Claiming from the council

webboo

reacher wrote:

For christs sake just man up sunshine, theirs an enormous amount of money going on people like you making claims that is needed on more important stuff like essential services as proved in Manchester, watch the road even get off if your insure I'm not against genuine claims but a tumble ? Really, are you that desperate for compensation for a scraped knee, every kid that rides a bikes comes off at some stage, it's part of being on a bike, sounds to me like you had nothing more than a scraped knee an suddenly you feel like you should get a few thousand quid to help you get over it, ffs i'v had road rash you wouldn't believe an got on the bike the next day
Maybe you should consider putting stabilisers on your bike son !

I never realised that there were so many hero's out there and didn't realise what a parasitical wimp I was. I'm really great full for you pointing this out. Do you think I should stop accepting my pension as it comes from working for the NHS which means you all paid for it as you paid my wages and still do. I better give my bike back as well as that came from my pension lump sum.
Thanks for the advice and the next time I ask for advice we can do a different Monty Python sketch.

benjamess

Only one winner if you claim. The blood sucking solicitors taking in their fees.

darkhairedlord

benjamess wrote:

Only one winner if you claim. The blood sucking solicitors taking in their fees.

Careful, that's half the forum....
I look forward to the day you need one too.

fenix

This thread needs photos of the offending road.

bendertherobot

reacher wrote:

bendertherobot wrote:

reacher wrote:

Webboo wrote:

In this case if I'd been walking I would tripped over this lump, it was that hidden.

In that case you have learned a lesson then, slow down when you can't see what's ahead
And suck it up as a hard lesson and stop trying to jump on the claim off the council gravy train that you and others seem to think that tripping over stuff on the road or pavement requires a substantial reward funded by the taxpayer, do you realy think that with all the thousands upon thousands of miles of road and pavements in the UK that every single yard is going to be billiard table flat ? If you want perfect flat stay on the turbo your completely unrealistic to expect every yard of road to be perfect.

At what level of intervention/fault do you consider that you get off the gravy train and onto the justice train?

none, learn to ride a bike, keep your eyes open and stop trying to get money that needs to be spent on things that are essential not people scraping theirs knees because they fell off the bike on a road they did not need to ride on, you want smooth road then go and find one an go up an down that particular piece of road, like bike riders have never fallen off bikes an all of a sudden you do so you now need to get a reward for doing so ?
Jesus, wish i had known about this particular wheeze when i was a kid, would be a zillionaire by now

Well, you see, the theory of tort law is to put you back into the position you would have been in but for the accident, are you zillionnaire now?

bendertherobot

darkhairedlord wrote:

benjamess wrote:

Only one winner if you claim. The blood sucking solicitors taking in their fees.

Careful, that's half the forum....
I look forward to the day you need one too.

The other half are dentists.

Man Of Lard

Why doesn't OP just put in his claim in calm and measured language. Draw the council (if in England & Wales) attention to Highways Act (1980) section 56...

1)A person (“the complainant”) who alleges that a way or bridge—
(a)is a highway maintainable at the public expense or a highway which a person is liable to maintain under a special enactment or by reason of tenure, enclosure or prescription, and
(b)is out of repair,

The test should be one of reasonability (nobody expects perfect roads)...

JFDI

bendertherobot

Section 56 is a notice requiring repair.

Man Of Lard

Indeed - however it demonstrates to them that (a) you are looking seriously into their highways maintenance obligations (ie. it is their duty to maintain...) and inspection regime (the records are amazingly always perfectly up to date but miss 10 year old potholes) and (b) they need to get out and f$%£$%$ repair it.

My experience (in Scotland, with no veil of HA (1980) S56 cover...) if your claim is not unreasonable, they pay it after some (ok, quite a lot of) prevarication (and hints of small claims court action).

bendertherobot

It's also needlessly complex. Notification of a claim indicating that section 40 has been breached is enough. They'll either deny it and leave the pothole there or admit their failure.

Or, deny it, but fix it anyway, just in case

fudgey

Not read all of this but yes, last January i came a cropper to a road defect and successfully claimed off the council.

Have a look on Martin Lewis' money saving expert website and follow that.

First off report it, take loads of pics, measure the road/defect etc, request the FOI for the road surveys etc and put in a claim letter.

