Vorpal wrote:[XAP]Bob wrote:Vorpal wrote:Being on the wrong side of the path may have some bearing. However, he should not have been going too fast to stop within the distance he could se to be clear. My opinion is the same as beardy's; take it on a knock for knock (equal liability) basis and leave it at that.
There is no wrong side of a narrow unmarked path.
Maybe. If it is a right of way, there is.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Wil ... section/78 applies to any 'highway', including footpaths and bridleways. If it is a private road, that may be another matter. A paved route through a park is likely to be highway, though it is impossible to say for certain without knowing the legal status of the path in question.
Even if the route is not a highway (e.g.if the park is closed at night) it is still a place open (at the time, at least) to the public in general to ride bicycles, and I believe there is a presumption that the usual rules which would apply to a highway also apply to private roads, etc, to which the public have access.
I seems to me that the OP was riding on the wrong side of the route, which may well have contributed to the accident. However, it also looks to me as if a pedestrian could perfectly legitimately have been on the same spot as the OP, and given that possibility the downhill-bound rider should have been taking more care to avoid a foreseeable collision at the location. That seems to suggest that while both were in the wrong, the downhill rider's action was the primary cause of the accident.
However I wonder what, if any, evasive action either rider took. The usual response to a threat of a head-on collision is surely that both steer to their left (and, of course, brake). However on occasions when I have encountered other cyclists riding on the wrong side, they have sometimes done the opposite, putting themselves back onto a collision course with me again, sometimes coming close to being broadside on across my new direction and thus making a collision even more likely as they become a wider obstacle. If the situation was that the downhill-bound rider veered to their left and collision would have been avoided had the OP done the same, but the OP veered to his right and so the collision occurred after all, then in that case more of the responsibility would lie with the OP.