Driver knocked me off bike advice please??

[Jamezy]

Sorry to hear about your incident and hope you are okay and how are your injuries and what happened to the bike?

Wishing you the best of luck and thanks for commenting.

[robing]

iBates - that's terrible. Why couldn't they allocate another officer to replace the one off on long term sick leave?
This sort of behaviour is all too common in the public sector. How much sick leave did you get/take after being knocked off your bike?!

[ibates16]

My crash happened back in the beginning of May and still don't know what punishment the driver is going to receive. Such an easy case to resolve as all on camera, even had to supply a DVD with the footage on as they have no real way to view it otherwise.

Cannot believe it is this difficult getting justice.

The bike required new handlebar tape,saddle, rear wheel truing and gear adjustment along with an insurance quote for the work this came to £150 there were a couple of marks to the frame but nothing can really do about that. Had this all done just to get the bike back on the road, once the insurance company admitted liability they were happy to pay without seeing any receipts.

[ibates16]

Back in May I knocked off by a driver that failed to stop. As the case has now been to court I have put the footage online.
https://youtu.be/Ob3FxaWir9w

The driver appeared in court on 07/11/17 for the offences of
Driver of vehicle failed to stop after road accident
Failed to report and produce insurance
Drive a mechanically propelled vehicle on a road without reasonable consideration to other users and received,
£250 fine
£30 surcharge to court
£85 Prosecution costs
6 Months disqualification.

I feel this is a good result.

[Toffee]

AS I have just posted the driver that hit me has now been to court

https://youtu.be/Ob3FxaWir9w

The driver appeared in court on 07/11/17 for the offences of
Driver of vehicle failed to stop after road accident
Failed to report and produce insurance
Drive a mechanically propelled vehicle on a road without reasonable consideration to other users and received,
£250 fine
£30 surcharge to court
£85 Prosecution costs
6 Months disqualification.

I feel a good result.

[inappropriate word removed] is that all!!

[meic]

Not quite.
Just wait till she sees her new insurance quotes.

[The utility cyclist]

Frankly she should have got two years ban and it be dangerous driving given her speed at the roundabout but that's the weak legal system for you, hit someone at 10mph on a bike whilst trying to avoid the collision and the CPS/police charge for manslaughter
Only by luck alone were you not seemingly seriously injured.

[Pete Owens]

Driving without due care looks to be appropriate to me.
It was SMIDSY - For dangerous driving there would have to be evidence that the driving before the collision was so dangerous that it would be obvious to onlookers (racing, driving the wrong way down a motorway, swertving all over the road...).

Had she disconnected the brakes and approached the roundabout with the horn blazing yelling at the cyclist to get out of the way then the Alliston comparison would be valid.

However, the penalty for driving away from the scene should be very much more severe. The original collision was almost certainly unintentional, but leaving the scene rather than stopping to call for help was deliberate and shows a callous disregard for the life of the victim who could well be seriously injured and in need of urgent life saving attention. Anyone who drives off should be treated more severely than if they were found to be several times over the drink drive limit - as this is the probable reason for driving off in the first place. This should have resulted in jail time.

Also the fine for uninsured driving is a joke. To be a deterrent the fine needs to be many times the cost of buying insurance.

[meic]

Also the fine for uninsured driving is a joke. To be a deterrent the fine needs to be many times the cost of buying insurance.

Is the fine for having no insurance or for failing to produce the insurance documents at the time because they did a runner? I think the latter because ibates16 mentions the company paying out for his damages somewhere, doesnt he?

Had she disconnected the brakes and approached the roundabout with the horn blazing yelling at the cyclist to get out of the way then the Alliston comparison would be valid.

Not really because nobody died or even had any serious injuries in this case, which is a rather big difference, I would say.

[gbnz]

, but leaving the scene rather than stopping to call for help was deliberate and shows a callous disregard for the life of the victim who could well be seriously injured and in need of urgent life saving attention..

It's worth noting that the video shows that the motorist stopped and pulled over to the side of the road. Presumably on seeing the cyclist back on their feet, picking up the bike and walking around, the panic to get away cut in!

Still well done, not a bad result. Hope the careless ........

[thirdcrank]

FWIW, if I've read the post correctly, the driver was not prosecuted for having no insurance. The insurance bit here is because the requirement to stop / report to police includes a requirement to produce the insurance cover. Had the driver been convicted of having no insurance, that would have been listed as a separate charge.

This bit of legislation is quite complicated with various twiddly bits. Anybody with time on their hands can read it all here. (A loophole merchant's paradise.)

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/198 ... f-accident

[pwa]

I've often wondered about what makes people drive off from the scene of an accident. Okay, there are the uninsured drivers and those at the extreme end of the spectrum who really don't like their fellow human beings. But what about the others. I imagine there must be some sort of panic reaction going on. You hear of people who disappear then return, presumably after pulling over and thinking about it. But of course it has to be an offence, and failure to stop must result in a meaningful penalty.

In this instance I feel the sentence was about right. A 6 month ban would hit most people hard, hard enough to constitute a real punishment.

[Samuel D]

I agree the punishment is meaningful and probably as good as you can hope for in the current climate (of society being lenient on driving offences).

On the other hand, the driver did something similar to a motorcyclist a few years ago, on that occasion seemingly without insurance. At what point should we say we’re all better off without her behind the wheel?

Driving away from the scene is not something I would do, but then I believe in a few old-fashioned principles. However, it is a minor offence compared to splattering a cyclist at a roundabout. Ask ibates16 which bothered him more!

It’s disappointing that ibates16 had to work so hard to get a prosecution even though he had video footage of the incident. I guess the police are inundated with more serious cases and the whole system is so staggeringly inefficient that cases like this one are often dropped. But this tolerance of low-level offending is why the roads are a free-for-all.

[meic]

You hear of people who disappear then return,

That happened to me when knocked off my motorcycle.
I guess some people dont know that all you have to do is say SMIDSY and then in the unlikely event of a prosecution the penalty will be minuscule.
I imagine the car that hit was worrying that I may have managed to get their number plate even while lying on the ground after the crash and I had! So I was actually a little disappointed that they returned.
They had some other tricks up their sleeve though, they refused to answer communications from their insurance company and both insurance companies thought that this was a good enough reason to just forget the whole thing. It was only when I personally took them to small claims that they suddenly started talking to their insurance company.

[Samuel D]

Perhaps women who knock over a man, as in ibates16’s case, have an additional worry about violence against their person if they return to a victim who is on his feet. This probably doesn’t justify fleeing except in unusual circumstances, but it’s something I add as mitigating circumstances in my personal moral ledger.