Involved in an accident- Advice needed please

[Fordward]

Admitting your judgement is on the flawed side of perfect is also key to keeping you safe on a motorbike!

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[daktulos]

All I gather from RH post is that if you do not strive to second guess the intentions of every other driver / rider on the road and an accident ensues, then it is partly you fault - even if you are doing the correct things - quite a perverse point of view really.

I don't think so. It's everyone's responsibility to avoid an accident, whoever has the right of way.

Consider two cars, one driving behind the other. If the one in front brakes suddenly and is rear-ended, the car behind is at fault. However, the blame is shared - the car behind for driving too close for the conditions, and the car in front for driving in an erratic way.

Whether in a car or on a bike, I personally assume other road users are idiots - when they prove that they are, it's less of a surprise.

[Red Herring]

RH. What you've said about lane markings seems to be contrary to the above, with what you've said about there being space for two vehicles invoking the same rules.

I thought what Daktulos was saying was right in that if the are no lane markings there is only one lane?

It seems there may be a misunderstanding or gap in my knowledge there. Please can you elaborate?

Is it a case of lane markings making it more clear cut, and no lane markings needing an examination of the circumstances to determine where the majority of blame lies?

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Lane markings make it easier to understand because drivers see them as identifying which part of the road is "theirs" and which bit isn't.... however because they make things simple they tend to stop drivers from thinking laterally, both literally and metaphorically.

If you take a piece or road that is wide enough for two vehicles to travel side by side but isn't divided by markings then is there any particular reason why they shouldn't do so? Not if there is room to do so safely which is quite achievable if they both consider the other. Think about every time you filter on a motorcycle, isn't that in effect what you are doing? The only way for for two vehicles travelling side by side to hit each other is for them to move together, either because they both moved, or one to move towards the other and for the other to be unable,or unwilling, to get out of the way.

The most obvious example where we find this is on a roundabout that has a two lane approach and a two lane exit straight ahead, but no markings actually on the roundabout. Two cars enter side by side, travel around the roundabout side by side, and exit side by side, no problem. Unfortunately sometimes the vehicle on the left decides they actually want to continue around the roundabout, whilst the one on the right decides they want to leave..... In this example the primary responsibility would rest with the vehicle on the right because they are the one attempting to leave the roundabout which they are both on, so they are in effect moving into the vehicle on the left.

Compare this with the scenario where in exactly the same circumstances on the same roundabout they enter side by side and the vehicle on the left attempts to straight line the roundabout and as a result hits the car on the right which is unable to avoid them due to the centre of the roundabout being in the way. Here the responsibility would primarily rest with the driver on the left, because it was them that moved across.

In practice the vast majority of roundabouts laid out in this manner are single carriageway approaches which divide immediately before the roundabout forming two lanes. This is primarily to allow vehicles intending to go in different directions, left and right for example, to both queue or enter the roundabout simultaneously thus improving traffic flow. Sometimes of course both drivers intend to go straight on and because the Highway code says that in such circumstances you can use either lane on entry people sometimes attempt to use it as an opportunity to overtake... motorcyclists in particular. This is where it gets really messy because the driver on the left, fully intending to straight-line the roundabout, completely fails to anticipate the overtaking vehicle who in turn isn't expecting to be "cut up" and the two meet. These ones are always harder to adjudicate on, however on balance the "overtaking" driver tends to come of worse which is why I gave the health warning earlier about riders who dive up the inside on roundabouts.....

[Red Herring]

All I gather from RH post is that if you do not strive to second guess the intentions of every other driver / rider on the road and an accident ensues, then it is partly you fault - even if you are doing the correct things - quite a perverse point of view really.

We know any biker worth his salt (and with any sense of self preservation) does this anyway, but just because you maybe guessed wrong on one occasion you are somehow at fault does not seem correct to me.

As I said earlier everyone loves a post morten, and you always get the 'if only you had done this instead of that' - this is the last thing you want to hear when you or your beloved bike is damaged - what you need is advice on getting the best claim result from insurance.

I said that the set of circumstances that led to the OP being knocked off his bike was entirely predictable and he needs to understand that if he wants to avoid it happening again. Certainly from all of the information he provided I don't think that is an unreasonable conclusion, but as you say later, I was't there so I don't know for sure. Getting a good result from the insurance claim won't stop it happening again, all it will do is provide the means for it to happen sooner.

Stop thinking in terms of "fault" being who pays out. It's not about "guessing", it's about looking at the information and circumstances and considering what is likely to happen then having a plan to deal with it.

