Biker hits pedestrian whilst filtering - who's fault?

blueboy2001

blueboy2001

blueboy2001

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18 Oct 2002
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I witnessed a collision this morning and I'm waiting for the Police to contact me regarding a statement. I'm not sure who is at fault.

The circumstances are that I was waiting at traffic lights in the left lane on a 2 lane road in a city centre, 4 cars in front of me in left lane and 3 cars and a van in the right lane. The traffic had been stationary for approx 20 seconds. I glanced in my door mirror and noticed a biker filtering down the middle of the road rather quickly. As I looked up a man stepped out in front of the van and the biker hit him. Fortunately no serious injuries although both were taken to hospital.

Gut feeling is some responsibilty must lie with the biker due to his speed. However, the pedestrian has crossed between traffic where there was a crossing 20 yards up the road and has walked out more than likely without looking. Neither would have had much of view as the van was a high roof Ducato.

Perhaps it's just a genuine accident?
 
If the pedestrian couldn't clearly see the road was clear then they shouldn't have crossed.

Its an understandable assumption to make though that it would be safe to cross and one I've made myself several times when crossing roads.
 
Bikers fault - pedestrian generally has right of way and if the traffic was otherwise stationary the pedestrian would probably have looked, seen it was stationary and not expected a biker to come up between the traffic.

Theoretically the pedestrian should really have used the crossing, but the biker should also be aware of what is going on and riding accordingly.
 
Peds fault, wish we had jaywalking laws here, but yea if biker was going abit quick he will most likely get the blame.
Bikes are allowed to filter at anything under 50mph really but within limits like if cars are doing 40 do 45 as you still travelling faster, etc, anything over 50 and bike cop we were talking to said a lot of traffic cops will have a word.
 
rather quickly - whats that? do u know what speed he was doing?

anyway I would say all blame lies with the lazy pedestrian, its a road, look before walking.
 
Mr Jack said:
Really? If you go on one of the Police biker courses, that's what they instruct you to do.

Pedestrian's fault, I expect.
Click to expand...

yep when i done my test alltough years ago i was told that if you dont filter when you hit some traffic you could fail because of it

but not sure if the law has changed ?
 
I used to see this nearly every day when I drove to London every day, and it always felt like it was an accident waiting for happen for either.
I would probably say it's the pedestrains fault though, all too often I've seen people simply walking out into the road without looking - why would you do that when bikes/cars/buses/pushbikes are always going to fare better in a colision?

People really need to take responsibility for their actions as the streets are a dangerous place.
 
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