Pothole - Personal Injury... claim?

Mercdriver

Ebe_Scrooge wrote: »

That's a fair old lick on a bike.

This is going to sound rather confrontational, but ... if you're going at that speed, shouldn't you be looking ahead and anticipating hazards ? Just as a motorist should be. I'm sorry, I'm not meaning to belittle your injuries. But if you make a claim, and win, who's paying for it ? Me, the tax payer, that's who. And you, via your taxes.

It comes down to whether the council was aware of the pothole. If they've previously been made aware of it, and failed to rectify it, then maybe. If they weren't aware of it, then I think there's little you can do.

So you think that anyone who is kept away from work because a council was negligent should sit and suffer by themselves, take loss of earnings, get near as damn all in sickness benefit (even though they have paid for that through tax and NI) and do nothing about it? Dream on!

Councils are insured for the these events, and while I am not advocating spurious claims as solicited by accident claim firms, the tax payer doesn't generally pay for the claims, merely any increase in insurance premiums as a result of such claims.

If you get long term sickness, no matter how long you've paid in for you can only get incapcity for one year. No longer. If someone else is at fault then they or their insurers should cough up the readies.

ChumLee

Mercdriver wrote: »

So you think that anyone who is kept away from work because a council was negligent should sit and suffer by themselves, take loss of earnings, get near as damn all in sickness benefit (even though they have paid for that through tax and NI) and do nothing about it? Dream on!

Councils are insured for the these events, and while I am not advocating spurious claims as solicited by accident claim firms, the tax payer doesn't generally pay for the claims, merely any increase in insurance premiums as a result of such claims.

If you get long term sickness, no matter how long you've paid in for you can only get incapcity for one year. No longer. If someone else is at fault then they or their insurers should cough up the readies.

But the OP has yet to establish negligence.

AdrianC

Mercdriver wrote: »

So you think that anyone who is kept away from work because a council was negligent

Was the council negligent? We don't know. They repaired the pothole as soon as they were made aware of it. That's not negligent.

Was the cyclist negligent? Well, he does appear to have been travelling at a speed where he was unable to avoid a perfectly foreseeable and common road hazard...

custardy

AdrianC wrote: »

Was the council negligent? We don't know. They repaired the pothole as soon as they were made aware of it. That's not negligent.

Was the cyclist negligent? Well, he does appear to have been travelling at a speed where he was unable to avoid a perfectly foreseeable and common road hazard...

The council has a duty of care to inspect and maintain roads. The negligence would come if they had failed to inspect/repair on its set timescales. Also if it failed to action previous reports. Most councils will repair infrastructure when informed and incident involving injury has happened.

ChumLee

custardy wrote: »

The council has a duty of care to inspect and maintain roads. The negligence would come if they had failed to inspect/repair on its set timescales. Also if it failed to action previous reports. Most councils will repair infrastructure when informed and incident involving injury has happened.

Does the cyclist not owe himself a duty of care?

There's no evidence he actually hit the pothole but look at the facts.

Pothole and regular training route, if he didn't know it was there then has it recently appeared since the council last did their inspection?

custardy

ChumLee wrote: »

Does the cyclist not owe himself a duty of care?

There's no evidence he actually hit the pothole but look at the facts.

Pothole and regular training route, if he didn't know it was there then has it recently appeared since the council last did their inspection?

Im sorry Chum. I think you will find my post was in relation to a councils duty to road maintenance.
regardless of which road user it applied to.
You are asking me how quickly a pothole can appear,or am I to be fully versed on all councils inspection schedules for all roads in the UK?

CSales

To clear things up, I had cycled the same route one week prior to this, and the road at the section I fell was slightly eroded, so no pothole as such, merely a bump in the road.

I am very wary of hazards ahead of me and whenever I see a pothole I usually try and avoid it - not swerve at the last minute but by checking it's safe to do so then moving out into the road. If it's not safe to move out there's no option but to 'take the hit', but in doing so I'm aware I need to have my centre of gravity in the middle of the bike, and stand up so that the impact of the pothole is evenly spread throughout the bike, thus preventing any long term damage.

In this instance, I still cannot recall what happened but the most likely scenario is that I've seen the pothole coming, moved out, and hit another pothole (there are four in the road at this location, 2 at driver side and 2 at passenger side).

Was I negligent? Of course I'm going to say no, but what I will say is that every time I descend a hill, I always apply my brakes before corners, and have my fingers hovering above the brakes in case of emergencies/hazards. I am always looking up and occasionally check behind (as a driver would normally check their blind spot) incase I need to avoid any hazards.

Hope this clears things up a little

dannyrst

CSales wrote: »

To clear things up, I had cycled the same route one week prior to this, and the road at the section I fell was slightly eroded, so no pothole as such, merely a bump in the road.

I am very wary of hazards ahead of me and whenever I see a pothole I usually try and avoid it - not swerve at the last minute but by checking it's safe to do so then moving out into the road. If it's not safe to move out there's no option but to 'take the hit', but in doing so I'm aware I need to have my centre of gravity in the middle of the bike, and stand up so that the impact of the pothole is evenly spread throughout the bike, thus preventing any long term damage.

In this instance, I still cannot recall what happened but the most likely scenario is that I've seen the pothole coming, moved out, and hit another pothole (there are four in the road at this location, 2 at driver side and 2 at passenger side).

Was I negligent? Of course I'm going to say no, but what I will say is that every time I descend a hill, I always apply my brakes before corners, and have my fingers hovering above the brakes in case of emergencies/hazards. I am always looking up and occasionally check behind (as a driver would normally check their blind spot) incase I need to avoid any hazards.

Hope this clears things up a little

Not having a go at you here in any way, but what it sounds like is I believe called an "accident".

There is no-one at blame, you haven't intentionally hit the pot hole, or done so through your own fault (i.e. not paying attention).

The council hasn't been informed or had a reasonable amount of time since being informed, to fix the pot hole.

Nobody would appear to have been negligent.

neilmcl

CSales wrote: »

To clear things up, I had cycled the same route one week prior to this, and the road at the section I fell was slightly eroded, so no pothole as such, merely a bump in the road.

If that's the case then it seems even more unlikely that the council would be held negligent.

CSales

dannyrst wrote: »

Not having a go at you here in any way, but what it sounds like is I believe called an "accident".

There is no-one at blame, you haven't intentionally hit the pot hole, or done so through your own fault (i.e. not paying attention).

The council hasn't been informed or had a reasonable amount of time since being informed, to fix the pot hole.

Nobody would appear to have been negligent.

This is more along the lines of the response I was seeking. Thanks for this. It helps put things into perspective for me.