I spent the best part of thirty years dealing with the result of people not doing this and it was very rare for me to be confronted by a set of circumstances where one of the drivers involved could not have avoided the collision with just a little bit of anticipation and planning.

Personally speaking I've been lucky enough to be riding on the road for pretty much the same length of time without ever being off my road bike or colliding with another vehicle. Obviously I'm an old fart who potters around really slowly and doesn't ever have any fun on their bike, although there are a fair few people on this forum who may have ridden with me and disagree with that.....

[Biker Biggles]

I think it is sometimes helpful to distinguish between legal liability and fault.In this case I would think from what we know legal liability will be 100% against the car but there can then be some discussion about both partys being at fault to some extent.I was taught that if I have a crash it would always be partially my fault for failing to anticipate it and hence avoid it,even if no legal liability came my way.A bit harsh,but not a bad mindset to go driving with.
Some people cannot get their heads round the concept that they can be at some fault but completely right in law.

[Red Herring]

Some people cannot get their heads round the concept that they can be at some fault but completely right in law.

Absolutely, as I said earlier these are the people who will be dead right.....

It takes two mistakes for the majority of collisions to occur, one driver makes a mistake or misjudgement, the other fails to allow for it.

Anybody who drives or rides under the illusion that drivers and riders don't make mistakes and fails to plan for them has only themselves to blame when a reasonably predictable set of circumstances gets them into trouble.

I know this sounds like a holier than thou sermon, and I'm sorry for that. This is not in any way intended to be a go at the OP, but anybody who cannot understand how they can learn from his misfortune but instead pats him on the back and says never mind it was all the other chaps fault is doing him no favours at all.

[shiftin_gear98]

Big up OMO, I for one am happy this thread went the way it did, always glad of others insight. Every days a learning day.

[Fordward]

RH, I get the two lane thing and when I filter on my bike I always view and plan that as an overtake manoeuvre whereby the responsibility is on me.

My question was more a black and white one about how the courts/insurance companies view fault in this scenario.

I thought that from a legal perspective (which doesn't have to be written in law it can be set by precedent) if there is no lane markings (on any wide road) then there is no lane and you must treat it as a single carriageway. If you chose through your actions to treat it as two lanes, and pass or get alongside another vehicle, you are liable if it goes wrong.

It sounds from what you are saying though there is no rule, it just depends on the individual circumstances.

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[Fordward]

PS: I treat everything as if it's my fault if it goes wrong. Even straight T bone right of way violations, they way I see it is if they are waiting at a Give Way they want to pull out, bikes are easily missed, so why should I be surprised when that happens.

That's how I've done my 24 years without a road traffic collision, and I'm not an old fart who hangs about either, I just slow down when the circumstances require it.

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[Red Herring]

It sounds from what you are saying though there is no rule, it just depends on the individual circumstances.

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The vast majority of incidents like this require all of the circumstances to be considered when trying to establish how something happened, let alone portion blame/fault and decide on an appropriate redress.

As far as the law is concerned Sect 3RTA requires all drivers to drive with due care and attention and reasonable consideration to other road users. For any prosecution to be successful under this legislation the standard is one that falls below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver. The problem here is that we all have different expectations, you only have to look on this thread to see that, and this can cause some real problems when it comes to considering a prosecution. The vast majority of Sect 3 prosecutions result from collisions because it's practically impossible for two vehicles to hit each other without one of the drivers breaking the law, however this is not to say that the vast majority of collisions result in a prosecution. In fact the opposite is true, the vast majority of collisions do not lead to a prosecution because on examining the facts it is blatantly obvious that the other driver involved contributed to the circumstances. The standard I used to apply was to ask if there was anything the other driver could have reasonably done to have avoided the collision. If the answer was yes I generally filed it NFA. Most of my peers applied a similar system.

[TamSV]

Big up OMO, I for one am happy this thread went the way it did, always glad of others insight. Every days a learning day.



+1 best thread on here for a while.

OP has got an admission of liability from Aviva (an actual proper insurance company). Looks like the bike is a write off and I don't remember the last time on here anyone was disappointed with a write off settlement. So that's that. Coolio.

All that's left is for the rest of us to learn from the incident. And the OP if he's so inclined.

People don't treat driving/riding with the respect it deserves (me included most of the time). If you can take responsibility both for not crashing and not being crashed into then you're a step ahead I reckon.

