Ouch!

Well, at 57 years of age and after having cycled most of my life on & off I had my first vehicle
collision yesterday. I was cycling along the main road, car coming the other way, driver performed
right turn immediately in front of me. Nowhere to go other than into the side of the car, over the
bonnet & onto the tarmac the other side.

A nice variation on SMIDSY, whilst I was lying in the road a voice, presumably the driver, said "I
thought you'd seen me", which presumably means she saw me but still turned anyway.

Without prejudice (just in case) I seem to have got off lightly, lots of things hurt today but
nothing broken. Haven't dared look at the bike yet.

Nothing but praise for the passers-by who rushed to my aid and the ambulance service who were there
very quickly.

Will be phoning the CTC accident line tomorrow.

An interesting footnote, part of the ambulance crew's report says "Helmet worn and in situ on our
arrival". This is presumably because driver's insurance company might try to shift blame to
cyclist in the case of head injuries if no helmet? If so, sounds unreasonable to me, driver wasn't
wearing one.....

Pete

--
Peter Grange

remove crude spam trap to reply

 

helmet issue to one side - I am very, very glad you are okay, Pete. Have the police been informed?
They should be.

Take care and mend completely.

Cheers, helen s

~~~~~~~~~~
Clean up the waste & get rid of the trapped wind to send a reply

Any speeliong mistake$ aR the resiult of my cats sitting on the keyboaRRRDdd
~~~~~~~~~~

 

In article <[email protected]>, wafflycathcsdirtycatlitter
<[email protected]> writes
>helmet issue to one side - I am very, very glad you are okay, Pete. Have the police been informed?
>They should be.
>
>Take care and mend completely.
>
>Cheers, helen s
>
>
>~~~~~~~~~~
>Clean up the waste & get rid of the trapped wind to send a reply
>
>Any speeliong mistake$ aR the resiult of my cats sitting on the keyboaRRRDdd
>~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks Helen. Yes police attended, have names of 4 witnesses from them.

Pete
--
Peter Grange remove crude spam trap to reply

 

Peter Grange wrote:
> An interesting footnote, part of the ambulance crew's report says "Helmet worn and in situ on our
> arrival". This is presumably because driver's insurance company might try to shift blame to
> cyclist in the case of head injuries if no helmet? If so, sounds unreasonable to me, driver wasn't
> wearing one.....

Did you actually hit your head?

Glad you're OK.

There is a small but growing minority of drivers who think it's cyclists' job to get out of their
way. Some of them drive buses.

Colin McKenzie

 

"Peter Grange" <[email protected]_THISplgrange.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:[email protected]... <snip>
> A nice variation on SMIDSY, whilst I was lying in the road a voice, presumably the driver, said "I
> thought you'd seen me", which presumably means she saw me but still turned anyway.
<snip>
> Peter Grange
>

Nice quote, like to see her get out of that one if the witnesses heard it (though I'm sure the
insewerants company will try.)

Glad to hear you're OK

Tim S

 

"Peter Grange" <[email protected]_THISplgrange.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> An interesting footnote, part of the ambulance crew's report says "Helmet worn and in situ on our
> arrival". This is presumably because driver's insurance company might try to shift blame to
> cyclist in the case of head injuries if no helmet? If so, sounds unreasonable to me, driver wasn't
> wearing one.....

Can't see that being the case, since it's not a legal requirement to wear one. I would have thought
that this would be useful info for the doctors as they look for injuries to your bonce. Hope you
recover OK.

--
Simon Mason Anlaby East Yorkshire. 53°44'N 0°26'W http://www.simonmason.karoo.net

 

On Sun, 1 Jun 2003 11:43:19 +0100, Peter Grange <[email protected]_THISplgrange.demon.co.uk> wrote:

[snip ouchie]

Glad you're OK. Sadly the driver is immune from the standard penalty for this kind of behaviour,
lacking as she does the goolies which would otherwise be cut off.

>A nice variation on SMIDSY, whilst I was lying in the road a voice, presumably the driver, said "I
>thought you'd seen me", which presumably means she saw me but still turned anyway.

