Witnessed a van hit a bike

adamjacobs

My friend and I went out for a bike ride and I saw a vehicle cut across traffic and hit him. Luckily, he escaped with just bruises, but his bike etc. are damaged. They stopped and provided details and the police confirmed that the details are correct.

I was about two car lengths behind him on my bike and I saw the whole thing. The driver's insurance company are refusing to record my witness statement because I am not 'independent' because I know my friend. They said it is 'human nature' for me to say anything to protect my friend. I have no intention of lying and would be happy to take a lie detector test to prove it. Is this normal? Is there anything I can do to insist that my statement is accepted?

Anonymous

Glad your friend is OK.

Not sure if there is anything you can do but interesting that you mentioned a lie detector test.

If only a 100% accurate machine could be made we may at last be able to have a half decent legal system!

sloppyschleckonds

I'd record your witness statement and give it to your friends solicitor. I'm sure if it ever gets to court ( I.e they contest it) your statement will be valid.

houston26

It's the usual insurance company trying to weasel out of paying out, standard procedure. If your friend has a solicitor on the case then they will deal with it, even if your not truly independent your statement still counts for something

Lie detector? I wish there was such a thing!

steve6690

What are the police doing about it ?

sungod

what the driver's insurance company wants is irrelevant, ignore them, they are acting only in their interest

if he hasn't already done so, your friend needs to get an incident report form from the police, fill it in, include your details as a witness (and those of any others) and give it to the police, he also should be taking pictures of all injuries and damage and writing down his own recollection of events, and NOT giving it to the insurance company

if they're non-trivial, he should summarise the damages he expects and send a demand for them asking for full payment in 14 days, in cash not in kind, if they screw around, contact a lawyer

you, ideally without discussing with others their idea/opinion of the incident, should write down the facts as you know them in as much detail as you can, times, dates, what happened, who did/said what, not opinion, just hard facts

if you had a gps running, save the track log too

it could be a long time before you are asked about the incident, having contemporaneous notes of it will be better than relying on memory - i was contacted over a year after witnessing an incident, without notes i'd have no idea when it happened

markos1963

Put it this way, if an intruder broke into your house and God forbid attacked one of your family and you saw it do you think your witness statement wouldn't be valid then? Of course not. In court your statement could be challenged but it wouldn't be discounted.

diy

Some good advice here.. Forget the lie detector test, there will be a precedent here. But any sol worth his lunch should be able to cross examine you in a civil court to verify your version of events. As others have said -make sure his sol is aware that you are prepared give a statement and attend any civil hearing.

An independant witness is someone not known to either party. It does not make your account invalid. But there is bound to be a precedent here - I just don't know where it is.

oldwelshman

I guess I is same principle as when your a passenger in a car and cannot be witness. Insurance wise that is.

diy

Just did a bit of asking around and the conclusion is as I thought. Insurance co are talking sh**.

The court will attribute weight to the evidence and credibility of the witness' account, taking in to account their relationship to one party.

Pross

As a witness you could be called to court to give evidence under oath. If you did that and failed to tell the truth you would be committing perjury so the insurance company are talking nonsense.

adamjacobs

Thanks so much for all the helpful advice. We both recorded our routes on MapMyRide and it clearly shows we were both there at the same time, I have photos I took on my phone of the vehicle and of the bike and my friend as well and I typed up my version of events and emailed it to myself for safe keeping.

Hopefully, it will all work out fine and the other side will admit what happened, but will have to wait and see. I think this is going to be a long, drawn out process though and has made me think about getting some proper cycle insurance!