Letter from a solicitor re an RTA in July 2017

midimaomao

AdrianC wrote: »

The only thing that's important here is the bit you quote as paragraph 3.

Thank you , yes, I did take a photo and forwarded to Hertz Claims last night.

midimaomao

ampersand wrote: »

Op, you need to hit the 'quote' button to respond to a particular post.

Your posts #10, #11, #12 lack anchorage and guesswork will not help you receive sound advice.

wgl2014's #9 is correct.

Be sure that Hertz do not 'settle' anything without your full input. They tend to cave when private parking scumpanies bully hirers with speculative invoices, posing as "fines".

Apologies, I have not been on forum for a while. It was a bit of shock to receive this letter and I was on my phone to check all useful advice from you all.

Thank you very much for your reply.

AndyMc.....

ampersand wrote: »

Op, you need to hit the 'quote' button to respond to a particular post.

Your posts #10, #11, #12 lack anchorage and guesswork will not help you receive sound advice.

wgl2014's #9 is correct.

Be sure that Hertz do not 'settle' anything without your full input. They tend to cave when private parking scumpanies bully hirers with speculative invoices, posing as "fines".

How do you suggest he does that?

midimaomao

IanMSpencer wrote: »

As per AdrianC.

This is entirely normal. I would think that the motorcyclist has been hit on by a dodgy claim solicitor who is trying for a speculative injury claim.

There are a couple of reasons for doing it - if the motorcyclist had third party, getting Hertz to concede a knock for knock will get the motorcycle repaired, and there is always the off-chance that Hertz insurers may pay out something rather than go through the hassle of arguing. It is in no way a reflection that you may have been dishonest, it is treating insurance as a faceless cash supplier.

As they suggest, pass it on to Hertz, make no reply yourself.

Thank you very much for the detailed reply - well noted and I shall not reply to the solicitor. To be perfectly honest, I am really interested to know on what basis they attempted to accuse me for anything? It was a very basic car and I could have been injured as well. I have uploaded a picture though I have no moto insurance knowledge to know whether the car would have been written off. I was told by Hertz it was likely to be the case when I returned the car to them after the accident.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lin5wgfrq9hqimi/IMG_9241.JPG?dl=0

midimaomao

debtdebt wrote: »

You're right. Even if the solicitors for the motorcyclist can prove that the OP is even 10 or 20% at fault it would be worth pursuing a claim. The motorcyclist gets at least something for his injuries which could be quite a lot of they are serious and the solicitors get all their costs paid.

Thank you. I trust the police has got the full story and I am perfectly happy to give them whatever they want. I hope they had CCTV somewhere that captured the whole accident. I only want the truth - this is how I feel at the moment.

midimaomao

NBLondon wrote: »

I'll bite....

So OP had just crested the hill and the motorcycle following came over the hill at a higher speed and ran into the back of OP...

OP hasn't mentioned slowing down or doing an emergency stop so that suggests the biker had failed to notice they were following a car on the uphill bit? Or the biker turned out of a side-turning and accelerated madly over the brow of a hill? Both of which suggest the biker was reckless.

A moving motorcycle hits an already moving car with enough speed differential to write off the car suggests that either a) the OP was driving quite slowly or b) the bike was at high speed. The OP did say the biker was seriously injured - so I wonder if ambulance chasing has come into play.

So - in addition to advice above 1) send copy to Hertz with covering letter that states you do NOT accept any liability 2) If you have legal insurance as part of your own car insurance (or with home insurance) read the small print of that to see if it will provide a solicitor should one be needed at a later stage. Did you get a copy of the police report?

Thank you very much for your understanding - Sorry my English is not good enough but your above description is exactly what happened.

