Taxi caused crash - advice please
garnett
Posts: 196
Coming back from Liverpool Street over London Bridge after the London to Southend bike ride on Sunday, I hit very heavy torrential rain. And then the side of a taxi.
At London Bridge traffic coming off the bridge was at a standstill, but had a green light. There was no room for cars on the other side of the box grid so they weren't moving over. I was going down the left of the traffic and crossed the junction. A taxi coming from the opposite direction turned right, and swung across my path. I slowed as much as possible without skidding and thumped into the passenger side. I managed to stay upright. The wallop must have been very loud inside the cab for his two fares.
The cabbie suffered a torrent of abuse through his passenger window, along the lines of "what the F do you think you're playing at?". He looked a bit shocked and said, "Sorry, I didn't see you" and then asked if I was OK.
I felt fine and he seemed genuinely shaken, so said I was OK and apologised for swearing and cycled off. With the adrenalin pumping I didn't take any details whatsoever.
Now 2 days later I can't lift my arm above 45 degrees from my body and my shoulder has no strength. I already had an inflamed rotator cuff, but I think now it may be torn.
The bike seems fine, after I realigned the slight twist in the handlebars, and moved the front brake calipers back into position.
I have a physio session booked in for tomorrow morning.
Friends have said I should enquire about compensation but I'm loathe to add to the "litigation culture" and said I didn't want to. As the shoulder gets more and more useless though, I'm wondering about my options.
I'd be very grateful for any advice on my options and what to do next.
Thanks for reading.
At London Bridge traffic coming off the bridge was at a standstill, but had a green light. There was no room for cars on the other side of the box grid so they weren't moving over. I was going down the left of the traffic and crossed the junction. A taxi coming from the opposite direction turned right, and swung across my path. I slowed as much as possible without skidding and thumped into the passenger side. I managed to stay upright. The wallop must have been very loud inside the cab for his two fares.
The cabbie suffered a torrent of abuse through his passenger window, along the lines of "what the F do you think you're playing at?". He looked a bit shocked and said, "Sorry, I didn't see you" and then asked if I was OK.
I felt fine and he seemed genuinely shaken, so said I was OK and apologised for swearing and cycled off. With the adrenalin pumping I didn't take any details whatsoever.
Now 2 days later I can't lift my arm above 45 degrees from my body and my shoulder has no strength. I already had an inflamed rotator cuff, but I think now it may be torn.
The bike seems fine, after I realigned the slight twist in the handlebars, and moved the front brake calipers back into position.
I have a physio session booked in for tomorrow morning.
Friends have said I should enquire about compensation but I'm loathe to add to the "litigation culture" and said I didn't want to. As the shoulder gets more and more useless though, I'm wondering about my options.
I'd be very grateful for any advice on my options and what to do next.
Thanks for reading.
0
Posts
I'm currently nursing a broken collar bone that came courtesy of an accident that wasn't my fault so I can sympathise.
What do I ride? Now that's an Enigma!
Going Top to Bottom - E2E for Everyman and Headway - Spet 2013
Filtering down the left side, how is the oncoming right-turning traffic expected to see you? When, in your own admission it was raining heavily?
A bit more care and attention from BOTH parties would have prevented this, and I imagine would be used to mitigate the cabbies financial responsibilities.
'You'll never guess who I had in the side of my cab last week!'
Hope you recover quickly. When the rain is as heavy as it was last week you have to slow right down to allow for the poor braking conditions. Added to that the poor visibility and it is easy to see how your accident happened. The taxi driver was in the wrong for cutting across you, though you probably made an error too in not thinking that it could happen at a major junction and not riding in a way to avoid it. If it was me, I think I would put it down as a lesson learned and not bother pursuing it, but good luck if you do decide to.
I think both parties were equally in the wrong.
Absolutely.
Yeah, that is my current view. As the shoulder loses mobility and strength I feel more peeved, though.