My claim was on a straight road, it was early january and i was cycling home from my first day of work for the year, in the dark using a 500 lumen light. The defect was 18 meters long, 1 meter in from the left side of the road and iirc 75mm deep. Basically the road had sank for that stretch but of course i didnt see it and it was like hitting a kerb in the middle of the road at 18mph..
Cracked the carbon frame, rear mech damaged + hangar, ripped bar tape, scuffed shifter and pedal, tore clothing, sprained ankle and cuts/gravel rash/bruises. And my battery died on phone after taking pics so had to ride home in pain and up a bugger of a hill with no small gears...

fudgey

The view at night, the red light is obv my bike, using my front light to show what i could see.



And in the clear light of day


I spoke to a guy working on the farm and he said it had been like that for years and he had seen a car hit it and spin... So i kept on at the council to put uneven road signs up, which they did eventually and now the road has been repaired.

DavidJB

I manage to ride 12,000 miles a year and not once have I fallen off due to a bad road surface. Sounds like you need to develop some bike handling skills.

rolf_f

DavidJB wrote:

I manage to ride 12,000 miles a year and not once have I fallen off due to a bad road surface. Sounds like you need to develop some bike handling skills.

Well, you can't argue with this level of detailed conclusive scientific investigation. Always nice when we get a new irrefutable fact we can all rely on.

bendertherobot

DavidJB wrote:

I manage to ride 12,000 miles a year and not once have I fallen off due to a bad road surface. Sounds like you need to develop some bike handling skills.

viewtopic.php?f=40020&t=13078153&p=20104663&hilit=fell+off#p20104663

About those skills......

top_bhoy

bendertherobot wrote:

DavidJB wrote:

I manage to ride 12,000 miles a year and not once have I fallen off due to a bad road surface. Sounds like you need to develop some bike handling skills.

viewtopic.php?f=40020&t=13078153&p=20104663&hilit=fell+off#p20104663

About those skills......

Gold

Bobbinogs

The award for best post of the year to date goes to BTR, gonna be hard to beat that folks :-)

DavidJB

Still never fallen off due to a bad road surface though...

cougie

Mind you you've never had the flu either if you can ride 25 miles. Once you've had the flu - then you'll realise this.

Man Of Lard

cougie wrote:

Mind you you've never had the flu either if you can ride 25 miles. Once you've had the flu - then you'll realise this.

True that. When I had it, even my eyelashes ached. It really was like being run over slowly by a bus.

webboo

DavidJB wrote:

Still never fallen off due to a bad road surface though...

But you managed to run in to the side of a purpose built racing circuit it seems.

jgsi

Webboo wrote:

DavidJB wrote:

Still never fallen off due to a bad road surface though...

But you managed to run in to the side of a purpose built racing circuit it seems.

Dont worry about him, he's an out and out chopper..
I'm with you, mightily p e ed off with not fit for purpose road surfaces.
In my manor... my foofin council tax, so have a right to moan.
I have 2 bad stretches that force me into the middle of the road on a busy car rat run lane. The council bless 'em closed the road for 4 days to do 5 small patches.. I was expecting at least road scrub and top dressing... foolish me.
I've been assured in 2037, the issue will be addressed.

Tiesetrotter

ZMC888 wrote:

I complained about smashing a wheel and ruining a new Conti GP4000 on a pot hole. Reported where it was and that the road (country lane) was cracking due to water damage and would need repairing soon. I detailed the exact places by GPS and with a local OS map.

I got a short response from the local CC engineer.

1. We don't care about cyclists - if the road is passable with care (eg a car) screw you.
2. We don't care about country lanes, only main roads as we don't have enough money to maintain country roads as main roads are important for the economy.
3. You can't simply tell us about something like frost or water damage or a road that might need surface dressing or drainage unblocking before it looks like a lunar landscape, that takes too much of our precious time.
4. You may ONLY mark on a map where there is a pot hole on our council website. No other type of damage is acceptable to be reported. No other kind of road than an A or B road.

In short they don't care, you'd have to take them to court. You'd probably lose, they'll just say it was 'passable with care' and that you didn't use enough care and attention. Bad luck if you didn't know the road and some giant pot hole is under a puddle. :roll:

Join the local council and sort it out. There is no 'they' only 'us'.

top_bhoy

JGSI wrote:

I'm with you, mightily p e ed off with not fit for purpose road surfaces.
In my manor... my foofin council tax, so have a right to moan.
I have 2 bad stretches that force me into the middle of the road on a busy car rat run lane. The council bless 'em closed the road for 4 days to do 5 small patches.. I was expecting at least road scrub and top dressing... foolish me.
I've been assured in 2037, the issue will be addressed.

