Collision with another bicycle

Commuting, Day rides, Audax, Incidents, etc.
profpointy
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Re: Collision with another bicycle

Post by profpointy »

Lance Dopestrong wrote:Which solicitor told you that inserting the word "opinion" will save you in the event of a claim?

The OP has asked for advice. The only advice we can safely given is to advise them to find someone properly qualified to give that which they seek.


so if the op follows your advice and engages a solicitor, would you be liable if it turns out the £100 legal bill was a waste of money?

Serious point, albeit made in a tongue in cheeck way. Bear in mind people make recommendations on here for a host of expensive or safety critical choices. Should they not do so? If you follow your advice of never giving advice in case you're sued we might as well close down all forums now. Or is there some special pleading for legal advice (small a) but advice on (say) brakes or carbon forks integrity, and as for helmet opinions.....
Last edited by profpointy on 13 Jul 2015, 3:07pm, edited 1 time in total.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: Collision with another bicycle

Post by [XAP]Bob »

Brakes - although breaks and CF is an ironic typo...
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
profpointy
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Re: Collision with another bicycle

Post by profpointy »

[XAP]Bob wrote:Brakes - although breaks and CF is an ironic typo...


harrhumph - how embarasing's that
Phil Fouracre
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Re: Collision with another bicycle

Post by Phil Fouracre »

Embarrassing, too?
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity
Vorpal
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Re: Collision with another bicycle

Post by Vorpal »

Phil Fouracre wrote:Embarrassing, too?

embarassing's = embarassing is

:lol:
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― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
iviehoff
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Re: Collision with another bicycle

Post by iviehoff »

beardy wrote:On the little side issue being discussed, when did anybody last see a cyclist or motorist signal their intent to turn just for a pedestrian.

Which I always see as a very useful point when they try and claim somebody stepped onto the road in front of them, if they havent indicated then you were not in front of them.

I always signal for the benefit of pedestrians, because pedestrians are a danger to me and I need them to know what I am doing. If they fail to look in my direction, I ring my bell too. In fact I often ring just in case, as some pedestrians are unperceiving with their eyes, and noise gives them another chance. Quite a few appreciate this, but there is a minority which are off in some little world unperceiving either of the possibility of danger nor realising that the various warnings trying to wake them up to it are anything to do with them.
AlaninWales
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Re: Collision with another bicycle

Post by AlaninWales »

Roll on presumed liability! :D
iviehoff
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Re: Collision with another bicycle

Post by iviehoff »

AlaninWales wrote:Roll on presumed liability! :D

Suppose it does. Would it apply to cycle/cycle and cycle/ped collisions? Is their presumed liability in being on the wrong side of the road/path?

FWIW, my mother once had a low speed head-on motor collision at a bend (no injuries), both trying to screech to a halt, where the on-coming vehicle was in the middle of the road, on a country lane that was narrow but was nevertheless wide enough for the two vehicles to pass at a moderate cornering speed such as 20mph. My mother knew the road very well, as she was a health visitor and it was in her area. It was claimed that my mother was going too fast. In the end I think liability was split about 60/40 with my mother's "too fast" being considered a more important factor than the other guy's "in the middle of the road". She wasn't very happy about it, but you never are, are you.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: Collision with another bicycle

Post by [XAP]Bob »

It would apply to cycle/ped collision - the cyclist would be presumed at fault...
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
jgurney
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Re: Collision with another bicycle

Post by jgurney »

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.
MikeF
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Re: Collision with another bicycle

Post by MikeF »

DZONIS5 wrote:He was riding Carrera Intercity and mine was Carrera Vulcan. I think Home Insurance is not an option for me either unfortunately because I only rent a room and I bet my landlord wouldn't like his insurance going up later on. He did ask me if I agree it was my fault and I said not really because road is not marked and there is no wrong/right side. There were no witnesses except for couple passer by's sometime after collision. No cctv. I'm more worried about that bump rather than the buckled wheel. I did try to avoid collision didn't have enough time. I got a text from him yesterday saying that I didn't replied to his earlier message (which I never got) and he will pursue the matter.

Here's a photo. I was going at yellow path and he was going on blue one, collision happened at red dot.

Image

The yellow route doesn't look the most sensible one to me. Keep left is a general rule even if not the law and also at this point it looks as though you would have had much better visibility if you had done so. That's not to say it's your fault. Blind corners can be hazardous on these sort of paths and need to approached with caution.
"It takes a genius to spot the obvious" - my old physics master.
I don't peddle bikes.
SA_SA_SA
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Re: Collision with another bicycle

Post by SA_SA_SA »

jgurney wrote:.... 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...

My old AA book of Driving suggested that the correct (driving) response to another car on the wrong side of the road* was to brake hard and observe which way the other car swerved: as soon as it swerved one way you swerved the opposite, only if they never swerved would you at then, at last minute, choose a direction yourself (by which time you would have lost a lot of speed by braking): thus hopefully avoiding the situation described above where both vehicles swerve towards each other continuing towards a head-on collision whilst having lost no speed.

This was in the days before ABS, but bikes have no ABS.

*example given was near a port
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