Who's fault was this?

This exact same thing happened to a good friend of mine in staffordshire. The insurance eventually decided on 50/50 but the police had the nerve to demand that the rider (my mate) to take an advance course or he'd be prosecuted for driving without due care and attention. I felt that the latter part was ridiculous considering the insurance decided upon equal blame and someone actually stopped and gave a statement that he was riding perfectly reasonable ie. not speeding. AND the driver sued for 'whiplash'! Bike was a write off but my mate was ok

Took the following from motorbikeclaims.org

Overtaking Motorcyclist hit by a car from a side road

The most common motorcycle accident we see as motorcycle and compensation solicitors is where the motorcyclist is overtaking a line of traffic on the main road, when suddenly a motor vehicle pulls out of a side road, attempting to turn right, causing an accident. Who is at fault?

The starting point in layman’s terms is to look at the Highway Code. The general rule is if a car or motorcycle for that matter pulls out of a side road onto a main road when attempting to turn right they are at fault. You must give way to the traffic on the main road.

Therefore it is a straight forward conclusion that in the above scenario the motorcyclist is not at fault. Wrong. The problem we have is that there is another dynamic at play, the motorcyclist overtaking a line of stationary or slow moving traffic. When overtaking you must only do so when it is safe and importantly not to overtake at a road junction.

A motorcyclist is more difficult to see on the road and when overtaking at a junction is even more “out of sight” and “out of mind” especially to a motorist, at a busy junction, trying to pull out of a side road into a gap in the line of traffic. A brief opportunistic window appears, someone leaves a gap in the traffic or is “flashed” to come out. Rightly or wrongly the car pulls out, the motorcyclist does not see the car and vice versa, so the collision occurs.
Equality of blame before the law

The Highway Code is taken into account in the Courts put it is not binding on the judge. The judge will determine blame of the facts of the case.

In the end both parties have put themselves in a position where they find it difficult to see each other which is why the accident happens. The Courts therefore tends to rule that both parties are equally at fault. The Judge will apportion blame on a 50/50 basis which means that the motorcyclist and motorist will have their compensation reduced by 50%. If there is a claim and counterclaim, both will forfeit their no claims discount as well as the insurance excess.

Be aware, not everything is as straight forward as it may seem in the world of motor claims. I'm still fighting 6 months on!

[Dave20046]

Originally Posted by svrich

Be aware, not everything is as straight forward as it may seem in the world of motor claims. I'm still fighting 6 months on!

Mines coming up to two years and it was a simple **** doing a u-turn. End is in sight though.

Goodluck (but expect to have a bit of a wait)

she should of waved the van on as she obviously could not see that the road was clear, just cos van stopped to do a good deed he did not help the situation.

I disagree - she shouldn't have waved the van on. You should not give directions to other drivers.

As per post #1, the driver of the van flashed his lights. This is commonly used as an indicator to another road user that they are safe to progress with their perceived next manoeuvre, however the highway code defines flashing your lights as an indicator to other drivers that "I am here", to raise awareness of your presence.

Also, as per the highway code and already mentioned in this thread, the bike should not have been overtaking at a junction.

I these circumstances on a bike, if I cannot see clearly, there is no vehicle pulling out, I stop filtering and creep forward very slowly, until I can see.

Not sure if it's highway code, but they teach to drive so that when you stop, you can clearly see the rear tyres of the car in front - how many car drivers do that?

[dyzio]

I don't know where the bike hit the car, and I'm still puzzled why it's ok to overtake on a junction. But nevermind.
Still don't know what to think about it.. meh , luckily everyone is ok. I'll ask her later what the outcome was.
I did the exact same thing once, but managed to stop in time, almost done the same thing on the bike at the same junction. That gave me a lesson and I'm taking it really easy when passing traffic or pulling out in similar places.

Originally Posted by bluefishman

she should of waved the van on as she obviously could not see that the road was clear, just cos van stopped to do a good deed he did not help the situation.

I realise that somebody flashing their lights shouldn't be treated as a "it's 100% safe to go" sign, but she would have to wait there for about an hour, for the traffic to clear. That road is packed with cars, bumper to bumper from 4pm to 6 or better.

Without being there to see it, it's difficult to know really.

Technically the biker should have been a safe distance from the vehicles he was filtering by, if that were the case and the car driver was 'creeping' not sailing, then there should have been sufficient time and space for the accident to not have happened.

hmm 50/50 as i was told never to overtake or filter on a junction and if the van was big enough the bike would have never seen the car until it was a good deal out unless he was verry close like along side the van as she just edged out

Originally Posted by Dave20046

Mines coming up to two years and it was a simple **** doing a u-turn. End is in sight though.

Goodluck (but expect to have a bit of a wait)

Sounds very like mine. Bloody taxi minibus is saying it was all my fault

This has been raised before here: http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.php?t=130227&page=3

Case law (Powell vs Moody) says 80/20 liability split AGAINST the rider, or whatever vehicle is performing the overtake. At the end of the day though we pay insurance premiums so that people in an office can argue with other people in another office and agree exactly this sort of thing. But it normally comes down to whatever case law fits the bill.