man down but ok

Message

D-Rider · #46 Post by **D-Rider** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 1:46 pm

Dale

HowardQ · #47 Post by **HowardQ** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 11:53 am

Could

HowardQ · #48 Post by **HowardQ** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 11:53 am

HowardQ · #49 Post by **HowardQ** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 11:54 am

repeat

HowardQ · #50 Post by **HowardQ** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 11:54 am

That ????????????????

paddyz1 · #51 Post by **paddyz1** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 6:49 pm

Get well soon you old git

. You now have the time to sort those side fairings out.
So you had a ride in the ambulance.....expect a fee to pop through the door. Cost me £18 to be taken 1 mile after a spill some years back.

D-Rider · #52 Post by **D-Rider** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:12 pm

paddyz1 wrote:Get well soon you old git . You now have the time to sort those side fairings out.
So you had a ride in the ambulance.....expect a fee to pop through the door. Cost me £18 to be taken 1 mile after a spill some years back.

..... thought that's what I've been paying taxes for all these years .... and even if not, then without informing you beforehand and agreeing a fee, surely there is no contract?

They've already robbed us in parking fees - think the mrs had to shell out something like £4 to visit me for an hour on Saturday night and another £3 just to pick me up on the Sunday.
Think the hospital's being run by some descendent of Dick Turpin.

That said, they did a good job of looking after me while I was there.

D-Rider · #53 Post by **D-Rider** » Tue May 15, 2012 10:33 am

D-Rider wrote:
So .... my little off on Daniel's 125 ...... This is the story as I recall it:
I was taking it to the place I go for its MOT.
About a mile from home, there was a queue up to roadworks.
I was going along the outside at a sensible speed (.... it's a 34yr old Honda 125 .... on an upwards incline - and I was taking it steady)
A car was waiting to turn right out of a side road, pulled out into the turn "refuge" area and slowed as if he was stopping .... which would have been expected as he was joining a queue. It also appeared to me that he had seen me.
Unfortunately for me at about the time I was starting to pass a car in the queue, the car I was passing waited for the car that was pulling out and rather than stopping he pulled on into the gap that had now opened. I was not going fast but there was no real chance of stopping - and I was also under the impression that I'd been seen and he would stop.
All I could do was swerve to avoid a T-bone and hope to miss him. As it was, he didn't slow and it resulted in a side-swipe.
Megga Tank Slapper ... hoped I might save it but no chance.
After that it's a bit of a blur but I think I high-sided and landed on my shoulder and head.
Winded and couldn't breathe for a bit but recovered and was thinking about getting the bike home and fixing it up and getting the MOT ....
Bystanders had summoned an ambulance (I told them no need .... so clearly what do I know).
Anyway, they checked my spine etc (that was the ambulance crew - not the bystanders)
Police turned up and did a few checks and got the details of the guy that hit me. He admitted he hadn't seen me.
They gave me a producer for my insurance .... which is all in order as long as I can remember where I put the certificate ...
They also looked after the bike keys 'till Daniel (eldest son) turned up to push his bike home.

By that time I was off in the Ambulance to A&E .... and the waiting ....

Anyway once I got seen, I was X-rayed which revealed "at least 4 broken ribs". They sent me for a CT scan too as they were a bit concerned that it was upper ribs that were broken in the vicinity of veins and other internal bits. CT scan showed no major damage - just a bruised lung.

Night was a bit uncomfortable but they've let me home today.
Apparently I'll be suffering for a couple of months .... and at the risk of sounding like a big wuss ..... it does hurt a bit (understatement mode).

OK – 3years on and it's time for an update on the accident in which I was SMIDSY’d.
The matter was originally handled by my insurers and their appointed solicitors who seemed to want to take the path of least resistance and suggested I settle for the 70:30 split of responsibilities (in my favour) that the other party had offered. Needless to say I wasn’t overly impressed and with a bit of a discussion with TC, put the matter in the hands of the outfit he works for. They agreed we should be pushing for 100% so we set out to win!
The other party’s legal representatives were a nightmare to deal with. They took ages to respond to things, chased us for responses that we’d already given and were in fact waiting on them for their response. They were generally sluggish and useless. Part way through, with no reasoning given, they withdrew their 70:30 offer and replaced it with 50:50.
Time dragged on and on. We began to approach the 3 year limit after the accident during which you can take the third party to court and so we began to prepare for legal proceedings. Eventually we exchanged our statements and immediately the other party restored the 70:30 offer. I took a look at the other party’s statement and took great delight in tearing it to shreds. He seemed to think that I’d been filtering past a long queue of cars in the lane they were in between them and the kerb – rather than in the empty lane travelling in the same direction as the cars in the queue would have been travelling (were they not stuck in a queue) on the outside of them in full view of the bloke who hit me. Now call me crazy, but which of those two options do you really think I chose? ….. and I’m guessing a judge would probably regard my explanation as the far more probable. The other chap also stated that from his position at the T-junction waiting to join the road I was on (from the right), he could see the traffic lights further up the road were showing Red … which, he claimed, meant traffic couldn’t be coming the other way down the road …. though obviously, in reality, traffic coming the other way was likely to see a Green light ….. !
Also in his statement, he admitted to being blind in his left eye – the side from which I was approaching (though, apparently, he had looked).
Anyway, having responded to these points, the offer quickly went up to 80:20 ….. better but still not good enough and close to the deadline, the paperwork was sent to court to kick things off.
Further negotiation led to them moving to 90:10 and the advice I got was to take it. I was advised that in the courts, things aren’t always predictable and you are at the mercy of how a judge sees things (see the other thread on the chap knocked off by a vehicle on the wrong side of the road). It was also suggested that a judge may consider I was wasting his time in going to court over a “trivial” 10%. My heart said fight it all the way but my head won and I accepted.
The solicitor working on my side told me that things were much easier than they might have been as the information and evidence I provided was of exceptional quality … which is nice – but I dread to think how difficult it might have been had I provided a more usual standard of information.
Now I have to convince my insurers to restore the NCD they removed while this was pending and refund me the part of the premiums I’ve paid over the past 3 years based on a reduced NCD.
Glad the main issue is over at long last – and thanks to TC’s lot in getting this sorted.

