Accident advice

[Barndancer]

Long time lurker but first time poster. I've gotten some good advice on this forum before so I'll try my luck again.

I had a guy sideswipe me a few weeks back. He is claiming I purposely rode into the side of his car when he passed me and says his passenger will back him up on that story. He said it was road rage .... righteo.

My elbow was injured but there is minimal damage to the bike. I have third party property insurance, but not comprehensive.

Anyway I have a few questions about it.

How much credibility do insurance companies and the police give witnesses who are passengers in the car?

How is the fault of the accident going to be decided by the insurance? I gave him my insurance details but when I looked at the card he filled out at the cop shop he didn't give me his. My insurance told me to call the cops if he won't give me his insurance details :/

If this passenger and him lie together can I get done for road rage or can they make out it was my fault?

Is there any way this joker will get charged with dangerous driving or even a traffic offense?

[bobinatcat]

Depends possibly on his previous record...possibly; I'd say you'll have more problems though as there is a witness as you say.

[milesiles]

Can you try find your own witness? Ad in the public notice section in the paper?

[Barndancer]

Good idea milesiles I'll try that. Its worth a shot at least.

[51 New West]

15 months ago I had a similar incident, except the car was undamaged as they "merely" forced me into a kerb. Cops were called by me when after having to chase them down they also refused to exchange details, then denied they caused anything then denied they were ever on the road where the accident occured. There were 3 generations of Asian women in that car, and after the police took my statement I haven't heard another thing. I assume that they must have been found at fault as I also didn't pay any excess for the insurance claim. People on motorcycles DO-NOT use their vehicles to cause damage to cars by side swiping them, so I think the credibilty will be all yours, and they will get charged with dangerous driving and leaving the scene.

[rebel250]

Fuck him, call him on his bluff. Two lies require more work to collaborate and keep straight than the truth. Cops might not view his witness to be impartial and unbiased so her testimony might not carry much weight. I mean, what rider in their right mind would risk their safety to side swipe a car? Kick, maybe. Side swipe, questionable...

Good luck.

*Disclaimer* my opinion should not be taken as legal advice

[BB6]

Isn't that an impartial witness? A guy had a thread on here where an old dude ran him the fuck over and his girlfriend could not be a witness for him because they know each other, and it would be real easy to lie on their spouses behalf. If the passenger is a friend/relative/girlfriend they should be irrelevant, ask the cops when you go to get his insurance details.

Also, what kind of road rage idiot would ram a car with a bike, I mean as you have injuries to yourself, it basically means you rammed a car with...yourself. That makes no sense at all.

[Rhinosaur]

Long time lurker but first time poster. I've gotten some good advice on this forum before so I'll try my luck again.

I had a guy sideswipe me a few weeks back. He is claiming I purposely rode into the side of his car when he passed me and says his passenger will back him up on that story. He said it was road rage .... righteo.

My elbow was injured but there is minimal damage to the bike. I have third party property insurance, but not comprehensive.

Anyway I have a few questions about it.

How much credibility do insurance companies and the police give witnesses who are passengers in the car?

How is the fault of the accident going to be decided by the insurance? I gave him my insurance details but when I looked at the card he filled out at the cop shop he didn't give me his. My insurance told me to call the cops if he won't give me his insurance details :/

If this passenger and him lie together can I get done for road rage or can they make out it was my fault?

Is there any way this joker will get charged with dangerous driving or even a traffic offense?

1. Insurance companies don't deal with credibility, they will just want to pass liability to the other driver/rider.
2. Police would see through this crap. And the witness is the car is not an independent witness, and not worth jack.
3. As for the sideswipe... tough to say how it could be decided, with no independent witnesses, although common sense says the bike did not intentionally hit the car, the car didn't see the bike... without knowing more than that, i'd say a careless infringement for the driver.
4. It's your insurance companies job to hunt down his insurance details, they are the ones chasing the $$$.
5. Road rage isn't a specific offence, but without independant witnesses, there is no evidence of road rage, and i doubt they can prove fault either.
6. Careless, if you prove to be credible... BUT;

How did it happen?

[Arwon]

Witness in the car is known as a second party witness. Very little credibility and easily sorted if taken to court. You are insured so your insurance are the ones who will deal with it. Do NOT lie to your insurance company and they will fight it tooth and nail.

p.s. as if a bike is going to ram a fucking car... seriously who would believe that crap.

