motor accident claim, advise please

silkyuk9

Basically my son has had a claim against him.

bit of a long story but ill try to be brief.

Last July my son was sat at a traffic lights, he was obviously stationary, not moving. He noticed his car door was not correctly closed, in other words it was just on the latch, he looked in his mirrors to check if there was nothing coming from behind him, and opened the door slightly to reclose. Upon doing this a motorcyclist hit his driver side front wing. The motorcyclist obviously fell off and there was damamge to his wing mirror and my son has said that there was a minor dent to the bike frame or tank.

At the time my son took photos of the car wing which also had a minor dent.

that was in July last year. My son is in the forces and before he went away over seas in January 09 he scrapped the car, and he must have delited the pictures from his phone.

Whilst he was away we received a letter from his insurance company asking for a detailed description of the accident as the other party had lodged a claim.

The claim has now gone to a solicitor who will represent my son if this goes to court.

The problem is that he does not have the 'evidence' anymore i.e the car or the pictures to prove that the cyclist did infact hit the wing and did not come into contact with the door at all. if this claim had come to light weeks or a few months after the accident he would still have had the evidence, but after 5 months he obviously thought that there would be no claim against him.

Now, he did have 2 passenges who can vouch for what he had said, 2 other soldiers were in the car. There is also an indipendant witness who saw the accident, and saw my son open the driver door slightly (wether this witness has said the dorr was opened slightly or not is another question).

Ok, so just to recap, my son was stationary and a cyclist hit him on the front wing, yes he did open the door but this was not done to deliberately to cause any injusy to anyone.

What is the likely outcome here.

geri1965_2

The two passengers in the car would not be classed as independent. It really depends on what the other witness says - if he/she will say that the opening of the door did not cause the motorcylist to hit the car, there *might* be a chance of defending it.

If not, then I'm sorry but I think the insurers will have to deal with it. It sounds as if the actions of your son opening the door may have caused the motorcylist to swerve or wobble, and hit the wing as he fell off.

Crazy_Jamie

silkyuk9 wrote:

but after 5 months he obviously thought that there would be no claim against him.

A common but naive assumption. Still, you live and learn.

silkyuk9 wrote:

The claim has now gone to a solicitor who will represent my son if this goes to court.

Not just that, but he'll be representing your son at every stage from this point onwards no doubt.

silkyuk9 wrote:

Ok, so just to recap, my son was stationary and a cyclist hit him on the front wing, yes he did open the door but this was not done to deliberately to cause any injusy to anyone.

It doesn't have to have been done to deliberately cause injury. He just has to be negligent. Indeed, if he did it deliberately he could easily face criminal charges.

It should also be noted that he doesn't actually have to have hit the cyclist with the door to be found negligent. Opening it enough so that the cyclist has to swerve to avoid it, resulting in him losing control and hitting a different part of the car, could easily be sufficient.

To be honest there isn't enough information in your post to make an entirely accurate prediction as to the outcome of the case. Personally I'm curious about the circumstances. How is it that your son was stationary but the bike was moving? Were the lights on green just before impact? Were there two lines of stationary traffic that the cyclist was moving in between? What speed was the cyclist doing before impact?

Geri is right when she says that the evidence on the independent witness will likely be given more weight than that of your son's friends in the car, though certainly some weight will be given to their evidence as well. But as I said, the cyclist does not need to have hit the door for your son to be negligent here, so their evidence may not be as useful as it first seems.

However, ultimately it should be clarified that your son will not be liable for any of the damages in this claim should he be found negligent. The insurance company will pay it. So if you're worried about that there is no need to be.

silkyuk9

Crazy_Jamie wrote: »

A common but naive assumption. Still, you live and learn.

Not just that, but he'll be representing your son at every stage from this point onwards no doubt.

It doesn't have to have been done to deliberately cause injury. He just has to be negligent. Indeed, if he did it deliberately he could easily face criminal charges.

It should also be noted that he doesn't actually have to have hit the cyclist with the door to be found negligent. Opening it enough so that the cyclist has to swerve to avoid it, resulting in him losing control and hitting a different part of the car, could easily be sufficient.

To be honest there isn't enough information in your post to make an entirely accurate prediction as to the outcome of the case. Personally I'm curious about the circumstances. How is it that your son was stationary but the bike was moving? Were the lights on green just before impact? Were there two lines of stationary traffic that the cyclist was moving in between? What speed was the cyclist doing before impact?

Geri is right when she says that the evidence on the independent witness will likely be given more weight than that of your son's friends in the car, though certainly some weight will be given to their evidence as well. But as I said, the cyclist does not need to have hit the door for your son to be negligent here, so their evidence may not be as useful as it first seems.

However, ultimately it should be clarified that your son will not be liable for any of the damages in this claim should he be found negligent. The insurance company will pay it. So if you're worried about that there is no need to be.

My son was on a road waiting at traffic lights, so there are cars in front of him at the red lights, it was at this point the motorcyclist hit. he was obviously jumping the queue, wether that makes any difference or not. all cars were stationary, but none stopped after the lights went to green (maybe they saw nothing) there was possibly cars behind him as well but none have given any statements, possibly because they never saw anything and also possibly because it was not serious and only a minor bump.

There was police present as it happened opposite a police station and there was police statements taken, however, after nearly 8 months will the police still have them, as we have not heard from the police about this.

suze1984

silkyuk9: "he was obviously jumping the queue, wether that makes any difference or not"

just a point but when you take your bike test you are actually penalised for NOT filtering through traffic, when learning to ride a bike they teach you that you should filter to avoid unnecessry queues

space_rider

This happened in Nottingham.
http://www.chad.co.uk/sherwood/Southwell-fatal-crash-woman-spared.4064195.jp

geri1965_2

space_rider wrote: »

This happened in Nottingham.
http://www.chad.co.uk/sherwood/Southwell-fatal-crash-woman-spared.4064195.jp

That is disgusting. That poor man. :mad: