DOG owner has 65,000 quid bill after cyclist injured

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-34945382

probably paid for by insurance, but it sets a legal precedant to dog owners, to keep their dogs under control at all times.

About blooming time someone took them to court and won

It didn’t go to court, but yes.

He said he had not cycled since his fall and now suffers from “permanent hearing loss, dizziness, headaches, balancing issues and pain in my right shoulder”.

Sounds cheap.

The compensation, which was awarded to help with his rehabilitation, was agreed in an out-of-court settlement ahead of a hearing in Manchester.

Hmm.

Which is also one of the best reasons for ensuring you have some form of public liability insurance too, the same could happen to a cyclist or runner etc.

The 59-year-old said he made the insurance claim “so people are aware of the dangers of retractable dog leads”.

Fortunately, our dog ate our retractable lead.

Mr Steele was training on Heysham promenade for the Coast to Coast cycling event with around 10 other riders when he saw “a small white dog dart across my path”

So, they’re riding on a footpath….

Personally I think retractable dog leads should be banned, either train the dog properly or get fitter so you can keep up!!

So, they’re riding on a footpath….

Since 2007 its been a cycle path too.

Personally I think retractable dog leads should be banned, either train the dog properly or get fitter so you can keep up!!

I keep telling my dog he needs to be fitter, he dilly dallies 5m behind me getting dragged along. I’ll show him this post and that should shape him up. 🙄

at dog training last week and the doggies were doing heel – the tutor said you can do either left or right – got some positive comments on doggy ‘gee’s performance – I said because we walk a lot on shared trails so I’ve taught her left heel to keep out of way passing cyclists – tutor then pointed out to class the dangers to the dog of right heel on share paths no mention of the cyclists

ps one adjacent council leads over 1.5m long are banned (in theory)

Training on the promenade? What a disastrous place to train; it’s as rough as hell, covered in rocks after storms and rammed with idiots walking dogs and swerving around on BSOs.

I sometimes wonder if anyone has ever done anything right. Ever.

I bet the dog now really regrets purposely tripping up the cyclist.

“I had no idea of the severity of my injuries until I came to in hospital” so no idea until he became conscious, ridiculous statement.

Does this mean if one of the cyclists had hit the dog walker and caused injury a compensation claim would be in a d accepted so readily on here.

Yes of course if a negligent cyclist hit and injured someone then they would deserved to be sued (and/or prosecuted). Why would anyone have a problem with that?

I sometimes wonder if anyone has ever done anything right. Ever.

I know. Have you seen his mudguard?

Surprised by this claim. As a cyclist and a dog owner I would expect a cyclist just like a driver would, to be aware of their surroundings and where their view is blocked or impeded, then slow down. Agreed dog owners need to keep dogs under control, but they are animals afterall. I would have thought it would have been a 50/50 when it came to the blame game.

I had a cyclist pedal full on towards my dog who was off the lead today yelling and screaming (on a BOAT) for the dog to move….then wondered why the dog thought he had found a new friend and ran towards the cyclist. If he’d come off the blame would have been squarely on the cyclist (he didnt even attempt to brake despite good visbility 100m+) and if the dog had been injured I would have claimed off him.

Hmmm. What a load of old shite.

but it sets a legal precedant to dog owners,

It doesn’t, it was settled out of court.

Aside from the vast majority in the 1000s of anti bike hate (and a selection of anti dog hate including death threats to dogs 😀 )… on the Daily Mail, there was a comment on there that this guy has done similar things before, which I assume means suing people.

Whether true or not I don’t know. It was the Mail.

I would have thought it would have been a 50/50 when it came to the blame game.

There’s not enough detail in the article to tell how to apportion blame. Presumably the dog owner was advised that settling out of court for £65k was cheaper than the likely outcome of getting a judge to award damages – i.e. the facts of the case were probably clear enough that the judge would have found against the dog owner.

If he’d come off the blame would have been squarely on the cyclist (he didnt even attempt to brake despite good visbility 100m+) and if the dog had been injured I would have claimed off him.

I wouldn’t count on that, based on this case…

mintimperial – Member
I wouldn’t count on that, based on this case…

Settled out of court so no precedent set.
Can’t be referred to because of that.

The 59-year-old said he made the insurance claim “so people are aware of the dangers of retractable dog leads”.

much as i dont want to, i think this is BS. wtf was he doing “training” on a promenade. It doesnt take a seconds thought to know that shared spaces need to be treated with a huge amount of caution. What if it was a toddler not a dog? You get the usual strava-louts on full aero TT bikes on the shared spaces round these here parts and it really gets on my tits because it makes us ALL look like ****ends.

he could not “quite believe all of this has been caused by someone who could not control their dog”.

sounds to me like you could not control your effing bike Tony!

hashtag Daily-mail-sad-face-plastic-pedals

Agreed dog owners need to keep dogs under control, but they are animals afterall.

I think that means you need to exercise even more caution/control of said beast; its not a get out clause as its your unpredictable animal 🙄

I would have thought it would have been a 50/50 when it came to the blame game.

Well you would be wrong.

I had a cyclist pedal full on towards my dog who was off the lead today yelling and screaming (on a BOAT) for the dog to move….then wondered why the dog thought he had found a new friend and ran towards the cyclist. If he’d come off the blame would have been squarely on the cyclist (he didnt even attempt to brake despite good visbility 100m+) and if the dog had been injured I would have claimed off him.

