DH in Accident with Cyclist - Any Advice

[LilacPombear]

DH has just given me a quick call to say he was in an accident this morning. He never calls me in the mornings and had to cut the call short as he's at work and no phones allowed. He said he was driving into work (around 7am); the roads are fairly quiet at that time around here and he's done the route for years. He looked before turning left, all clear, but as he turned, a bike hit the car.

He got out and checked the rider, who was unharmed and seemed more concerned about his bike than anything else. The bike was not damaged or un-rideable. DH said the rider had added mods to the bike, which is why it was moving so fast. The rider had no helmet, high-vis, nothing. Initially, the rider was angry and called someone, speaking in another language, and making threats about DH ruining his bike.

DH has no idea how he stayed so calm but said he wanted to deal with this amicably. The first thing he checked was if the rider was unharmed, which he was. But there is damage to the car. They exchanged details, but the rider was not able to speak English very well. He got back on the bike and left. DH then headed into work and gave me a quick call to let me know.

I'm glad the man was okay as is DH, and it could have been so much worse, especially since he had no helmet. DH seemed quite shaken on the phone. What happens now? What do we do? I'm sure DH knows what to do next, but I just feel worried, especially as the rider was making threats. Any advice or similar experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Countries that have made their roads safer are countries that have made cycling easier and safer, not harder, with more hoops to jump through just to ride a bicycle. North Korea is the only country in the world that requires licence plates and tests for cyclists.

Lights (after dark) and high vis at night are good requirements, but at 7am in summer, we can hardly blame a cyclist for not being visible.

Menace riders on illegally modified bikes can be dealt with using decent policing. Not need to make every other cyclist jump through hoops just for riding their 15kg bicycle at 10mph.

Lots of delivery drivers and folk with “mods” on bikes here. Normal pedal cycles with motors added rather than “real” e-bikes. They are fast, reckless and a general menace. 1raced past me and then did an impressive wheelie at nearly 30mph the length of the high street ….

I ride motorbikes, and we filter in the middle because undertaking at speed is stupidly dangerous.

Filtering is already risky, but a risk we take so we don't have to sit in traffic. You shouldn't be going at a hugely different speed to the traffic around you - even if it's stopped, you shouldn't be zooming by, especially on the inside, and especially past turns.

Menace riders on illegally modified bikes can be dealt with using decent policing

How, precisely, do you propose to decently police every road and footpath for these illegally modified bikes?

you only need to catch each guy one time and confiscate the bike. You don't need to catch them all, all of the time.

I don’t understand what you mean.

Vehicles turning left off a main road must give way to cyclists going straight on on their nearside, whether there is a cycle lane or not. The cyclist's manœuvre was risky but not illegal. And how, exactly, did he appear from nowhere? The driver must have only just overtaken him.

Report to the police mentioning modifications to the ‘bicycle’ and that the cyclists asked your dh not to report the matter to the police. I’d put that in writing to them as well if you can
They will give you an incident number
Phone insurance company and give them the man’s details and incident number.

There is no legal requirement to contact the police. They only need to exchange details which they have done. That said I probably would contact them for advice and hopefully to have the accident logged (though police may not have the resources to get involved in something that is not a criminal matter).

Photos, sketch of what happened and notes - bullet points fine.
Screen shot messages.
Not sure about whether reporting to police or insurance, tricky one.
Your DH might have a claim against the cyclist (house insurance?) which is why he doesn't want it reported. As well as some of the other suggestions already mooted. Cyclist maybe known to police already......
Yes some car drivers are at fault with an impact with a cyclist but equally there are so many cyclists who are the ones at fault through there appalling road sense. (Know that might not be popular but that is my observations over the years.... and I have a lot of cyclists in the family. Areas near me, I wouldn't even cycle, as too many 'aggressive' cyclists!)

Agreed.

Because he suspects the cyclist was riding an illegally modified bike!

In the opening thread, modifications are mentioned, so not just on basis of speed.

This

Well it sounds like DH went into the cyclist rather than the cyclist going into DH. Your DH cut him off but should have been checking his wing mirrors and rear mirror. And what he was wearing or not wearing is irrelevant

I wouldn’t tell anyone -if you tell insurers it will go up

I was discussing this thread IRL & someone contrasted the attitudes of motorcyclists & cyclists, saying motorbike riders are more aware & careful of their own safety.

Filtering on the left (undertaking as some people here have called it) is legal on a cycle. I’m not saying it’s sensible but in slow moving traffic it happens a lot. As a cyclist I do think it’s a risky manoeuvre. Obviously if a car is indicating the cyclist should hang back. But I see plenty of helmet cam footage where the car doesn’t indicate or indicates too late and hits the cyclist.

The cyclist is the vulnerable road user and cars need to be checking more thoroughly before turning….i suspect your husband did not check his mirrors as thoroughly as he could have done. With no witness or footage it’s likely your husband will be found at fault. Unless he can prove the cycle was illegally modified. Just because a bike is modified doesn’t mean it’s illegal. I’ve got a modified bike, normal bike which I have made electric. So it has lots of extra bits and wires, but it’s perfectly legal and the motor cuts out at 15mph.

It's worthwhile if the cyclist suddenly turns out to be suing for whiplash, a new bike, six months' loss of earnings, balance problems from a head injury, etc, etc, etc, as it's a requirement to report if somebody is injured. Which this cyclist may claim to be.

I'd hate to go to Nowhere, so many people cone from there it must be an awful place to live.