I've been riding a little less time than RH but unlike him I've been through hedges, into the back of vans and over the bonnet of taxis. At least one of these wasn't my "fault" but I eventually worked out how irrelevant that was. Learning your own lessons is OK but learning other people's lessons is much better.

Another point that has come up in this thread - and this is just how I see things - but insurance companies don't really care about fault. They care a little bit about liability, but fault and liability are not always the same thing.

In any event, what insurance companies fundamentally want to do is reach agreement with their opposite number and close the file at minimum cost in a way that doesn't generate a complaint. That's all. Liability is whatever you can agree it is.

If you remove yourself from taking sides and look at both drivers point of view you'll often decide they were both less than perfect and go 50/50. And that's how we settle a lot of claims.

Fault is unimportant. Irrelevant. The focus of the fool.

[SV650rules]

if there is no lane markings (on any wide road) then there is no lane and you must treat it as a single carriageway. If you chose through your actions to treat it as two lanes, and pass or get alongside another vehicle, you are liable if it goes wrong.


There is a prime example of this on quite a few stretches of the A5 in Shropshire, it used to be a 3 lane road, but because of some bad smashes on it (everyone thought that THEY had right of way in the centre lane - especially some of the larger German staff cars I guess), they made it a 2 lane but each lane is wide enough for 1.5 cars now. So guess what ! (and I am talking about cars and larger now, not so much bikers) people happily pull alongside you with half their car over the white line and their wing mirror touching yours and roar past forcing people coming the other way to dive for the hard shoulder, I have even had people doing this to cars in front of me when there is a police car coming the other way (several times) the Police cars flash their lights to show displeasure and to get the muppet to pull back into lane, but at least one muppet carried on with his overtake as though he was completely in the right, I can only guess that the copper didn't think it was worth doing a 'U' turn to give him a ticket.

[Fordward]

On a busy two way road that's moving at 60mph, a copper can't U turn. By the time the copper gets a safe opportunity to turn round and turns, the perpetrator has gone, he's a mile away for every 1 minute that takes plus the other miles the copper had to travel in the other direction. Then blue light straight down the middle carrying out the same overtakes you've just described for a 5-10 miles, is the only way to close that gap and catch him, and that assumes he stays on the same road for the next 5-10 miles and doesn't turn off.

Dunno if you've ever been left behind on a ride out by just a couple of minutes, then noticed how many miles it takes you to catch up again despite riding much faster than you were when you were with the ride out.

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[daktulos]

They used to be called suicide lanes ... not many of them about any more.

[Blapper]

On a busy two way road that's moving at 60mph, a copper can't U turn. By the time the copper gets a safe opportunity to turn round and turns, the perpetrator has gone, he's a mile away for every 1 minute that takes plus the other miles the copper had to travel in the other direction. Then blue light straight down the middle carrying out the same overtakes you've just described for a 5-10 miles, is the only way to close that gap and catch him, and that assumes he stays on the same road for the next 5-10 miles and doesn't turn off.

Dunno if you've ever been left behind on a ride out by just a couple of minutes, then noticed how many miles it takes you to catch up again despite riding much faster than you were when you were with the ride out.

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Aye, if you've ever been tail-end Charlie on a ride where the leader is pressing on, it takes discipline not to ride badly just to keep up.

[ophic]

Unfortunately sometimes the vehicle on the left decides they actually want to continue around the roundabout, whilst the one on the right decides they want to leave..... In this example the primary responsibility would rest with the vehicle on the right because they are the one attempting to leave the roundabout which they are both on, so they are in effect moving into the vehicle on the left.
But the Highway Code says that you may only use the left hand lane for left turn or straight on. It may be inadvisable but I don't see how you can be held legally responsible for assuming someone will drive according to the Highway Code.

edit: I checked, they've changed it. It just says "appropriate lane" now for any intermediate exits without any indication of how to decide what is "appropriate". No wonder no-one has a clue anymore.

[SV650rules]

But the Highway Code says that you may only use the left hand lane for left turn or straight on. It may be inadvisable but I don't see how you can be held legally responsible for assuming someone will drive according to the Highway Code.

There is an island by where I live where people regularly scoot from RH lane into the LH exit lane, I think I am doing the right thing by getting into LH lane to turn off at next exit and even though there are two lanes on the island and two lanes going off these peeps 'cut across' straight from RH island lane into LH exit lane ignoring the car in LH lane with LH indicator on and also ignoring RH lane on exit, just don't know what is going on in their minds (if anything at all).

