, it might not necessarily be him that is bringing the case. Might be his employer, or his insurance company for example. You can’t condemn him for what you don’t know.

The road.cc article states that the instructor was qualified, but does not mention what qualification.

Cycling UK/the CTC appear to be one of the main (only?) bodies issuing MTB instructor qualifications, and MTB instuctors with that qualification can get liability insurance from Cycling UK.

Could be the end of mtb instruction ? If they can’t get liability insurance at a reasonable cost the sector will be die.

If the instructor in this case had cover from the Cycling UK insurance scheme, and if that scheme has most/all of the market (which is very possible with a niche type scheme like that), then this accident and court award could certainly have a major effect on the price of cover. The insurer will obviously have the reserves to pay the award, but the case would make it review the scheme carefully to consider whether it will be profitable in the future. It’s very unlikely that the insurer would stop underwriting the scheme and that Cycling UK could not find a replacement insurer to underwrite it, but the premiums paid by instructors (passed onto customers in the course costs) could rise significantly.

A few thoughts:

– is there a recognised code of practice for MTB tuition? The article indicates the instructor was negligent in properly assessing the skill level of the rider. Procedures and guidance for assessing skill levels and how to train skills are something I would expect to see in a code of practice.

– what auditing and re-testing do Cycling UK and any other providers do of instructors? It’s not enough to issue a qualification: an accrediting body needs to take active steps to monitor the performance of those who hold its qualification and use it to attract customers. According to the scanned image I’ve seen of the Certificate issued by Cycling UK/CTC to one instructor, the Certificate does not have an expiry date or indicate for how long the qualification is valid. The trend now is for any work related type skills qualification to have a limited duration, at the end of which refresher training/re-testing is required.

The things above are part of a maturing field/’industry’. Mountain biking is a relatively new sport compared with other outdoor sports like climbing and kayaking etc., so probably still has some way to go before the overall standards of training and instruction are as good/mature.

I wonder if I should’ve sued the bike shop that loaned me a demo bike with semi=slick summer tyres in the rain, when I crashed and broke my neck due to the tyres having no grip on wet roots.
Er, no, cos I’m not a ****.

I wonder if I should’ve sued the bike shop that loaned me a demo bike with semi=slick summer tyres in the rain, when I crashed and broke my neck due to the tyres having no grip on wet roots.
Er, no, cos I’m not paralysed from the neck down and they were not there instructing me to ride it over said terrain

FTFY

again as I said.

I have a life insurance and critical illness cover policy. If I contract a life limiting condition my insurer pays out to cover my mortgage, loss of earnings, house conversion costs and so on.

If I had to claim on that due to someone else’s negligent action, is it unreasonable my insurer would look to his insurer to cover the payout instead?

It is not necessarily the rider that has brought this case.

£3M for falling off a bike. Brilliant. What a joke.

Bloke sounds like a total prat to me.

That and the other similar remarks suggesting that the man should not have sued the instructor are simply stupid ignorant comments.

The fact that his claim has been successful, albeit with 20% contributory negligence, indicates that the court agreed the instructor was negligent and substantially responsible for the accident.

Some people will happily acquire their skills entirely on their own by practicing jumps etc., and accept that any accident or injury is down to themselves, but others will want to have training from a paid expert instructor because it should be a safer and quicker way to learn and improve skills.

If you take money from people to train them in a potentially dangerous sport, then you have a responsibility to provide instruction to certain minimum safety standards. That is why people pay for such training: they lack both the skills and also judgement/knowledge of what they can safely attempt to do, so they rely on the instructor’s superior knowledge.

Liability insurance is relatively cheap, and provides a valuable function to society for this sort of situation where someone suffers life changing injuries. It is also a useful driver to improve standards in workplaces (and this was a work related accident): businesses and industries that have poor safety records and rubbish claims experience, rapidly find that they have to implement systems and procedures to improve their performance, either at the specific insistance of their insurers, or because they are facing rising premiums and know they must improve their claims experience to prevent excessive insurance price rises.

Suggesting that the rider in this case should just suck it up is crass. Hopefully, this case will instead be something that helps to drive improvement in safety standards and the quality of tuition in the UK MTB skills instruction sector.

FTFY

I know I know. In my defence I did mention that the whole thing had made me angry.

Bloke sounds like a total prat to me.

The bloke’s in a wheelchair.

again as I said.

I have a life insurance and critical illness cover policy. If I contract a life limiting condition my insurer pays out to cover my mortgage, loss of earnings, house conversion costs and so on.

If I had to claim on that due to someone else’s negligent action, is it unreasonable my insurer would look to his insurer to cover the payout instead?
…and as I said back on p3, a life insurer cannot claim back from a negligent third party in this way – see subrogation for more info.

It might be a recovery by some sort of other insurance – medical or maybe even a household insurer – but I just doubt it in this case.

My guess is that as a lawyer he would have the expertise/friends to bring the case and would have been well aware that the instructor had insurance hence the £4m claim.

The bomb hole at the start of BKB certainly has been steep enough in the past with a “round out” at the bottom that if you hit it at and speed (or yanked on the front brake?) and went otb it could end badly.

Horrible the lot of it. Cant get angry with the paralysed bloke though.

2) that he encouraged him to ride it a second time at speed. More dubious this one. going faster is often safer and not braking on the downslope of a bombhole is the right thing to do usually. this one is more arguable.

This seems a strange decision, I agree wholeheartedly. It would be simplicity itself for the defence to have a stream of the most qualified and experienced in the sport to make this case beyond reason.

This is totally true, this is why people go to instructors, to learn things like this. I suggest they appeal this as this part of the ruling is just wrong.