You should have spoke to a lawyer or had one present before saying anything to the police.

you pull out of a side street, the 1st car stops in time, but the one behind goes into the back of him, you were not involved in the collision, but did cause it.

Not sure how you’d be liable for this – the last car is too close to the one in front, it’s his fault he crashed.

Anyway. I’m also not a lawyer of course but if the bus driver had to brake that hard surely he was also going too fast for conditions? Given he has a load of not-strapped-in possibly standing passengers he needs to take it easy doesn’t he?

Martinhutch, it’s not failing to stop it’s failing to report. I did stop, the other driver didn’t.

So I’m assuming a trip to a purveyor of finest no win no fee legal advice.

Were you actually charged or just get a verbal NIP? If I’m correct in assuming it’s the latter, (words to the effect of “I am reporting you for the consideration of prosecution”), I wouldn’t panic too much as you’re only being considered for prosecution, or in other words they’re looking into it.

Re. the ’14 day rule’ it is applicable in this case (it wouldn’t be if the OP was “knowingly involved in an accident”, which he wasn’t), although there is a reasonable diligence clause for extra time it takes to track down hire cars, or as in this case, an incorrect reg. no.

The relevant dates in this case would be between (1) the date they ascertained your name and address and (2) the date of your interview / verbal NIP; OP, my first thing to do would be to ask the police when the former was, and I’d still get in touch with a motoring solicitor though.

[edit]

just to be clear, yes, the NIP would still need serving within 14 days but the ‘start’ date is when they found your name / address

Re. the ’14 day rule’ it is applicable in this case

It isn’t because there was an accident.

So I’m assuming a trip to a purveyor of finest no win no fee legal advice.

You might find the “no win no fee” brigade are not so keen once they hear that winning means they won’t get paid either 😉

irc:

Section 2 RTOA 1988 states that the prosecution does not have to comply with section 1 if, owing to the presence on a road of a vehicle in respect of which the offence was committed, an accident occurred at the time of the offence or immediately afterwards. However, a notice is still required if the defendant was unaware that there had been an accident: see Bentley v Dickinson [1983] RTR 356.

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/road_traffic_offences/

also refers to the same in Blackstones

I think the passenger on the bus has decided they have a ‘whiplash’ injury after the bus driver did an emergency stop to avoid hitting you. Mr Bus driver probably wasnt paying enough attention to what was happening in front of him, and just assumed he could just smash on regardless as he is a.- In a bigger vehicle and b.- In a bus lane ??

The bus companies insurance company have received the passengers claim, and are now trying to limit the damage by passing the buck onto you , the car driver.

Mr Plod could have traced your car within an hour or so , even with a partial plate ( I am guessing its your own car , reg to you , at your home address ) if they have the make and model and colour had they felt it necessary at the time.

Hopefully a good solicitor will get this dropped , good luck with it.

Having spoken to someone who IAL (partner at the big firm downstairs) on my way back from work he’s of the opinion that there should be no case on failing to report and that DWODCA is iffy but go and chat if anything develops.

singletrackmind – yeah, my spidey sense says similar, and that nothing was done about this until the injury/whiplash claim came in afterwards – I’d lay a fiver that it wasn’t even reported to the police till then and the whole ‘wrong number plate’ claim is bull****.

The police were called at the time according to the Pc, but Yeah, same thought in principle.

Interview under caution…..hmmm yes that’s a fishing exercise no doubt, as Mbike says.

Sadly you’ve probably now admitted to reversing while facing oncoming traffic.

Its rock and hard place, as you’ve realised the bus is there and tried to get out its way. Also the bus driver should also be looking where he is gong and anticipating this…bus drivers swap routes but not enough to not know what dangers are on the route they take. He’ll know its tight for two vehicles!

IANAL but it should be the other way round, the bus driver sees you and should slow down/stop knowing no space to get round the corner.. As they are semi blind and ignorant of other road users (based on Birmingham city bus drivers…sorry if there are any present)

As you’ve said plenty to dibble then I’m guessing you may see action taken on this unless the CPS actually use their head and tell the Police to stop wasting their time…..or should do.

ring the bus company
pay £10 , think its called subject access request and they will have to
show you the CCTV , well the bits with you in it anyway

I’m confused.

What have you failed to report exactly? A bus not hitting you? Buses don’t hit me on a daily basis.

How hard does the bus have to not hit you to make it reportable?