Its not confined to UK roads. I came off a couple of weeks back in traffic whilst indicating left (only one hand on the bars) after hitting (in retrospect) a humongous pothole and coming down. Thankfully, the car behind was giving me a decent enough space and was able to stop so the worst that happened to me was a dent in my pride, scrapes and a bit of pain for a week; nothing broken. Whilst I'm very annoyed that the pothole is located at a popular junction, it's made worse that this pothole was actually a previous repair which had collapsed. If had I ended up in hospital or wrote the bike off I would indeed pursue it but in the absence of long-term injury or significant damage, what can you do? Grit your teeth, report it and move on is about it.

reacher

Fudgey wrote:

The view at night, the red light is obv my bike, using my front light to show what i could see.



And in the clear light of day


I spoke to a guy working on the farm and he said it had been like that for years and he had seen a car hit it and spin... So i kept on at the council to put uneven road signs up, which they did eventually and now the road has been repaired.

So because you want to ride at night in the pitch black along an un- lit road with out adequate lighting on your bike to see where your going or to see the road surface and fall off you feel the tax payer should pick up the tab ? Have you any idea how many miles of road their are like this in the Uk ?
Yet you want the local councils to go and put every yard of road and pavement to a perfect condition if they said ok we can do that but we want cyclists to pay a tax to use the roads much like motorists I presume your quite happy to do so in order that they can repair roads for you ?

bendertherobot

It's almost as if the Highways Act doesn't exist................

imafatman

reacher wrote:

Yet you want the local councils to go and put every yard of road and pavement to a perfect condition if they said ok we can do that but we want cyclists to pay a tax to use the roads much like motorists I presume your quite happy to do so in order that they can repair roads for you ?

It's 4 inches deep, that's like having a kerb in the middle of the road and by the sounds of it cars have had problems with it too.

I don't think anyone expects the council to maintain perfect roads, but if someone gets injured or has an accident due to badly maintained roads then I think it's their duty to make good. At the very least this gives them an incentive to actually repair roads.

Otherwise if there is no penalty they can just say fuck it let the roads rot. And then what?

BTW I do think the OP should be riding with a lot more lumens if they are riding at night without street lights, it's no excuse not to pay out but he definitely should have a big flood up front so he can avoid hitting these in future.

fudgey

Tbh I don't care what anyone else thinks. That section of road was down right dangerous. As you can see from the first pic you can't make out the difference in height in the dark as its a straight line.

But don't worry, that section and another the same further up the road have been repaired thanks to me.

And yes, I'd gladly pay a cycle emission's based tax like cars. You do realise that some cars have zero RFL no?

I have a 3200lm light upfront now too. I can see where I'm going but get chased by cars that think my light is too bright - I can't win.

And finally , I have came off a bike many times in the past and not claimed, but this one was a totally different situation. I haven't hit the back of a van yet tho...

shimanobottombracket

Fenix wrote:

Can you expect a 'perfect' road surface ?

Expect? No, Demand? Bloody well right, pay enough taxes! I suppose the Sales of Goods act or whatever the equivelant doesnt apply to stuff paid for via taxation. Fit for purpose need not apply.

Debeli wrote:

I have no experience. I have crashed many, many times over the decades. Sometimes I have been unhurt; sometimes I have been injured. Sometimes the bike has had a wallop; sometimes it has escaped injury.

On occasion the reason, beyond my own momentary inattention, might have been ascribed to a poor road surface.

These things happen.

Life is full of such incidents. I am not sure why someone would want to pursue another party in an attempt to attach blame to them and generate some financial benefit.

To my mind it is slightly egregious and gauche even to consider the action. The local council is not a 'baddie' in a cowboy film. It is the local-government body that attempts to manage local finances to the wider benefit of the community. What a strange instinct it is to see them as a party from whom to squeeze money after falling off a bicycle. I may be wrong.

http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/

hell27

Very interesting thread. One of the reasons I mainly cycle on a CX or mtb these days is the state of the roads. However, we live in a very congested country with low investment in the infrastructure, and its crumbling. Unless labour get in in the next election, don't expect it to change massively soon. If they do then expect to see some investment for a bit then none after the country becomes bankrupt again - it's the way it tends to work.