I hope you are trolling
Whilst they cyclists is being unwise[ and one would assume they are on the boat and not aiming at your dog- was it in the middle of the BOAT?- its your **** dog so either control it or put it on lead but dont blame it or other people for its actions. You are the one responsible.

You may as well argue that if your dog was at the side of a road and if a car did not slow down and then your dog chased its “new friend”* and git hot you would sue the driver. your argument is that daft.

I do slow for dogs but that is because I have found a small number of their owners are irresponsible dicks who endanger me with their lax regard to their duty of care to the dog and others.

* not everyone has dogs and not everyone can tell what is friendly and what is not and it may spook people.

What if it was a toddler not a dog?

On a retractable lead ? If my child ran in front of a cyclist or a cat I would not blame the thing they hit personally as I realise its my job to control my child even on shared use spaces.

I do slow for dogs but that is because I have found a small number of their owners are irresponsible dicks who endanger me with their lax regard to their duty of care to the dog and others.

I also thank owners who control their dogs either by having them on a short lead or can shout their dogs and they respond.

I also stop pat and stroke freindly dogs who are on a narrow cycle path, sometimes their owners go into angry mode,before realising im a freindly cyclist who likes dogs, and not some psycho cyclist on a bike

true it all sorts of depends yesterday I ended up track standing to an old boy having a sniff as the owner apologised and the stubborn sod would not move.

Like all these things you act as you have to and a bit of give and take is the answer but owners really should be able to control their dogs as they are the ones taking them into a shared space

Imagine if i just let my bike crash into folk and argued it was not my fault as bikes will be bikes etc and then sued them

wtf was he doing “training” on a promenade.

Are we reading too much into the reporter’s use of the word ‘training’?

Also says he was in a group of 10. So was this a group of 10 unfit inexperienced cyclists, on a path appropriate to their skills and experience at the time, getting ready for a rather gently paced charity c2c, or was it an experienced (and I suppose in that case irresponsible) chain gang tearing along at >25mph? Given the photo if him nit in Lycra and not on a carbon TT bike (and that criminal mudguard!!) my gut feeling is probably not as slow and wobbly as first possibility, but far closer to that one than the second…

I wouldn’t count on that, based on this case…

Settled out of court so no precedent set.
Can’t be referred to because of that.[/quote]

Quite right, sorry, I didn’t mean formal legal precedent, shouldn’t have called it a ‘case’.

I just meant: just because you think something can’t possibly be your fault doesn’t mean the law (or other people) will agree with you, and this story is potentially an example of that. If your dog isn’t under your control and it causes an accident, you could well be found to be to blame. Junkyard has put it a bit more bluntly, and perhaps makes an alternative viewpoint a little clearer… 😉

Are we reading too much into the reporter’s use of the word ‘training’?

Also says he was in a group of 10. So was this a group of 10 unfit inexperienced cyclists, on a path appropriate to their skills and experience at the time, getting ready for a rather gently paced charity c2c, or was it an experienced (and I suppose in that case irresponsible) chain gang tearing along at >25mph? Given the photo if him nit in Lycra and not on a carbon TT bike (and that criminal mudguard!!) my gut feeling is probably not as slow and wobbly as first possibility, but far closer to that one than the second…

I’m going with a mixture of the first option – a fairly sedate group of relatively inexperienced riders – coupled with some potentially misleading (intentionally or otherwise) journalism.

To many people, especially the more experienced / serious style of rider found on here and many bike forums, “training” means smashing it, strava, heart rates, going fast.
But to some people – those just getting into sport, those recovering from illness or injury – “training” can mean a gentle jog or a 10-mile ride to the café and back. Going by the photo of him, I’m suspecting he’s very much the gentle pootle style of riding than the strava lout.

But flick this story around a bit: suppose that it wasn’t a little old lady dog walker and a middle aged male cyclist but a hoodie-wearing chav and a 10 year old kid on a bike. My guess is that the Daily Wail would be calling it the other way, blaming the dog owner rather than the rider. Stereotypes can be quite strong sometimes…

Heysham Prom is bloody huge although when I lived up near there cycling was forbidden on it. They conducted a year-long trial of allowing bikes which some vociferous locals, in standard Daily Fail mode, predicted chaos and pedestrians being mown down and kids being slaughtered by huge marauding flocks of cyclists but naturally the trial went off without a hitch and they opened up the Prom to bikes.

Presumably you don’t think you have any responsibility for controlling your dog 🙄

No cyclist better hit me when I’m walking my dogs!

Is this how it works?

Replace ‘dog’ with ‘cyclist’ and make the rider a driver.

See?

Everyone cheering and hating here should be ashamed.

Cyclist comes from behind wall and rides across directly in front of car giving driver no time to stop and resulting in serious injuries to driver?

What is it I’m supposed to be seeing?

no idea but obviously not the facts whilst reaching a judgement on blame

I think this is another of those repeated BS things – that those of us who tend to consider that cyclists aren’t to blame for reported cases only think that because they’re cyclists, rather than because of the facts of the case.

I find the idea that a cyclist might cause serious injury to a driver interesting though.

Dogerists are a quite precious bunch generally (IME), to have decided to settle rather than fight the case the dog owner (or more likely their insurer’s solicitor) must have felt there was some merit to the case.

Not taking it forwards does leave the legal system without some potentially useful precedent… Making me question this a bit;

The 59-year-old said he made the insurance claim “so people are aware of the dangers of retractable dog leads”.

But then if you ended up with a bolloxed sense of balance and partial loss of hearing all because some dizzy tit can’t control their furry surrogate properly? I reckon a fair few people would feel justified in trying to gouge them a bit financially…