05-06-13, 07:18 PM
Quote:Quite a bit has changed. Now there's case law to support us in a court. Not sure how much you know about law, but quite a lot of the more complicated cases rely on this case law to finalise a decision. It's a good thing whereas before it was 50/50, now it's much better odds. Witnesses are not necessarily the be all and end all. I've seen so called good people as witnesses torn to pieces in a courtroom, these solicitors/barristers can be viscous sometimes!
I think firstly you will have to fight your own insurance company, it's highly lightly that if you have a case they will still want to go 50 50.
Also how do we know that this is a land mark ruling - says who?
If you've got no witness, the best thing you can do is gather evidence before anything is moved, assuming you can move at this point. But there's still a strong element of your word against theirs.
When it happened to me, I was up and running about try to get witnesses. It was in the middle of town, lots of folks saw it, lots of people stood to watch what happened next, a nice fella asked me if I was OK and helped me lift the bike, but everybody started disappearing when I asked for witness details. I got the cops out as the driver of the car was denying any wrong doing etc. The cops asked me - did you get any witness details - oh, oh well. It went 50/50.
But then again there were other complications. If you ever take out a bike shop demo, make sure you are insured, it's your responsibility, not the bike shops. I almost got stung badly!