[possum]

Lucky you weren't seriously hurt.. it kills me how cars can side swipe a bike and not show sympathy, it's happened to me twice in 12 months on Kwinana freeway. Lucky I didn't come off.

Barndancer, you'll be fine. I've worked in Insurance for years on high level technical claims and this is a clear cut, nothing to worry about situation. I just hope for your sake that the OP (other party) has insurance otherwise he sounds like an ass to get money out of.

[mekon]

Mate like arwon said. I've been smashed into fr behind whilst stopped at a roundabout giving way. The douchebag changed his story the next day saying similar to your story that I was weaving in and out of traffic and smashed into him. The insurers lawyers dealt with it.

I lodged my accident and was covered for medical costs. I was out of pocket my $500 excess for over a year until it was finalised and the dickhead realised he was caught out with nowhere to go. At one point he bluffed te lawyers saying he had videoed the whole event. I laughed as if he had it would only have proven his negligence.

The most annoying thing is he's a cunt of a man, a liar and for that year all I wanted to do was go confront him and possibly tourch his car. Play it straight up with the insurer. I was lucky as well that I had an independent witness driving the truck I was giving way to.

[IvanM]

Like others have said, no rider in the right mind would use his bike to ram a car.

Tell the event as it is to the insurance and you have nothing to worry about.
If you already have his name+address and a police report, that should be enough for the insurance to chase it up. It's their job.

[Para045]

+1 on the witness being worthless, unless they are an independent witness the cops will just laugh at them My mate was in his Feroza years back and this arsehole in a Landcruiser going the wrong way out the carpark decided he would just push the Feroza out the way The cops discounted his GF & another friend in the car as they weren't "independent" and basically just said it was his word against the other guy

A rider would be nuts to ram a car and cause themselves injury when they could so easily smash a mirror/kick a door etc

[darkfibre]

In my experience, the insurance company will eventually conform to whatever judgement the police come up with.

A well written accident report submitted to the police is a must.

[Barndancer]

Hey thanks for the responses guys.

I edited out the details of the crash in case it prejudices something.

I will say that after he swiped me he kept on going and I only caught up to him when he had to stop for traffic at a roundabout. I told him 3 times to pull over because he had hit me. He finally did pull over and it was about 1 - 1.5 km away from where he sideswiped me.

First he said he didn't know he had hit me. So I pointed out the 2 meter long scrapes along his car and told him there was no way his passenger wouldn't have felt/heard/seen that. Then he said he thought he only hit my mirror. So I pointed to the friction burns etc. on my elbow and triceps and showed how it was impossible to miss my elbow and only hit my mirror because the elbow was the furthest thing sticking out.

Long story short we both attended the local cop shop and exchanged details there as I wanted to cops to attend because it looked like he had tried to do a runner but they said to go to the police station. We both went to the cop shop and that's when I first heard his "He ran into the side of me and I have a witness" BS.

The cops told us to exchange details and fill out a crash report online as I was claiming an injury. I told them the circumstances and said I wanted to make a complaint about the bloke but they said just to put it all in the crash report.

[speed3]

A well written accident report submitted to the police is a must.

This. Details details details. Time, place, road conditions, weather, distances from kerbs & signs etc, what way you were facing, what way you ended up facing, bike position, what you were wearing, what you had for brekkie add EVERYTHING that happened, no more no less.

No one would believe a bike would ram themselves into a car.

[mekon]

That also helped in my case. I lodged mine immediately, the other bloke never did one.

[BB6]

The douchebag changed his story the next day saying similar to your story that I was weaving in and out of traffic and smashed into him. The insurers lawyers dealt with it.

We both went to the cop shop and that's when I first heard his "He ran into the side of me and I have a witness" BS.

Do these people get reprimanded for flat out lying to the police or what? It seems every accident I've ever been in and every accident I hear about, one party always changes the story half way through, then after they have been caught out lying to the Police and the insurance companies sure, they have to pay out the excess but as far as lying to the cops go, they can sort of shrug and go, well it was worth a shot!

There should be something to lose if you change the story, IMO. And what these 2 people above have done is waste everyones time for their own selfishness.

[mekon]

He lied and made life difficult right up until the day they called his bluff and he appeared in Armadale court in a pre hearing with the sydney lawyers for QBE (They essentially had negotiated behind the scenes, unbeknownst to him) with his insurer and offered for him to keep his no claims and his company would cover my damage without his excess going up. Meanwhile I still need attention for the neck pain from time to time. I bet it would feel better if I could smash his car to pieces with a sledge hammer or punch him until I was tired.