Pedestrian hit by biker - biker trying to claim from pedestrian

JQ.

Tilt wrote: »

In that case the biker has no case. Make sure you get a copy of the police report in case the matter progresses to court.

Absolute gibberish.

So, by your reasoning and extensive legal experience working at a car hire depot you cannot claim off a 3rd party in an accident unless the police prosecute said 3rd party. Is that correct?

johnfarquhar74

Mindless_Clone wrote: »

:rotfl: I beg to differ. Have you never heard of "pregnancy brain".

Actually, no. Is that something similar to beer goggles, an excuse to make a fool of yourself:D

Mindless_Clone wrote: »

Not to mention that your centre of gravity shifts considerably, you're shape and size is different and, altogether you are slower. It may not seem relevant, but if it came to it, it's a case of whether the judge on the day thinks it is or not.

I can't argue with anything you write, but I was wondering what Tilt considered to be 'mitigating circumstance'
From another site, Mitigating circumstances do not justify or excuse an offense but may reduce the severity of a charge. Similarly, a recognition of mitigating circumstances to reduce a damage award does not imply that the damages were not suffered but that they have been partially ameliorated. I'm not a legal type but this sounds like the defendant has already been found liable for damages, I think we've missed a step if that is the case.
Off course depending on the stage of pregnancy there will be mobility issues. If that was the case(and nobody is saying it is) then perhaps the OP's wife would have done well to take extra care whilst crossing. No matter how badly we can imagine the biker driving, he didn't come out of nowhere!?!

Mindless_Clone wrote: »

FWIW, OP, I think, Tilt is right and it's probably a good idea to get proper legal advice on this. I suspect it's a speculative claim and nothing will come from it (Imagine the headline in the papers - "man sues heavily pregnant women after mowing her down" ) but best to get the facts in place.
It might also be a good idea to get the medical report from the hospital she was taken to, and document if there was any losses involved (i.e. did she take any days off work) as a result of the incident. If necessary the threat of a counter-sue for losses/injury might make them back down.

I certainly see no harm in passing the details on to the home insurer if it applies as they will not settle any claim/hand money over without a legal team checking out the facts. As for counter-sue, by all means, some folk think it's automatically the correct thing to do. Personally all these claims just add on to all our premiums, if the biker is chasing uninsured losses then he's entitled to do that, but if he's chasing phony personal injury losses, then hopefully he is not successful.

JQ.

rob7475 wrote: »

Hi,

Last week, my heavily pregnant girlfriend was knocked down by a motorbike at some traffic lights. She was crossing the two lane road and checked that the lights were red first. As she was half way across the first lane a motorbike hit her causing her to be knocked over and the biker to come off his bike. She was taken to hospital and luckily her and baby are both fine with no lasting injuries.

The biker and a witness claim the lights were on green and upon further inspection it appears that there is a seperate set of lights for each lane as one lane is for a right turn. So she may have seen one red light but not realised the other was green.

But according to the Maps link you posted the right lane is for straight on or turn right. And using streetview indicates that there is not a seperate light for turn right, that would have the impact you are suggesting.




If that is the correct junction, then the lights were either red or green. Based on the witness it sounds like they were on green.

johnfarquhar74

Tilt wrote: »

And also no police report apparently. Your case may be totally different.

Different, but not totally. Pedestrian causes road user to come off their bike and sustain damage.

Tilt wrote: »

But it may dictate her maneuverability etc. We also don't know for sure (as there is no evidence) whether the biker was speeding for example.

We don't know, as the OP hasn't said, if maneuverability was an issue, but if it was, then I'd suggest stepping in front of a speeding bike is not wise. But, then again, this isn't what happened. The OP's girlfriend crossed the road when traffic had a green signal. The bike was not seen (or noticed) until it was too late. Now, we either have a bike going at a ridiculous speed(I think greater injuries would have been incurred), a biker that changed lanes without checking all was clear, a camouflaged biker, or a girlfriend that took comfort in the red aspect she saw and didn't look hard enough for other vehicles to come in the other lane. Or, maybe none of the above!

