Hi all,

i was wondering if there was anyone who would be able to help.

My husband was recently in a road traffic accident where he was knocked off his bike by a car that pulled out and didn't see him.

He was travelling on the correct side of a narrow road, with another car approaching him ("car A" also on the correct side of the road) but at quite a high speed, so he gave it a wide berth travelling quite close to the row of parked cars on his left.

A car (the defendant) was starting to pull out (from the left side, facing my husband's bike) when he noticed car A and pulled in again to give him right of way, then pulled out immediately after the car had past, straight into my husband's bike, causing the left plate and left wing mirror to be damaged, and my husband's left leg hurt and his left shoulder broken. He got the details of the defendant.

His insurance company passed the claim onto a personal injury lawyers, who contacted the defendant, and has since received a letter from them stating that the defendant is not too blame as apparently car A forced my husband to serve onto the opposite side of the road and hit the defendant's car (which was not the case at all and isn't consistent with the damage to my husband's bike or his injuries:-x). Apparently the defendant is now taking out a claim against my husband's insurance, and his personal injury lawyers have advised him to pursue car A (which didn't stop, having nothing to do with the accident) through the Motor Insurance Bureau, and as it seems unlikely that they will be able to trace the car, he may have to pay out £300 if they can't find it, if they can and the claim is successful the personal injury lawers want to take 25% of his compensation. He also isn't covered through their conditional fee agreement for the defendant's claim (which to me sounds a load of rubbish).

i was wondering if anyone had any advice on what we should do next?

many thanks

I am unsure as to whether he can still pursue the claim against the defendant, as his personal injury lawyers seem to have taken the defendant's side even though the story does not make sense and they sent off the "letter of claim" to the defendant before even receiving any information such as the x-ray of my husband's shoulder and photo of the bike. Have they mishandled the claim? What can we do as we know that my husband is not liable for the accident?

In no particular order.......

Personal Injury lawyers who take a fee (you mention 25%) from the compensation are having a laugh, they recover their fee from the responsible party, hence why you see so many adverts telling you that you keep 100% of the compensation.

Quite a few have agreements with Insurance Companies are so can pick the cream, ie those where liability is not in dispute. These are the lazy workshy ones who don't want to work for their fee, so at the first sign of a liability dispute they will crumble.

From what you have described it looks like a clear case, your partner was on the main road, another car pulled out when it was unsafe to do so. The argument that your partner was on the wrong side of the road shouldn't hold any weight since the duty of care on the other driver was to check BOTH WAYS before pulling out. Furthermore the impact point of the damage to the other persons car should give an indication of which side of the road your partner was actually on at the time of the accident.

My advice would be to find a firm that specialise in a 'no win no fee' and guarantee 100% of the compensation to you (several advertise on TV), and they will also include all your other uninsured losses as well.

Mossy

Hi Mossy, thanks for the advice, we had a feeling that they may have cracked early! but my husband has already signed a conditional fee agreement with them, can he get out of it? do we just ignore the personal injury lawyers now?