Samray · #54 Post by **Samray** » Tue May 15, 2012 11:27 am

Dusty · #55 Post by **Dusty** » Tue May 15, 2012 11:54 am

I'm glad to hear that, at long last, things are being resolved to your satisfaction. I do not understand how some lawyers manage to be so inefficient although I suspect that it's a deliberate ploy to muddy the waters and break the will of the other party. It is with some embarrassment that I admit to the fact that both of my offspring are engaged in law degree courses. I sometimes wish we had a Legal version of Samray's Engineering flowchart. It might save us all a few quid in legal fees. Bunch of highwaymen; TC's mob excepted of course!

D-Rider · #56 Post by **D-Rider** » Tue May 15, 2012 12:12 pm

Cheers Dusty

Dusty wrote:I'm glad to hear that, at long last, things are being resolved to your satisfaction. I do not understand how some lawyers manage to be so inefficient although I suspect that it's a deliberate ploy to muddy the waters and break the will of the other party.

As you suggest, I think there is an element of delay in the hope you'll go away. They also did their best to present an argument to deter me based on the highway code - which I found quite easy to knock back .... and then I waded in with a load of other highway code stuff that strongly supported my position.
I think they were also "fishing" with their offers to try to find the lowest I'd accept.
Of course, the other thing to consider is the longer they kept it going, the greater would be their fee which would be paid by one or other insurance company .....

flatlander · #57 Post by **flatlander** » Tue May 15, 2012 12:25 pm

glad its sorted would like to point out that I did not have the smoker back then and was nowhere nearbby!
I had one that took 3 years plus from being rear ended my side lost all the papers I sent twice they changed the lawyer dealing 3 times and the other side were kjust as obstructive as your lot.
I was told however by the solicitor who finally got on the job that the courts basically use the ogden tables most judges will assume that a motorcyclist always has some responsibility for being on a bike in the first place and that the firms al use the se guidelines for whats worth settling for. Other than that the smae chap pointed out that at 180 per letter that wasn't a lot of interest in not creating paperwork

HowardQ · #58 Post by **HowardQ** » Tue May 15, 2012 2:09 pm

Great news Andy, worth the effort in the end, but should not have taken anything like this long.
The whole system is designed to grind you into submission.

You may remember the story of mine trelating to a case of somebody pulling out on me in the car 15 years or so ago.
A bloke pulled staight off a forecourt without looking onto a dual carriageway that I was driving down and I T-boned him.
I had legal cover and used it (?) and heard nothing for many months, then they came back and said sorry it's 50/50, the two insurance companies had agreed, so no more discussion.
On request they eventually supplied me a copy of his evidence, which led them to this conclusion.
It was unbelievably useless and I refuted every bit of his statement.
For example they stated the other driver had been careful to look before he pulled out, (he had an independent witness statement to say he had clearly looked left before he pulled out) and the driver had not seen me so I must have been doing some incredible speed to come from nowhere and hit him.

I was coming down a dual carrigeway from the RIGHT. Oooops. 1

The independent witness turned out to be a mate of his who lived two doors away. Oooops. 2
They had accepted the view of his insurers and suggested that my witness (my wife), was not a valid witness and the view of the independent witness was more valid!
I suggested that his witness/mate was just as unsuitable (?) but in any case I did accept his view that the witness had seen the other bloke look left before pulling out but never mentioned looking right towards me!
The impact to the drivers side of his car was fairly minimal, if I had been doing the speed he had suggested his car would have been destroyed and he would probably be dead. Oooops. 3
I also reminded them that the police officers measure the skid marks and found no evidence of any fault on my side!

Plus a few other similarly obvious points.
My insurance company came back and said that's brilliant we can fight it much better now and got me 100% within a few days and a thankyou letter for my help.
I have never paid for legal cover since!

There is only ever really "you" with the will to fight anything, insurance companies just want it put it to bed as quickly as possible and 50/50 is a very convenient agreement for them.
Hope the final bits get sorted as well!

Nooj · #59 Post by **Nooj** » Tue May 15, 2012 4:06 pm

Reckon TC would have a look at my minor incident in the van last November with me? Renewal's just come through and it's nearly double last year's premium at £778!!! My insurers say a judge would say 50/50, but I reckon that's bollocks given the situation. Also a witness (a driving instructor giving a lesson) won't come forward >:-(

BikerGran · #60 Post by **BikerGran** » Tue May 15, 2012 5:01 pm

I had a similar story years ago when I was knocked off the baby bike, other side kept delaying a asking stupid questions, I just kept repeating wat I'd already said, after 2 years my solicitor (a biker himself - I had changed solicitors!) went for a court date and the other side capitulated just a couple of days before.