Yes, the ambulance arrived within 30 minutes and took him to hospital.
No, I was not provided with the police report but was given an accident reference number - The police officer also replied to my email to provide me with the motorcyclist's details and advised everything (including the police report) has been filed. I assume both of the insurance companies would have obtain this in order for them to finalise the claims. I also asked how the motorcyclist was doing and wished him a speedy recovery in my email to the police office, and what happened? 6 months later, I received this letter from his solicitor asking me to admit liability??? This is entirely unacceptable....

Thank you, I followed up with another email to Hertz Claims Team to make it crystal clear that I do NOT accept any liability for this claim.

Re legal insurance, I think Hertz should have included this in their policy? If not, I also have European travel insurance but I really do not want to spend any more time of my life dealing with things like this. Very disappointing and shocking.... The police officer even said to me - "I am sorry this happened to you but he should not have run straight into you at this speed."

arcon5

Sounds like he went over the brow of a hill too fast, but the speed difference must have been vast for such damage and injury.

I'm still confused though as I would have thought a bike hitting a cars read end would send the bike and rider flying... can't imagine how a bike would impact a car so hard that it would actually cause the car to jolt so much that it causes whiplash. We're talking a bike versus 1.5t car...


Anyhow hertz insurers should be dealing with it. Its what they pay them for, they will cover third party liabilities.

I can't see the biker though having a strong case though. Would need some solid evidence to persuade anybody he's not liable when he's just rear ended somebody

midimaomao

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

Hang on... just because the OP hasn't bothered to tell us the exact details, including whether they were slowing or stopped, shouldn't automatically lead one to the conclusion that the biker was at fault or reckless. An alternative conclusion might be simply that OP isn't giving the full story, as has been obvious by the drip-feed of information throughout the thread.


From the tone of your post, would it be fair to assume that you just have a problem with motorcyclists because we're all 'reckless', mad, bearded nutcases who rampage around at high speed taking risks, fighting and murdering prostitutes?

Apologise for my previous replies without quoting what people have said. I have gone back to all the threads and updated each one. Hope this is clearer. It was rather shocking for me to receive this letter after 6 months and I think NBLondon was only trying to help me with some useful advice. Thank you very much both for your help and time on this, I feel a little bit better now and forwarded the letter to Hertz Claims Team already.

midimaomao

arcon5 wrote: »

Sounds like he went over the brow of a hill too fast, but the speed difference must have been vast for such damage and injury.

I'm still confused though as I would have thought a bike hitting a cars read end would send the bike and rider flying... can't imagine how a bike would impact a car so hard that it would actually cause the car to jolt so much that it causes whiplash. We're talking a bike versus 1.5t car...


Anyhow hertz insurers should be dealing with it. Its what they pay them for, they will cover third party liabilities.

I can't see the biker though having a strong case though. Would need some solid evidence to persuade anybody he's not liable when he's just rear ended somebody

Thank you for your reply. I was too confused but I was driving absolutely as normal...There was no way that I could have slowed down significantly or even stopped at the time, not possible.. It was a very solid motobike though. Yes, I may have slowed down a bit as I was approaching the roundabout but I honestly could not remember what happened exactly it was so quick.

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

In terms of the accident, no road user should crest a hill without moderating their speed to take account of the visibility - a hill is no different from a corner in that respect. If the crest was severe enough to unsight the motorcyclist, then it implies it was a pretty steep crest (and also it might well be that the little hire car was struggling so not going particularly fast - and also may have been driven according to the limited visibility of the road).

However, we do not know what the circumstances were aside from the OP was confident they had not contributed to the accident, they said they were driving in the normal manner (implies that they hadn't stopped). Judging from the substantial damage, there must have been a high speed differential, so it seems unlikely to be that the motorcyclist was driving with due care. I would suggest the fact that they hadn't been prosecuted for a serious injury accident is a reasonable guide that their driving was an acceptable standard.

The fact that the letter hasn't raised any specific issues and simply seeks to entirely blame the other motorist in these circumstances sounds very much like a speculative punt rather than a serious attempt to fairly apportion an element of blame due to some aspect of driving.