I have been on some well designed islands where if you get in correct lane for your exit road when you join the island the lanes 'spiral' and you don't have to change lane on the island you just stay in lane and it moves you left into correct exit. Unfortunately I have also seen badly designed islands where you have to swap lanes at very short notice and people get into all sorts of bother (mainly caused by traffic lights on the islands stopping traffic and causing blockages of exits) - traffic lights on islands don't work very well, there are plenty of perfectly good islands in my area that worked great as an island, and for some reason they sprouted traffic lights - when the lights are working there are always queues - when the lights are broken - no queues. And to make things worse the lights don't only work at peak times, they work 24/7 and even at night with no traffic they will stop you.

[ophic]

Unfortunately I have also seen badly designed islands...
No shortage of these. There was one on the M62 near Leeds where there were 3 approach lanes to the roundabout and only 2 actually on the roundabout. I wonder about the planning of these things sometimes.

[Fordward]

But the Highway Code says that you may only use the left hand lane for left turn or straight on. It may be inadvisable but I don't see how you can be held legally responsible for assuming someone will drive according to the Highway Code.

edit: I checked, they've changed it. It just says "appropriate lane" now for any intermediate exits without any indication of how to decide what is "appropriate". No wonder no-one has a clue anymore.
They've only changed it to "appropriate" to take account of the various marked lanes now painted on roundabouts.

If not indicated otherwise left lane only to be used for left and straight on is still true. You still don't go right from the left hand lane.

But that doesn't stop someone else being on the right of them when they pass an exit which they are not taking.

If there are three different exits to the left before the straight on, and they drive across the entrances to all three in the left lane they are still driving in accordance with the Highway code, and it's still up to the driver on the right to ensure its safe to use one of those exits.

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[ophic]

If not indicated otherwise left lane only to be used for left and straight on is still true. You still don't go right from the left hand lane.
I only very briefly checked but I couldn't see that rule written down.

When I didn my test back in 1994 it explicitly said with diagrams that left lane for left, right lane for right, and straight on could be either approach lane unless otherwise marked, with the added info that you had to be careful leaving the roundabout if you took the right hand lane, with a nice diagram indicating where the potential crunch points were.

[Blapper]

Oh-oh, we've deffo been in Europe too long.... ;-)

[Heorot]

It's an interesting point about changes to the Highway Code. When was the last time most of us actually read it? For me, it was 5 years ago when I was prepping for my full m/c test. However, I hadn't looked at it since I passed my car test in 1968. I wonder how many changes have been made since then.

[ophic]

It's an interesting point about changes to the Highway Code. When was the last time most of us actually read it? For me, it was 5 years ago when I was prepping for my full m/c test. However, I hadn't looked at it since I passed my car test in 1968. I wonder how many changes have been made since then.
It'd be nice if they notified people.

[Blapper]

I bought it last year as prep for my IAM course. Yes, they ought to put programs on the telly educating people in the latest rules or, well, rules really...

[Emankiwi]

Good evening Everyone,
Really sorry for not replying for such a long time, been super busy.
It's all finished now, here is the brief history of what happened.
Third party's insurance (Aviva) were taking a long time to sort things out , so I asked for a rental, was given a car.
After few weeks an engineer came to inspect the bike.
Then 2 weeks later got an offer of £2800 with upgrades and they keep the bike.
I asked for £3100 and I wanted to keep the bike, they wanted £1000 for it, I agreed and got the bike and £2100.

A guy from this forum sold me a fairing bracket set for £15 delivered:).
I repaired the fairing with a soldering iron, but I am still looking at getting a replacement, the is a set on eBay on auction so please don't bid on it ;).
The End.
http://i350.photobucket.com/albums/q427/Emankiwi/IMG_1778.jpg
http://i350.photobucket.com/albums/q427/Emankiwi/IMG_1779.jpg
http://i350.photobucket.com/albums/q427/Emankiwi/IMG_1780.jpg
I want to say a big thank you for everyone's input, advice and help. I really appreciate it and it was more then what I expected.
I hope to meet some of you one day on a bike ride :)

All the best!

[maviczap]

Cool

[shiftin_gear98]

Nice.

[Stilo]

A good bodyshop would be able to repair and paint the fairing no problem

[Blapper]

Is that true Stilo? I was told by a good body shop that a lot of modern plastics are not repairable if broken.

[Stilo]

Plastic welding is common in body repairs, I buy at least 1 damaged bike each year & I have had lots of plastics repaired. As long as all of the parts are there i.e. no holes just cracks then they should be repairable.

[Blapper]

That's good to know - the guy who told me that has just been demoted into the suspicious pile.