I guess by paying suffiecient attention to the traffic with priority.
Yeah, I agree. I may even have dented his cab too.
I can't follow the grammar in that, sorry.
I guess what I'm worried about is finding out down the line that the injury's not gonna heal fuly and/or cause lasting loss of mobility and strength and at that point regret having not made inquiries about seeking recompense within a suitable time or at a time when evidence is still available.
Firstly you were passing down the inside of the cars which had stopped at the box junction. The taxi would presumably have seen that the cars were stationary and turned right. At which point, you will have appeared overtaking up the inside. I think it's perfectly reasonable for a vehicle to turn right if he sees another vehicle stationary at a box junction. I'm sure that the cabbie didn't see you, that'll be because you were obscured by the line of stationary traffic that you were passing on the inside.
Secondly, you didn't take any details, so good luck tracing the cab.
Thirdly, you haven't mentioned that you've reported the accident. In which case, and I'm not doubting your story, what's to say that you didn't have another accident, fall down the stairs etc in the time between hitting the cab and your shoulder beginning to hurt ?
I think you're on a hiding to nothing with this one, just get yourself to the doc and physio and take a little more care next time.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved
FFS Will!!! Now you've thrown me. I can't understand your sentences without 'proper', ain't or 'like' being included.
There must be approx 10 meters between where cars going in my direction were waiting and where the taxi should have been waiting (instead of swinging into my path).
I'm pretty sure I was within the highway code to be doing what I was doing. I suppose I could have predicted the cabbie wouldn't wait for me. I was wearing a high vis full sleeve rain jacket at the time.
The cabbie also apologised straight away and said "sorry, I didn't see you".
Freehub, I still don't really understand. Do you live in London?
If the cabbie didnt' see you and you were wearing hi-viz, there's a good chance that you were obscured by the stationary cars when he started his turn. This could be supported by the fact that 10m isn't very far and even if you were doing 5mph (which seems slow considereing you couldn't stop) it would take you ~4 seconds before you hit the taxi. 4 seconds seems an awfully long time. Think about it, cab turns right, then 1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. you hit the side of his cab, and you were braking sufficiently hard to skid in the wet.
I'm not doubting what happened, just your perception of it and I think you'll struggle to make any claims. Either way, I hope your shoulder recovers !
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved
Selby is no where near London so no.
I don't see how the comment is hard to understand, if you've got cars on your right side and you're coming up to a junction and the cars are stopped you should slow right down, like proper slow and make sure it's clear, or if they're moving then don't even attempt it.
It's the same wherever you live London is no different.
I think what you meant to say was "I'd never go past cars on the left if I was approaching a junction."
The junction is stationary, you are the one that is moving.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved
I appreciate what you say and I don't deny that there was some (but not much) contributory neg on my part. However, the timing was more like:-
I come down the line of traffic and begin to cross the box junction, and am crossing it for 1 second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds, before taxi turns right in front of me, and, four seconds, BAM. As I say, the cabbie immediately apologised.
It was my understanding that traffic wanting to turn right should wait for oncoming traffic which has priority.
It's further my understanding that bikes can cross junctions even if cars are not.
Also, many many cyclists who I would suspect consider themselves conscientious road users "undertake" stationary cars.
Anyway, notwithstanding the above, many thanks to all for the help.
It's ages since I rode across London Bridge but isn't there a cycle lane to an ASL as you come south across it?
If you are turning right (IIRC) across the three lanes of southbound traffic (2 vehicle & 1 bike) really you should be expecting cyclists to be using the inside lane & coming down the left hand side of the traffic and check that was clear before making your turn.
No, the junction was moving, the cyclist is stationary, it's called bending space time.
On a further note: there is no such thing as an accident, only a collision where one or more of the parties didn't plan properly. i'll let the forum users decide who needed to think more in this case given the weather etc....
Think how stupid the average person is.......
half of them are even more stupid than you first thought.