accident advice, damaged fork, dealing with insurance
dknightxx
Posts: 8
Today on my way home from work a car pulled out while i was going downhill in the bus lane, he didn't see me, in the moment i thought it's going to be a big one it's going to hurt and i'm going onto the windscreen rather than under the wheels, i don't know how exactly it happened but i managed to come out of it without a scratch. The bike has some damage to the carbon fork, it seems superficial, the paint is scratched, but i can't tell for sure , the fork hit about 10cm above the dropout his license plate and send it flying across the street, the front wheel seems to be slightly out of true and i'm getting a little bit of disc brake rub, the handlebar tape is slightly marked as it seems my right hand side drop went over his bonnet and left a slight dent. I'm glad nothing bad happened and I'm not injured, it could have been much worse. I'm insured and my insurance should cover it with a new for old policy, the bike is only 3 months "old". I want a new fork, it's a cannondale, but i'm not sure they sell a replacement fork only, i can't find anything online, framesets sell for 800-900 pound with a crappy colour. Once again the fork sustained some damage, possibly the front wheel also I'm going to a bike shop tomorrow and let's see what they say. Any advice and tips what to do in this situation and how to deal with this?
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Comments
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Why would you use your insurance when it was the drivers fault ?
Did you get his details ?0 -
Bike shop should tell you all you need to know about the bike.
Are you a member of British Cycling or CTC? If you are then they will give you a lawyer to represent you against the driver.
Any witnesses etc?
Dont use your insurance if you can avoid it - the increased premiums for years to come will mean you end up paying for it yourself! And even if you notify them about it and dont claim they are often devious and put your premium up next time around...0 -
Depending if you have details of T/p and proof ; whether video, witness or if driver admitted his error then your insurer will first cover your costs and then look to recover their costs from the t/p so you could use your own insurer and it won't effect your non fault claims or premium if they succeeded in claiming cost back
Regardless how minor you think your injuries are always worth fully investigating and not dismiss straight away, it can often take time to fully feel like whiplash....0 -
Hi all
I'm in the process of claiming with my insurer, I don't want to deal with the driver's insurance and a lawyer which would potentially take months if not years before reaching a solution. I hope they won't raise my premiums because it was clearly his fault, unfortunately i don't have any video footage of the crash and there doesn't seem to be any cctv but I recorded him saying he didn't see me.
The issue I have now is the bike shop wants to replace the fork with a fork from a demo bike (they say) because they don't sell forks alone, only a complete frameset and those are not available in my size.
I looked at the geometry chart and it says each frame size has a different head tube angle and trail mine (50cm) has 63mm of trail, a demo bike will be size 54 or 56 i think and the trail is 58 and 56 mm, is the trail dependent on the fork or the frame? Is a fork from a different size bike going to change the handling? Should I accept it? I don't know enough about frame geometry to make a decision0 -
Personally I wouldn't accept the offer. I'd be claiming a new frameset /bike on the basis it was only 3 months old so in perfect condition. Speak with insurer to gauge what they'll cover.
Going through your own insurer whilst may get you sorted a bit quicker it will be treated as an fault accident until the insurer recover their costs from t/p0 -
If it is a carbon fork then you should probably do the best you can to get his insurance to replace it for you. One thing you can do is an ultrasound scan to access the damage. If it's made out of metal then it is probably my not necessary.
If you have the contacts of the driver and you can come up with a deal with him without having legal procedures involved, that would be the best. As we all know, legal claims take forever.0 -
Yes legal wrangling can take time, as using his own insurer to treat as AD or if op was at fault they'd payout quiet quick then look to subrogate claim to t/p; but they have to compo op before able to subrogate;0
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Have you got that in English?AndyH01 wrote:Yes legal wrangling can take time, as using his own insurer to treat as AD or if op was at fault they'd payout quiet quick then look to subrogate claim to t/p; but they have to compo op before able to subrogate;
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elbowloh wrote:
Have you got that in English?AndyH01 wrote:Yes legal wrangling can take time, as using his own insurer to treat as AD or if op was at fault they'd payout quiet quick then look to subrogate claim to t/p; but they have to compo op before able to subrogate;
If an individual takes another individual to civil court if they refuse to pay for damages for instance, this would of course take a long time.
If you have an insurance policy that covers you for accidental damage, say you crashed into a tree, then your insurance policy will fix it for you.
If someone else crashes in to you, your insurer will first fix it for you, under accidental damage (ie as though you were at fault) so they've indemnified (incurred a cost as paid or fixed the damage to you ; so you're back in position you was in before the accident) but your insurer is out of pocket, so they will take over your rights of legal action and once they've paid you, they can look to recover the costs from the responsible person/their insurer and if they don't pay up your insurer will perdue legal action as though they were you as they've already paid you. This is subrogation.
Hope that's a bit clearer?0
