Got hit by a cab today.

[Diddums]

Dunno who's fault it is yet, all happened rather quickly. Gonna see if I can get some CCTV footage tomorrow. I'm fine, the cabbie's fine, but I can say for certain that those boris bikes are built like tanks. I cycled another 5km on it before parking it.

Anyway, happened here. I was on the cycle lane on the left, crossed over the carriageway and got hit by the cab. The guy was in shock, I told him I'm fine and offered to call an ambulance / cops / get him a bottle of water / whatever, he declined and said he's just going to head home for the night. Going by his age and his cab, he's knocking on retirement's door and just wanted to eke out the last year or so in this cab before hanging up his keys which just disappoints me more as the guy's unable to earn any money whilst his cab's in the body shop.

The damage:







It was the first time he'd hit a cyclist and the first time I've been hit by anything. He was amicable about it and still called me an hour later to make sure I got home ok.

My questions:

Will his insurance cover this, and what can I expect to pay?
Will he lose any income or does cabbie insurance have loss of income cover? Or maybe he'll get a loaner from the bodyshop whilst it's in?

Don't know what to expect, @Jean-F you able to shed any light on this please?

Cheers

 

[Diddums]

ummm if you were at the bottom of that cycle lane and crossed over the solid white line would that not make you to blame as you are supposed to stop?

I'm heading there later to see if I can get any CCTV footage. We were both in shock and didn't stop any witnesses so we've got no idea who's at fault.

 

[Diddums]

Two dents, respray, new wing mirror, wind deflector.

Guess how much.

No, less.

No, less than that even.

£750. Yes. Really.

Anyway. Phoned Santander Cycles, they basically said that as their bike is fine and nobody's injured they're not gonna get involved, so I told the cabbie that he needs to pass my deets on to his insurance peeps and tell them it was a Santander bike and if they want to duke it out they can contact them and take it from there. He did say however that the odds of hearing anything about this ever again are fairly slim, this is barely worth their time even. They'll just fork over the £750 and get on with life which suits me perfectly fine.

Also...

My name is David.
The cabbie's name is David.
The bloke on the phone's name is David.

You couldn't make this up.

 

[Diddums]

It seems like a confusing junction.

It's an awful junction, very confusing to anyone who's not familiar with these things. A lot of the cyclist junctions are very confusing to non-locals as they make very little sense. The city wasn't built with cycling in mind and it the cycle lanes are an afterthought, so they're just forced in and around the existing roads which leads to these awkward situations. You can literally see the confusion in a lot of tourist's faces when you come past on a bicyle.

If there's no damage to the bike and no witnesses around, then i imagine it'll go down as a non-fault claim for the taxi driver as his insurance company won't have anyone to claim against. If he's close to jacking it in then it might not be much of an issue - i don't know if there's a separate insurance for personal that you'd have to declare claims on, or if he'd get shafted on a private car too.

I spoke to him just a little while ago and asked him if he was going to be out of pocket, he said the body shop just refitted the mirror and he's back on the road, he'll deal with the dents after Christmas when it's all a bit quieter.