Next time the old bill come round and start trying to interview you under caution, make sure you either:
A. Say sod all
B. Get a lawyer round there sharpish
C. Get your phone out and start videoing them, they don’t like that much and might run off… 😆

I work a lot with plod, no offence to any coppers on here, but a lot of them spend more time fishing than Robson Green…

Get the CCTV off the bus company, get a solicitor and wait for the CPS to see sense…

I really don’t understand this at all.

You were effectively stationary in the road – the sharp braking by the bus driver was required because of his own poor driving. You could have been queuing in traffic, or waiting for a little old lady in the road or whatever.

Trying to infer that by reversing (slowly I assume) into a parking space you caused him to brake more sharply (than if you were stationary) – again points to his own poor driving. I suspect that he deliberately broke hard and late to try to aggressively prove the point that you were in his way. Sounds like you were only in his way because he was trying to cut the corner anyway.

I am a lawyer but am also on holiday .

The law is not an ass it normally says exactly what you would expect it to.

You must stop and exchange details for any accident you are aware of where damage occours. If you can’t for good reason or if anyone is injured you must report it to the police.

Don’t worry about what accident,means if because of you car being on the road something goes wrong that is a thing to report.

You cannot be expected to have superpowers so you don’t have to report an incident that you were unaware of or were reasonably unaware of damage or injury.

The vast majority of advise above is correct. Not really any such thing as no win no fee lawyers and definitely no such thing in criminal law which is what this is .

My guess is you have been reported for summons not charged . If charged you would have a charge sheet and a court date. If you have these see a lawyer now. If reported for summons the file is being passed on for someone else to make a decision. My best guess is this will go nowhere and be left as a civil dispute for the insurers to settle. NOTIFY YOUR INSURERS OF THIS CASE.

Mr Plod could have traced your car within an hour or so , even with a partial plate ( I am guessing its your own car , reg to you , at your home address ) if they have the make and model and colour had they felt it necessary at the time.

They could have just taken it to the lab and got them to click “enhance” so it brought everything into clearer focus. Easy.

Damage to your vehicle or bus? Proof of collision?

You can’t be charged for failing to report a collision if there was no actual collision. CPS would laugh that out.

Super Troopers? 🙂

A couple of years ago I had an incident when I was cut up on a roundabout, so had to brake hard and when I moved off again a bus which was hooning onto the roundabout also braked hard.

The first thing I knew was a couple of months later when the bus company’s lawyers made a claim against my insurance because an old couple on the bus fell over.

My insurance broker explained that the bus companies get hit with such a huge excess it seems that they encourage the drivers to lie through their teeth to blame somebody else.

You won’t win.

Shall we all ring local plod today to report buses not colliding with us?

We should all call mrhoppy’s local police as I’m pretty sure the buses where he lives in particular aren’t colliding with us.

8)

mrhoppy – Member
The police were called at the time according to the Pc, but Yeah, same thought in principle.

So if the police were called at the time, given an injury occurred, did they not attend the scene? In which, case it would have been quite easy for them to get the driver to identify the “offending” vehicle (i.e. yours) parked by the side of the road. It seems somebody could be bending the truth a little with the “wrong reg number” statement…

I’m a little confused – nothing seems to have been mentioned about your phrase “just as the road turns right”. You also infer that the buses ‘usually cut the corner’ and that there wouldn’t be room for the bus to get past.

Are you actually saying that its a blind bend and during your reversing manoeuvre you not only used the right hand lane but also swung into the bus lane? Thus causing the bus to brake hard i.e. you could have stopped and let the bus past but chose to complete the reverse? If there was a bus lane, the bus should have been able to get past whatever you were doing in your own lane.

Knowing my local buses I’m sure it was being driven like qualifying for Monaco by a big fat, angry future heart attack but you need to be more careful how you explain things, especially if you ever have to write a statement.

You can‘t be charged for failing to report a collision incident where someone was injured even if there was no actual collision.

I think is the jist of the thread.

Reminds me, my mum was driving on motorway in the rain, was in lane 1 indicated to move to lane 2 to overtake a car, checked mirrors started to move over. Mid manoeuvre a van from lane 3 starts to move into lane 2, mum sees it swerves out of way (was very close) spins in the wet, accident occurs (fortunately minor), van driver scarpers whilst seeing accident happening in his rear view mirror. Presumably if my mum had got the van’s reg the driver would have been in trouble for failing to report an incident he was involved in?

Have you a street view of the non-incident location? Would be interesting to see what you or the bus driver could have seen.

Brown vs. Smith 1963

Hogan Vs Undertaker, 1991.