First accident - now comes the insurance hassle

So, this morning I came off my bike for the first time when I was filtering @ about 5-10mph past stationary traffic, with no oncoming traffic, when a van suddenly turned right. He did put his indicator on but at only at the same time as he turned! Made me put on front brakes tried to move to his left to avoid him but lost the front wheel on the gravel on the road under braking and went down causing the indicator & gear shifter to snap clean off and some pretty bad damage to the fairing. Fortunately, good kit meant I came away with little more than swelling to the knee, although boots, and jacket may need replacing.

Questions is, in your combined experience, will he be found to be at fault and will his insurance company pay out for only one side of fairing or the lot, or considering the bike is only worth around £1200 (on paper) will they just declare it a write-of?!? I have a custom (homemade but good) paint job on my fairing so will be mismatched if they just replace the one side.

In his defense he was a decent guy about it all, and was clearly gutted to have knocked a biker off. Didn't accept responsibility but did say he didnt see me. I was definitely in clear sight and going slowly so had he checked his mirrors he would have.

[TamSV]

Damaged fairings can often be enough to write off an older bike, especially with non-standard paint and then labour plus the other bits and pieces.

So far as liability is concerned, it sounds like there was no actual contact, so how it goes will depend to some extent on what he actually says to his insurers.

Get yourself someone decent to represent you if you haven't already and they should keep you right. White Dalton always seem to get decent reviews and this type of incident will be bread and butter for them.

Cheers for the advice! The paint was only a can job but did it properly and looked good. Bikes in perfect condition otherwise, spent a lot of time brining it back up to standard after the previous owner neglected it.

Fortunately I've got legal cover through my insurance so hopefully they'll do a decent job on my behalf.

Gutted man, love this bike, cant bear to see it facing the chop!

[TamSV]

Originally Posted by ejsv650s

Fortunately I've got legal cover through my insurance so hopefully they'll do a decent job on my behalf.

THey do vary. If you're unhappy with what you're being told then you can switch to someone else.

The main thing is to get an admission of liability from the other blokes insurance. Hopefully, he'll be decent about it.

thanks again, will see how they deal with it and take it from there. So far they've been pretty good, at this point I rate 'Just Motorcycle Insurance' pretty highly!

On a side note, this is probably a good a time as any to reinforce how crucial proper gear is! Wearing armoured jacket & trousers and alpine star boots definitely saved me coming off a lot worse. Been tempted of late to wear just my jeans, jacket and boots on city rides where speed is 20mph or less but even in this low speed crash my boots and trousers especially were vital to keeping me relatively in one piece; jeans wouldn't have helped a bit, and without the my boots i would definitely have a broken ankle after the bike trapped my leg under it. For those i've seen around in casual clothing, learn from my, and countless others, experience and gear up properly.

Originally Posted by ejsv650s

lost the front wheel on the gravel on the road

Unlucky mate, Not much you can do when the surface is crappy. Glad you're ok. Where'd this happen out of interest?

Originally Posted by dkid

Unlucky mate, Not much you can do when the surface is crappy. Glad you're ok. Where'd this happen out of interest?

Cheers mate, nothing I could do at all, gravel just has 0 tolerance, released & reapplied brake (human abs ha!) but nothing. Happened this morning in Corsham, Wiltshire.