That's what's technically known as an "admission of liability"

>An interesting footnote, part of the ambulance crew's report says "Helmet worn and in situ on our
>arrival". This is presumably because driver's insurance company might try to shift blame to cyclist
>in the case of head injuries if no helmet?

They have been known to try, and have so far been slapped down every time they've tried it with the
CTC's legal people. John Franklin apparently has a steady business informing courts of the limited
effectiveness of helmets.

Guy
===
** WARNING ** This posting may contain traces of irony. http://www.chapmancentral.com (BT ADSL and
dynamic DNS permitting)
NOTE: BT Openworld have now blocked port 25 (without notice), so old mail addresses may no longer
work. Apologies.

 

In article <[email protected]>, Colin McKenzie <[email protected]> writes
>Peter Grange wrote:
>> An interesting footnote, part of the ambulance crew's report says "Helmet worn and in situ on our
>> arrival". This is presumably because driver's insurance company might try to shift blame to
>> cyclist in the case of head injuries if no helmet? If so, sounds unreasonable to me, driver
>> wasn't wearing one.....
>
>Did you actually hit your head?
>
>Glad you're OK.
>
>There is a small but growing minority of drivers who think it's cyclists' job to get out of their
>way. Some of them drive buses.
>
>
>Colin McKenzie
I honestly don't know if I did hit my head. There is some scratching on the helmet which suggests it
hit something, I guess it hit the tarmac eventually. I will replace it anyway, hopefully at the
expense of the offending driver's ins co. Whilst I'm typing, I should have said in my original post
that the 'passers by' did include other drivers. Credit where credit's due.

Pete
--
Peter Grange

Remove crude spam trap to reply

 

In article <[email protected]>, one of infinite monkeys at the keyboard of Peter
Grange <[email protected]_THISplgrange.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> A nice variation on SMIDSY, whilst I was lying in the road a voice, presumably the driver, said "I
> thought you'd seen me", which presumably means she saw me but still turned anyway.

AIUI drivers can be required to undertake retraining after an accident. That sounds like very strong
grounds for it!

> Without prejudice (just in case) I seem to have got off lightly, lots of things hurt today but
> nothing broken. Haven't dared look at the bike yet.
>
> Will be phoning the CTC accident line tomorrow.

Sounds like you have things well in hand. Good luck with getting back to normal (you and the
bike both).

--
Axis of Evil: Whose economy needs ever more wars? Arms Exports $bn: USA 14.2, UK 5.1, vs France 1.5,
Germany 0.8 (The Economist, July 2002)

 

Colin McKenzie wrote:
> Peter Grange wrote:
>
>>An interesting footnote, part of the ambulance crew's report says "Helmet worn and in situ on our
>>arrival". This is presumably because driver's insurance company might try to shift blame to
>>cyclist in the case of head injuries if no helmet? If so, sounds unreasonable to me, driver wasn't
>>wearing one.....
>
>
> Did you actually hit your head?
>
> Glad you're OK.
>
> There is a small but growing minority of drivers who think it's cyclists' job to get out of their
> way. Some of them drive buses.
>

Most of the ones round here seem to drive black cabs, but thats only to be expected as they think
they are the salt of the earth. I think they are the same but would spell salt differently.

I had a similar accident to the one you describe, outside a police station witnessed by off duty
police, it still took a month of Sunday's for the driver's insurance to pay up. That was without CTC
assistance though.

Anyway glad to hear it's nothing serious and hope you get back on your bike ASAP.

Daniel.

 

"Tim S" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...
> "Peter Grange" <[email protected]_THISplgrange.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]... <snip>
> > A nice variation on SMIDSY, whilst I was lying in the road a voice, presumably the driver, said
> > "I thought you'd seen me", which presumably means she saw me but still turned anyway.
>
> Nice quote, like to see her get out of that one if the witnesses heard it (though I'm sure the
> insewerants company will try.)

An admission of liability if ever I heard one.

> Glad to hear you're OK

Ditto. Hope your bike's OK too, Peter, and you're out on it again in no time.

--
Dave...