pedestrian causes cyclist serious injuries – can I sue?

Out in front of traffic, I’m guessing beyond the white line or ASL?

Head down and accelerating hard in one of the busiest cities in the world?

Not a good mix. I understand the OPs frustrations and cycling in London looks no fun. No doubt some blame on the ped’s part but cyclist has his part to play. I imagine the ped has injuries too.

I’d chalk this one up to valuable experience and move on.

suck it up princess.

Without you actually knowing what truly happened this statement is pretty unnecessary and makes you look like a condescending prat.

Okay so after scouring the web I cannot find anything that says that traffic has the right of way on the highway, so it’s seems I am wrong that legally traffic does not have the right of way on the road. But if you ask any UK citizen who has the right of way on the road, what would they say? Surely the consensus that peds are not generally supposed to be walking in the road holds some weight?

Surely the consensus that peds are not generally supposed to be walking in the road holds some weight?

eh?

you need a license to drive in the road. not to walk.

I’m sure I remember my driving instructor telling me (many moons ago) that in the UK pedestrians have the presumed right of way everywhere except for the motorway.

OP – the only thing you should be doing is closing this thread and going to see a solicitor. No amount of conjecture from armchair legal experts is going to help you in any way, and likely the “suck it up princess” trolls will goad you into saying something you shouldn’t.

It didn’t take long to descend into a squabble did it?

Insurance + solicitor + ignore most of the cobblers here.

Not a good mix. I understand the OPs frustrations and cycling in London looks no fun. No doubt some blame on the ped’s part but cyclist has his part to play. I imagine the ped has injuries too.

Meanwhile, over on pedestriantrackworld is a thread describing exactly the opposite.

OP – be careful on this one; if the pedestrian gets in first it’ll be recorded as another one of those kamikaze cyclist, head down, racing, strava, lycra, RLJ, “came out of nowhere” and every other stereotype.

I’m not apportioning blame to you or the ped but just be aware of what might happen if this gets into the Metro or some other rag with it twisted to make it solely your fault with you mowing down innocent peds and all the other extremist phrases that the media love as it could massively influence any potential claim.

Make sure the police have your report and I’d edit out the more hyperbolic bits of your description (eg accelerated hard).

Okay so after scouring the web I cannot find anything that says that traffic has the right of way on the highway, so it’s seems I am wrong that legally traffic does not have the right of way on the road

The whole “right of way” thing is a minor peeve of mine. The term is “priority”, one vehicle or person has priority over another. Right of way is an easement over private land e.g. a footpath or bridleway. I know this comes across as a grammar Nazi, pedantic point and I know that right of way has crept in as an accepted term for priority but the connotations are very different. People already drive around like it is a right and I don’t think this helps.

I looked into this after having a pedestrian walk out in front of me whilst riding through Kings Cross in January this year. Pedestrian was distracted, not looking for traffic and stepped straight off the pavement in front of my wheel.

Thankfully I was only going about 20 km/h and managed to react by swerving very hard, ended upside in the road with a broken bike, ripped clothing and cuts / bruises. The pedestrian saw what they had done and ran away through crowd, despite passers by trying to stop them to hold them account whilst the Police / ambulance were called.

Was told afterwards when I looked into the legal situation there have been few, if any successful legal actions against pedestrians causing accidents to cyclists.

£1000 in bike / clothing damage and hobbling round for a week, still have some nice scars to show.

After the accident I am even more careful in pedestrian-heavy areas, too many pedestrians judge traffic movement with their “ears” and don’t look before stepping out, especially with the rise of smart phones which cause people to be completely distracted from reality.

regarding “right of way” and “priority” these seem to be terms that many confuse.

What I have read (following my accident): pedestrians, cyclists and equestrians have equal “right of way” to use the public highway.

Motorists have no “right of way” but are granted an “exemption” to use the highway by the driver licensing scheme. This is why a license can be withdrawn, leaving the driver with no legal use of the highway.

“Priority” is basically a case of who should give way to whom, at junctions and crossings. What many confuse as “right of way” i.e. “it’s my right of way”, when it should be “it’s my priority”. A common one for cyclists is oncoming traffic turning across them to drive into a side road, when its clearly the cyclists priority.

From what I have read, if a pedestrian is already walking across the road, they have priority over oncoming traffic, which must slow down or stop to allow them safe passage.

This is contrary to what you see in London where motorists will accelerate at a pedestrian to “bully” them off the road. You will also see many cyclists riding at pedestrians already crossing the road, shouting to “get out of the way” when the legal onus is on the cyclist to slow or stop.

A pedestrian does not have priority if a motorist or cyclist is maintaining a safe and sensible speed and the pedestrian walks off the pavement without checking for oncoming traffic:- generally they will get run over, and its probably entirely their fault.

