Car & bicycle incident - claim question.

Car_54

Herzlos said:

They've maybe not understood your description properly, but from the street view it looks like you are on the major road and they crossed from the minor. So it's a major/minor junction that happens to look like a cross (with the side streets marked with dashed white lines) and not a cross roads (which would have all roads marked with lines).

That's not a distinction I've come across, and certainly not one used by the DVSA. A crossroads can have any combination of priorities, with no markings at all at one extreme, and the American-style 4-way stop at the other.

It can also be staggered.

Bluebell1000

https://www.seriouscyclescheme.co.uk/ could be worth a look. I'm a member but haven't used them.

Herzlos

Car_54 said:

Herzlos said:

They've maybe not understood your description properly, but from the street view it looks like you are on the major road and they crossed from the minor. So it's a major/minor junction that happens to look like a cross (with the side streets marked with dashed white lines) and not a cross roads (which would have all roads marked with lines).

That's not a distinction I've come across, and certainly not one used by the DVSA. A crossroads can have any combination of priorities, with no markings at all at one extreme, and the American-style 4-way stop at the other.

It can also be staggered.

My point was more that you're supposed to yield across marked lines, and if there aren't any marked lines there's no requirement to yield. The car came from the side street so should yield to the vehicles on the main street.

whatwasmyname

All a bit late now but what's the difference between going to (someone like) Leigh Day and not being a member of a cycling club that has legal aid (or whatever it's called) and actually being a member of a cycling club that has legal aid and uses Leigh Day?

Leigh Day phoned me back today & said as I'm not a member of any cycling club then it'll be treated as no win no fee. 

Which sounds great - lose and pay nothing.
But it was said in such a way that it was not as good as what an alternative could be.


Purely guessing now but maybe the situation now is they'll take 95% of any win, whereas if I was a member of a cycling club then they'd only take 60% (random figures for the example)?

Just wondered what the difference was.

Herzlos

No win no fee usually means they take a percentage and won't take it on unless they are virtually certain to win.  Just read the small print carefully.

If they have another deal with a cycling club then it's possible the club will pay the fees via insurance or something.

whatwasmyname

Herzlos said:

No win no fee usually means they take a percentage and won't take it on unless they are virtually certain to win.  Just read the small print carefully.

If they have another deal with a cycling club then it's possible the club will pay the fees via insurance or something.

Thanks for response.

For anyone who's been in this situation before, what's your viewpoint?
The way I see it I have say 3 options:

1) Do nothing. Accept the loss in wage, accept the bike repair costs, accept the medical costs. 
2) Go this no-win-no-fee route & accept that they're going to take x-%, whatever that may be. 
Without going in to too much details, I know of a case close to home recently where someone went NWNF & had a £30k payout ... but got £5k once all was said & done. £5k more than they started with but that's a wedge to miss out on.
3) Take it on myself, try and play the big guy, find out very early on I don't have a clue what on earth i'm doing, shoot myself in the foot somewhere along the line and probably not only end up with nothing but with nothing at cost - so minus.

As I don't see why I should accept all costs for something I didn't do, in my eyes that kind of leaves me with #2 being the only option.

Responses to that?

Herzlos

It seems like a pretty clear case, so I'd be inclined to see if I could find a regular lawyer on a fixed rate fee rather than the no-win-no-fee guys. I suspect the fee would be an awful lot lower.

The risk of course is that you end up losing and still have to pay the lawyer, but it doesn't sound like a huge risk given they've accepted some liability so it'll mostly be a case of negotiating the amount. It likely wouldn't even have to go to court so you might only be paying for a few legal letters (at about £100 a pop).

[Deleted User]

I did a no-win no fee for a bike accident, used a legal firm and I'm sure they took a cut but I wasn't aware of what the total was but what I was awarded was what I got - had repair costs, fees that I wasted as I couldn't do a couple of rides, plus injury - took about 20 months all in to sort IIRC

whatwasmyname

Well I'm appealing locally for the witnesses but so far no joy & I'll have to assume it'll remain that way.

Hopefully they'll spell it out beforehand in not too much legal jargon, what i'll be looking at losing in terms of their cut.

Grey_Critic

***Purely guessing now but maybe the situation now is they'll take 95% of any win, whereas if I was a member of a cycling club then they'd only take 60% (random figures for the example)?***

Personally I would expect any claim for damages to include costs.

From experience it is surprising how many people take a claim to court but do not include their costs.