cyclists turned right when i overtook

Car_54

kraken776 wrote: »

For example there is a court precedent which states how much not wearing your seatbelt is worth. (cant remember the case name or the set degree of negligence) for arguments sake lets say its 25%

so this means if a driver causes an accident and one of the passengers was not wearing a seat belt the award which would be 100% fault on the driver is reduced to 75% fault on the driver.

I don't believe it does. It simply reduces any payment to the non-wearer by 25%.

The driver is still 100% at fault and responsible for 100% of rest of the claim.

almillar

I don't understand with no parked cars on the right hand side and a field how he failed to see the junction

There is no junction - there's a cycle lane on that starts on the other side of the road, with no signage, other than some paint on the lane itself.

Can I just establish, were these cyclists beside each other, or behind each other? Not that it matters.
I'm still worried that I would have done the same thing as OP and would have ended up with a cyclist on my bonnet.

kraken776

almillar wrote: »

There is no junction - there's a cycle lane on that starts on the other side of the road, with no signage, other than some paint on the lane itself.

Can I just establish, were these cyclists beside each other, or behind each other? Not that it matters.
I'm still worried that I would have done the same thing as OP and would have ended up with a cyclist on my bonnet.

I would say the front wheel of the rear cyclist was in line with the back wheel of the front cyclist.
maybe a little further back.

They stayed in this position relative to each other for the whole time i could see them.

Retrogamer

kraken776 wrote: »

I thought split liability was based on both parties behaving in a negligent manner which contributes to the accident,

It does. But if both stories put both parties at negligence and insurance are unable to decide which storty is correct due to lack of evidence then it goes 50/50 almost every time for insurance companies.

kraken776 wrote: »

The split being what the court (ether a judges personal opinion on the day or a court precedent set in a similar case) believes the lesser neglegence should be worth being subtracted from the main at fault parties neglegence.

For example there is a court precedent which states how much not wearing your seatbelt is worth. (cant remember the case name or the set degree of negligence) for arguments sake lets say its 25%

so this means if a driver causes an accident and one of the passengers was not wearing a seat belt the award which would be 100% fault on the driver is reduced to 75% fault on the driver.

IT does not mean if the evidence suggests a 20% possibility of fault then a person is held liable for 20% of the damage.

The burden of proof in civil claims is 50%
That means if someone is 49% likely to be guilty he is not at fault
if someone is 51% likely to be guilty he is at fault

The problem is, even if it went to court and the cyclist was found to be 70% at fault it still costs your insurance company a fortune and you still have an at fault claim and potential loss of your NCB. Due to this, the insurance company won't take it to court because even if they prove the cyclist contributed via negligence they still lose out.

In the scenario you have posted if we replace the bicycle with another car and there is an approaching junction on the right then the person overtaking is deemed to be negligent for overtaking approaching a junction and the person being overtaken is deemed to be negligent for not checking the road is clear prior to turning off the road.

My personal opinion is there is a greater onus of responsibility for the car / cyclist making the turn to ensure it's clear to do so however despite my opinion or any rational reasoning insurance companies generally settle 50:50
I don't think your insurance company would risk taking the hit and bad PR by taking it to court on the basis that the cycle lane wasn't visible from where you were. They might state if you didn't know a cycle lane wasn't there or approaching you shouldn't have overtaken.

kraken776

Retrogamer wrote: »

They might state if you didn't know a cycle lane wasn't there or approaching you shouldn't have overtaken.

Surely any rational person would understand why that is absurd reasoning and so they would not make such a comment because they know that I will use it against them later.
I would be very offended if they tried to use such reasoning against me and actually expect the problem to go away.

Retrogamer

kraken776 wrote: »

Surely any rational person would understand why that is absurd reasoning and so they would not make such a comment because they know that I will use it against them later.
I would be very offended if they tried to use such reasoning against me and actually expect the problem to go away.

They won't use that reasoning against you because it won't go to court.

But hypothetically they could claim if you didn't know 100% there wasn't a cycle lane or junction there, you shouldn't have attempted the overtake as you should only overtake when the road is clear. This includes junctions, driveways and cycle lanes. Not seeing the cycle lane due to lack of visibility isn't the same as confirming there is no cycle lane.

kraken776

Retrogamer wrote: »

They won't use that reasoning against you because it won't go to court.

But hypothetically they could claim if you didn't know 100% there wasn't a cycle lane or junction there, you shouldn't have attempted the overtake as you should only overtake when the road is clear. This includes junctions, driveways and cycle lanes. Not seeing the cycle lane due to lack of visibility isn't the same as confirming there is no cycle lane.

But it is often impossible to be 100% sure that something does not exist.
in most circumstances proving a negative is impossible.
positives can be proved by the evidence they create
but negatives have no evidence to provide that they dont exist.

case in point there was no avaliable evidence (from where i was positioned) that this cycle lane was there, but that does not stop it from being there.

Aylesbury_Duck

Retrogamer

kraken776 wrote: »

But it is often impossible to be 100% sure that something does not exist.
in most circumstances proving a negative is impossible.
positives can be proved by the evidence they create
but negatives have no evidence to provide that they dont exist.

case in point there was no avaliable evidence (from where i was positioned) that this cycle lane was there, but that does not stop it from being there.

If you look at the road and can see all of the road and you can see there aren't any junctions etc then that's as good as you're going to get.

You were unable to confirm the road was clear ahead but you chose to overtake as it appears to the best of your knowledge it was. But you were wrong.

Hence there is some negligence on your part.

NBLondon

Aylesbury_Duck wrote: »

"FAIL"? How old are you? And what is "falicious"? I genuinely can't work out what you meant to type there, but it sounds tasty!

I presume the OP means fallacious - based on a fallacy.


I'm sure the OP's eloquent language and style will go down well in court...