Sucks to be injured but there is something wrong with the tone of all this. If you replace the word ‘bike’ in your story with ‘car’ then without doubt everyone here would be on the side of the pedestrian. You’ve admitted you’ve gone as fast as you can and have hit someone crossing the road.

Can I sue? Is there anyone to sue? the police have his details but would they release them to anyone?

Seems a bit like you are clutching at straws to get some money? What are you seeking compensation for, and who from, if you don’t even know who you want to sue?

the bus had to do an emergency stop to avoid running over the collided mess of both of us and bike

but you failed to do an emergency stop or swerve? or didn’t try to?

The cyclist was going as fast as he could and was unable to make any attempt to stop or avoid the pedestrian. He is partially to blame.

I agree with this unfortunately. Could have been a kid.

I’ve been in a serious RTA on a bike too, and it isn’t fun, but something seems out of place here. I’d concentrate on recovering and not making some money. I wasn’t a CTC member so they couldn’t assist me but my home insurance was of some help covering the cost of damaged items.

As others have said, you can sue whoever you want, whether you’ll be successful or not is another matter.

I would say from your description of the incident and the resulting damage it’s certainly worth looking into. I know that there’s no obligation for pedestrians ever to give their details after a collision, but I’m not sure if you or your lawyer may be able to obtain these from police reports etc.

Whilst there are probably things you could’ve done to mitigate the event, having had many near misses with brain dead pedestrians and a couple of impacts (luckily only one with any severity – pedestrian ran out between cars and by the time I saw her I had not time to do anything – and less severe injuries than yours) myself I know it is sometimes impossible to avoid these things but the thousands of near misses keep me on my toes for this sort of thing. I’d say about 80% of the pedestrians that walk out in front of me these days are glued to their phone.

I would imagine you are likely to be awarded significant damages if you pursue it, however of course the pedestrian in question has probably learned their lesson. I would weigh it up in terms of whether you want the stress of it. You will have to go through events several times, probably several months down the line from now, when you would probably rather forget them, even if your lawyers manage to settle out of court.

OP,

You can certainly sue, and might win, but based on your description, I think you need to bear in mind that you might not – not because you don’t deserve to, but because you might not be able to prove it in court. You need to talk to decent lawyers, CTC has a good reputation. The ped is probably covered under house insurance (or other 3rd party liability cover) so if you do win, you should at least see the money. Based on your description the ped is certainly in the wrong and should be liable for at least a large portion of the damages. However the opposing lawyer will no doubt argue that you should have been going slow enough to stop, and many juries (of non-cyclists) might agree.

I once got knocked off similarly, ped walked out very briskly looking in the wrong direction as I was cycling along. Luckily no real injuries and it went no further. Since then I’ve always taken care to give pavement peds plenty of room especially if they look like they might be considering crossing, but I’m not trying to blame you and if they really run out there’s not a lot you can do. My Dad once had a schoolkid literally run into the side of his car (and bounce off unharmed) as he was driving past.

Surely the consensus that peds are not generally supposed to be walking in the road holds some weight?

Wow, that’s a scary reminder of (some people’s) attitudes on the roads.

However the opposing lawyer will no doubt argue that you should have been going slow enough to stop, and many juries (of non-cyclists) might agree.

This thread is evidence that some cyclists might agree, too.

“The term is “priority”, one vehicle or person has priority over another. “

The only things that have any sort of “priority” are emergency vehicles and even then that’s dubious. Nobody has a right to cause a collision.

The only things that have any sort of “priority” are emergency vehicles

roundabouts must be fun where you drive 😀

Yes you can sue him. Posting up details here like you did might not help though. Key thing is pedestrian “ran out in front of you not looking / focusing on traffic behind you”

IMO It’s unlikely he has insurance you can claim off and my guess is no-win-no-fee lawyers will not be interested (and they take a big chunk of any award), so a lawsuit will cost you a lot of money to pursue. The police will give up the name / address of the pedestrian to your lawyer. Note there is a danger of a counter suit.

Healing vibes and I totally understand your position as I’ve had a couple of incidents / very near misses where pedestrians have run across the road in front of me when commuting, they at just not looking for a bike just like a motorist when they pull out in front of you.

roundabouts must be fun where you drive

Not particularly. People think that they need to stop at them to give way and that others have priority. Roundabouts are designed so that people dont have to stop…

You certainly can sue. My trombone teacher when I was a youth used to also play in the orchestra for Phantom of the Opera in the west end and cycled to/from the theatre. He was knocked off his bike by a (drunk) per stepping in front of him, broke his elbow in many places and was thus unable to work for about 6months. Being self employed he sued for loss of earnings (he would have seriously struggled otherwise) successfully.

Roundabouts are designed so that people dont have to stop…

Shame the highway code doesn’t agree with you.

approach so that you can stop and give way if necessary.

