Involved in an accident- Advice needed please

[TamSV]

Originally Posted by 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.

+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]

Originally Posted by Fordward

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.

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]

Originally Posted by 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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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]

Originally Posted by Red Herring

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]

Originally Posted by ophic

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]

Originally Posted by SV650rules

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.

Originally Posted by ophic

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]

Originally Posted by Fordward

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.