Tilt wrote: »

Thats his choice so not the pedestrian's fault. And you go on to say exactly why bikers perhaps should have fully comp insurance. Who do they claim against if the bike falls over and gets damaged?

Again, correct, not taking out full cover is not the pedestrians fault but that is not to say uninsured losses cannot be chased if the incident was caused through one party's negligence.
As for uninsured damage, if losses can't be had from a liable 3rd party, then I suppose you would take it on the chin. You wouldn't do this if you felt someone else was responsible though, would you?

custardy

JQ. wrote: »

But according to the Maps link you posted the right lane is for straight on or turn right. And using streetview indicates that there is not a seperate light for turn right, that would have the impact you are suggesting.




If that is the correct junction, then the lights were either red or green. Based on the witness it sounds like they were on green.

I'm guessing there was a queue turning right
so she decided to go thinking she was safe to go
The red light is a red herring

Tilt

JQ. wrote: »

Absolute gibberish.

So, by your reasoning and extensive legal experience working at a car hire depot you cannot claim off a 3rd party in an accident unless the police prosecute said 3rd party. Is that correct?

Absolutely not and I don't think I have said anywhere that is the case. What I have said is that the police report (which according to the OP appoints no blame to either party) can and should be presented as evidence in a potential claim. I did not say or suggest that 'you cannot claim off a third party unless the police prosecute' at all so no 'absolute gibberish'. Perhaps the graphic card in your PC is on the blink.

mkirkby

I think we can safely deduce that the bike wasn't speeding. If it was then the damage to the pedestrian would have been extremely serious. At least 200kg travelling at over 30mph has a heck of a lot of energy.

It seems like the first the pedestrian knew that the bike was there was when it hit her which would point to the fact that no drastic braking took place just before impact. Is that correct?

Sgt_Pepper_2

Tilt wrote: »

Absolutely not and I don't think I have said anywhere that is the case. What I have said is that the police report (which according to the OP appoints no blame to either party) can and should be presented as evidence in a potential claim. I did not say or suggest that 'you cannot claim off a third party unless the police prosecute' at all so no 'absolute gibberish'. Perhaps the graphic card in your PC is on the blink.

Let's be fair the op won't have seen the police report unless he has paid for a copy. What the police told the op may not be what is committed to paper.

Tilt

Sgt_Pepper wrote: »

Let's be fair the op won't have seen the police report unless he has paid for a copy. What the police told the op may not be what is committed to paper.

Very true. My opinions are based entirely on the info the OP has provided and we only have his side of events. The biker's account may be completely different.

Mindless_Clone

johnfarquhar74 wrote: »

Actually, no. Is that something similar to beer goggles, an excuse to make a fool of yourself:D

:rotfl: probably!

As for counter-sue, by all means, some folk think it's automatically the correct thing to do. Personally all these claims just add on to all our premiums, if the biker is chasing uninsured losses then he's entitled to do that, but if he's chasing phony personal injury losses, then hopefully he is not successful.

Well, to be fair I didn't say to actually counter sue, just to have the facts to hand so that it could be threat should things progress, and that in itself might be enough to call the dogs off. Personally, if there were no losses I wouldn't actually do so. I don't believe in all this blame culture rubbish. Sometimes an accident is just an accident.
I don't think it'll go anywhere near that though.

OP can't give house insurance details if his partner is not included on the policy. She's not insured.

custardy wrote: »

I'm guessing there was a queue turning right
so she decided to go thinking she was safe to go
The red light is a red herring

Hmm, something doesn't seem right about it looking at the picture. I was thinking much the same. Or that the traffic going through the whole junction was queuing and OP's missus crossed in traffic and the bike was weaving through it. whatever happened, something prevented a realtively slow moving biker from being able to swerve to avoid a probably slow moving pedestrian.