Clearly you should not stop just for the sake of stopping, but you are expected to stop and give way to another car with ‘priority’ from time to time. As I suspect you do every day you are behind the wheel.

It’s awful that you got hurt. Who’se to blame? no idea. If you are suing, unless you have absolute proof that all blame is with the other party – witnesses,cctv, whatever, you will probably not be successful. I hope that both you and whoever you hit will be ok.
I am not a Lawyer.

To add an alternative resolution, after my accident I managed to finally track down one of the police officers who attended and find out the name of the driver, so I rang him up, we asked after each other, tried to figure out what had happened, wished each other well, and left it there, our respective insurers sorted out the material damage stuff without any input, I got signed off for a month to recover and all I was left to deal with was recovering and the flurry of scumbag ambulance chasers getting in touch every year after.

There are three roundabouts within 1/4 mile of my house, all three on trunk roads (A96 and A95) and they are lethal, while folk ‘ought’ to stop, the paths are not clear (e.g. going straight on is a left turn and so on) and folk barrel on to the roundabout without clear sight of their exit being free (so, check anything coming, no, hammer on and turn left when they don’t have visibility.

Sadly my wife has pointed out a ‘serious’ incident on one of them, this morning, involving cyclist and motorist. I can’t say I’m surprised 🙁

To add an alternative resolution, after my accident I managed to finally track down one of the police officers who attended and find out the name of the driver, so I rang him up, we asked after each other, tried to figure out what had happened, wished each other well, and left it there, our respective insurers sorted out the material damage stuff without any input, I got signed off for a month to recover and all I was left to deal with was recovering and the flurry of scumbag ambulance chasers getting in touch every year after.

Pfft! We’ll have none of that common sense nonsense around here!

Pfft! We’ll have none of that common sense nonsense around here!

It’ll never catch on.

If presumed liability was in place as everyone wants it to be, would the OP in fact be presumed liable for causing this accident as a car driver would have been? Was just wondering, I find the difference in opinion between vehicles interesting, don’t see why running someone over on a bike is OK and running someone over in a car is different.

OP…hope you get better soon without any further complications.

i think this sums up my thoughts:

You can certainly sue, and might win, but based on your description, I think you need to bear in mind that you might not – not because you don’t deserve to, but because you might not be able to prove it in court. You need to talk to decent lawyers, CTC has a good reputation. The ped is probably covered under house insurance (or other 3rd party liability cover) so if you do win, you should at least see the money. Based on your description the ped is certainly in the wrong and should be liable for at least a large portion of the damages. However the opposing lawyer will no doubt argue that you should have been going slow enough to stop, and many juries (of non-cyclists) might agree.

Was the cyclist travelling within the posted speed limits?

Did the pedestrian walking out, give the cyclist enough time to react and stop at the posted speed limit?

The pedestrian introduced an unavoidable hazard to the cyclist who was travelling within the law on the highway. Ped did not afford the cyclist the potential to stop. I would put it down to the pedestrian not assessing oncoming vehicle speed, but he wasn’t even looking from the op’s report.

The accelerating hard from the lights occired at the junction, and away from the incident. When the pedestrian stepped out was the cyclist travelling at a constant speed or still accelerating.

I think the pedestrian is at fault, proving that could be tricky and if he doesn’t have cover its a waste of your time and energy.

OP:
Look at your home insurance policy. It will probably have a third party liability section that will pay out up to £10million or so for damage caused by your negligence (with an exclusion for things relating to work, motor vehicles etc.) That is what will pay out if the pedestrian is successful in suing you. It’s a standard part of 99% of home/contents policies (the amount may vary, but it will be in the £millions). Incidentally, when people accuse all cyclists of not being insured, they’re wrong because of this.

The same part of the pedestrian’s home insurance is what will pay out if you are successful in suing him. If he doesn’t have insurance then he can still pay out of his own pocket.

This third party cover is all separate from any ‘legal cover’ options you may or may not have on your policy.

unless you have absolute proof that all blame is with the other party – witnesses,cctv, whatever, you will probably not be successful

That’s not quite right. Civil cases are settled on a balance of probabilities and contributory negligence basis rather than a ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’ basis. So you could sue him. The judge says “Mr cyclist should get £10,000, but he was 20% to blame so make it £8,000”.

I’d say speak to Leigh Day. They’re the British Cycling ‘legal support’ solicitors. If you were trying to sue for mental anguish after someone bumped into you and ruined a trackstand then I’d tell you to stop being daft. But it sounds like you’ve suffered some pretty nasty injuries that may never fully heal (fingers crossed that they do, obviously).

