05-06-13, 10:00 PM
I got taken out by a guy who made one of those spur of the moment decisions - "Oh, look, there's a place to park over there" - whilst filtering (carefully). My solicitor, provided by the insurance company, did indeed at first say settle at 50/50, but I wasn't happy with that. I had no witnesses (in fact the car driver claimed a witness after I had continued to challenge). My solicitor said, based on the road layout, that I shouldn't have been filtering but she used Google maps to check the road layout - which changed due to council road improvements before the "accident". I had to go to the council and get old and new road plans, works start & completion dates etc because the solicitors were too damn lazy to go check for themselves. Anyway, the upshot was, I ended up with 70/30 in my favour and a payout from his insurance company - as you can imagine, it took forever. His "witness" mysteriously evaporated early in the proceedings. The only reasons I accepted even that much blame is that the solicitor said that in court, it would probably turn out that way "because filtering is a potentially dangerous manoeuvre"., and I wouldn't have got much more of a payout even if I'd won outright. The car driver said he did check his mirrors carefully and signal. I said, in that case, how come he didn't see me - in other words he manoeuvred without due care.
Nick
Nick