Goskippy

[BankFodder]

You say that you have only just found out that the van driver has apparently got witnesses to the accident. How did you just find this out?

[Gemma19194]

As i stated above, i found out a document from my draw that admirel had sent me on the 25th of january. I found it out to see if it had any information about the van. Then i saw that it said ' section l -witnesses , then a male name .

[BankFodder]

Well please can you search everything and get all your documents together. Read them. Understand what you have. And they make sure they are properly filed.

Do you have the name and address of the driver?

Also I believe that you said that you had received a message from your own insurer saying that you were liable – or something like that.

Please can you reproduce that message here – preferably in PDF format

 

Don't respond to anyone without checking with us first. We would want to know why you are being asked to contact people.

However, you definitely need to contact your insurer tomorrow as I've already suggested. You really need to find out what's going on, why they have made the decision that they have and you want copies.

Don't tell them that you sent them on SAR. Keep that a completely separate matter – but simply ask them on the telephone to have copies of all the documents that they have assembled in respect of this case. Once again, you should be recording this.

 

[Gick]

Bankfodder, you have made a number of assumptions, not least of which is that the van was a 'wide' vehicle. However, the pictures that the OP has provided show that it is a Ford Transit Courier, which is no larger than a medium size saloon car.

 

You question the OP's statement that the van was stationary but other statements that the vehicle moved out into her path. It is clear from her previous posts that as she approached the line of parked vehicles on her left, the van pulled out into her path and crossed into the opposite lane, but then stopped  at an angle in her path , at which point she attempted to swerve to her left to avoid it, clipping the offside front wing, 

 

The affect of braking on the slushy ice and the impact sent her into the rear of the vehicle that was parked behind the gap vacated by the van. There is little camber and not a lot of bend at that site, (Your use of the word crest is associated with an incline, better description is apex for a bend)

 

I think you have probably confused your self which in turn will confuse the OP

[BankFodder]

Thanks.
Yes I found it a little difficult to express the whole thing.

Also, after having seen the description of the van – and having checked on the Internet, it seems to me that the van is a Ford Transit Connect and the width is 72 inches – which as you say, is not exceptionally wide. However, the width of the vehicle is not crucial. It simply an element. In fact no single element is crucial – but taken together, it clearly adds up to a risk – an unnecessary risk which eventually led to an accident.

I would venture to say that if it had not been close to the band then there would have been a clear line of sight from both parties. If the van had not been part facing the flow of traffic, then he would not have had to move out so prominently because he would not have been trying to cross over to the other side of the road. He would have had a line of sight in his door mirror. If you hadn't been so prominent then the OP would not have had to swerve onto the inside of him – but in fact could have swerve to the other side of the road where there was no parked cars and there might have been no accident at all.

All of that. This

I'm not at all confused about what I'm saying – but I may not have expressed it very well. However it is something that needs to be worked on.

It certainly seems to me that there is no evidence of any analysis or detailed assessment of the situation by the insurer or anyone else. The OP has made a single statement using a telephone app to the insurer and the insurer has formed their decision on the basis of that.
If there have been other statements from the van driver or anyone else, then we haven't seen them.

Also, I'm well aware of the road conditions at the time and of course this will probably have affected things. The OP was required to take the conditions into account. We are really not sure what speech she was travelling at. That some point she said 30 miles an hour – which is probably too fast – but as far as I can see she has not said this at all in her statement to the insurer.

Finally, not only does the OP have a duty to take the road conditions into account – but so does the van driver and every other road user.


 

[BankFodder]

Just to add, it may well be that the camber was slight – but coupled with the momentum of a vehicle, sliding on slushy ice, it doesn't take much to add that little bit of extra speed or momentum to a skidding vehicle

 

Also, you say that there was "not a lot of bend" at that site.

Frankly I disagree. I think there is quite a pronounced bend and also the position of the van – which is roughly in the position of the white car in the image below – was pretty close to the band and if you imagine that it had started pulling out before the OP appeared and started to make its manoeuvre and was far enough in to the road to have a gap done its left-hand side that a Vauxhall Corsa could pass down, then I think that the bend was sufficiently aggressive to have been of concern to a prudent driver – who was parked on the wrong side of the road, who was trying to cross the carriageway to proceed on the other side of the road who had parked close to a bend and he was aware of the icy circumstances.

 

 

In fact if we take the width of the van at 72 inches – 6 foot. In order for it to be far enough out into the road to allow sufficient gap for a Vauxhall Corsa to pass down it, it must have been all of 11 foot into the road.

The OP tells us that she lives there – and maybe she would be kind enough to measure the width of the road where the van was.  It is a narrowish  stretch of road

[Gick]

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hazlebarrow+Rd,+Jordanthorpe,+Sheffield/@53.3249661,-1.4618968,192a,35y,180h/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x4879830fcbc4e607:0xa8514d877d9f3e37!8m2!3d53.3252332!4d-1.4624469

 

Bank fodder, I don't know from where your image is, but the link that I have produced above is the location of the collision, opposite no 41 Hazlebarrow Road, just before the place where there are three white lines across the grass. You will see that there is minimal bend in the road although there is more bend earlier near the junction with Ormond Way, so emphasising this is steering the OP in the wrong direction.

 

The OP did mention in an early post the speed of 30 mph., but I suspect that this was merely an indication that she does not consider that she was speeding, rather than a precise speed.

[BankFodder]

Well in that case it's confusing.

The link which I produced is at 55 HazelBarrow Rd

 

Which is the address that appears on this image which was posted by the OP