Having done this twice (with drivers insurance co’s, not pedestrians. One direct, one through Leigh Day) I’d say that actually it’s not very traumatic or an interruption to the healing process at all. Especially if LD are dealing with it. You’ll have to have a medical check and provide receipts/valuations for any kit etc but other than that they’ll do the legwork. Even dealing direct with the insurance co was quite easy, it helped that the drivers both admitted fault though. The insurance companies never asked to see evidence of what lights I had, what I was wearing, what reflectors were fitted etc. I imagine the OP would be looking at much more than I got though, so maybe they’ll be more detailed with an expensive claim.

I’d speak to the bus company ASAP to get CCTV and find out if there are any businesses/council CCTV that covers the area. Again, get hold of the footage ASAP before it gets deleted.

If presumed liability was in place as everyone wants it to be, would the OP in fact be presumed liable for causing this accident as a car driver would have been?

Yes, the cyclist would be presumed liable and would have the opportunity to demonstrate that the pedestrian was in part or fully liable.

The OP’s incident illustrates one aspect of PL that I’ve always been a little uncomfortable with (albeit via a scenario that wasn’t the main one I’d considered). And that is that, because UK infrastructure mostly requires cyclists to mix with motor traffic on busy roads, in order for cyclists to increase their accommodation for pedestrian actions such as stepping into their path, they may have to increase their exposure to risk (and harrassment) from drivers of motor vehicles.

As for the OP’s specific incident, the details are unclear. I don’t think there’s way anyone could confidently conclude any balance of fault from that description (I see that some people are merrily filling in their own details…) although I suspect it’s highly likely that both parties would be found to be at fault to some degree. The only decent advice is to get proper legal advice; I’d recommend getting in touch with the CTC’s legal team (I’m fairly certain you don’t need to be a member) and being prepared to give a fully detailed account of events. I would also have thought that if one party sues, the other would make a counter-claim, so you probably need to be reasonably confident that the other party held the significant majority of blame.

out of intrest where did the ‘head down’ comment that is referenced in page one go to? Cheaky edit, or ther posters assumptions.

Either way I agree with many on here, if it had been a car then we’d all be up in arms on the side of the pedestrian.

Would we? If a pedestrian stepped out in front of a car without looking. I wouldn’t be “up in arms” for the pedestrian for sure.

Hope both of you make a good recovery,

This is a sweeping guess but he didn’t seem like the kind of person that would own a house and therefore house insurance.

3rd party liability insurance is typically included with contents insurance rather than buildings insurance, so nothing to do with being a home owner. Also if living with parents, he’d probably be covered by any insurance they had.

There does seem to be some confusion in this thread between “being able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear” and “being able to stop for hazards that you can’t reasonably anticipate”.

If the pedestrian stepped out 1m in front of a bus doing 25mph, would you conclude that the bus was going too fast? When driving on a rural A road, do you allow for people failing to give way out of side roads?

People get very excited about the notion of a cyclist “accelerating hard” or riding fast, but in reality even fast cyclists are slow by the standards of motor vehicles. 25mph would be very fast for a cyclist, yet deemed pretty slow for a tonne and a half of metal using the same bit of road.

I thought the done thing recently after running over an animal was to return to see if it was still alive and kill it if it wasn’t.

Are you planning on stomping on the pedestrians head?

Was the cyclist travelling within the posted speed limits?

The speed limit does not apply to cyclists, so it’s irrelevant.

Was the cyclist travelling at an appropriate speed for the conditions, and paying reasonable attention? Don’t know.

25mph would be very fast for a cyclist,

Yes, I could imagine a pedestrian stepping out into the road thinking they have time to cross…

25mph would be very fast for a cyclist,

Yes, I could imagine a pedestrian stepping out into the road thinking they have time to cross…
[/quote]

Would still be the pedestrian’s fault, though? Or are you suggesting that cyclists shouldn’t be allowed to go even nearly as fast as cars because some people might not expect it?

Would still be the pedestrian’s fault, though? Or are you suggesting that cyclists shouldn’t be allowed to go even nearly as fast as cars because some people might not expect it?

I’ve had pedestrians step into the road when I’ve been driving an electric car. Did I a) mow them down and blame them for not looking or b)anticipate what is reasonably foreseeable and slow down as a result?

As Bez posted upthread, the OP’s description does not allow us to confidently conclude where the blame lies in this particular instance. My feeling is it’s a bit of both.

I wasn’t drawing any conclusions about this particular case, merely pointing out that anticipating all possible events would slow everyone to a walking pace.

I’ve had an incident where someone (I’m guessing from a country where they drive on the right) walked up to the kerb, looked completely the wrong way and walked out straight in front of me. I’d already been doing within the 30mph speed limit, and something about this person’s demeanour had caused me to slow down meaning that I could actually stop. Had they done this a fraction of a second later, or had I been concentrating on a different slightly dodgy looking pedestrian, I doubt that I would have avoided them.

Was their behaviour “reasonably foreseeable”?