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Brian Nystrom
Joined: 26 Jan 2004
Posts: 5101
Location: Nashua, NH11/1/14 8:30 AM |
Un-friggin-believable!
This seems like another case of a misinformed judge making a ridiculous decision. I have a hard time believing that this won't be overturned on appeal, as it seems to be just plain insane. Would he have ruled the same way if a car had hit a pothole in the road and caused a similar accident? I bet not!
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Steve B.
Joined: 19 Jan 2004
Posts: 769
Location: Long Island, NY11/1/14 9:39 AM |
What's odd is you would think that, as with a motorized vehicle, following too closely and causing an accident would lay the blame with the rider following. Just like you are automatically at fault in a car if you rear end somebody.
And then there's the moral issue of suing your long term riding buddy.
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Dave B
Joined: 10 Jan 2004
Posts: 4511
Location: Pittsburgh, PA11/1/14 10:13 AM |
What surprises me is that this was in Australia. I assumed only the US has this kind of lawsuit and allows this kind of absurd judgment.
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dan emery
Joined: 11 Jan 2004
Posts: 6890
Location: Maine11/1/14 10:21 AM |
Hard to say
Don't know that we have enough info to determine if it was negligent or not. To be the Devil's advocate, sounds like it was a pretty big hunk of wood and the lighting was OK. In any group, it's part of the job to point out and avoid obstacles in the road (this wasn't really a group ride of course). Maybe it was hard to see the stake until you were right on it, or maybe it was obvious and the rider was daydreaming, we don't know. Maybe you could say the adjacent rider should have seen the stake and moved over so the other guy could miss it.
I wouldn't be confident it will be overturned, appellate courts generally are not anxious to get into this kind of fact based determination.
Brings to mind a time I was on a group ride and was riding next to a young guy on a shoulder. All of a sudden, out of the shadows we saw a tree limb right in front of him. Fortunately he was a skilled kid with a BMX background and just hopped it. I was thinking I could have been at fault for not giving him room.
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April
Joined: 13 Dec 2003
Posts: 6593
Location: Westchester/NYC11/1/14 10:49 AM |
quote:
And then there's the moral issue of suing your long term riding buddy.
Well, that long term riding buddy knocked you into the path of a car...
I was thinking of similar thought yesterday in a group ride of rather large group. (I hadn't read this story at the time) I didn't know all the rider in that group. So I really wasn't comfortable riding close to even my buddy's wheel. Because I knew they maybe affected by whoever riding in front of them that were not part of our regular gang.
The victim was riding close to his buddy because he implicitly trusted him. But that trust led to the tragedy.
With all that said, why were they riding in double on a road with a lot of traffic???
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Nick Payne
Joined: 10 Jan 2004
Posts: 2626
Location: Canberra, Australia11/3/14 1:55 AM |
quote:
With all that said, why were they riding in double on a road with a lot of traffic???
Actually, I know the spot where they were riding - it's only a couple of kilometres from my house, and there is about a 1.2m wide cycle lane at the edge of the road - easily enough width to ride two abreast and not intrude into the car lane.
And I think the only reason that the injured rider bothered to sue was because his "friend" had public liability insurance as part of his membership of the local cycle touring club - if he hadn't been insured it wouldn't have been worth-while pursuing the matter.
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Sparky
Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 19083
Location: PDX11/3/14 2:09 AM |
There had to be some depth of pockets....
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April
Joined: 13 Dec 2003
Posts: 6593
Location: Westchester/NYC11/3/14 9:42 AM |
quote:
I think the only reason that the injured rider bothered to sue was because his "friend" had public liability insurance as part of his membership of the local cycle touring club
That's a pretty big insurance, 1.7 million. Even a typical auto liability insurance may not have such a high limit.
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Nick Payne
Joined: 10 Jan 2004
Posts: 2626
Location: Canberra, Australia11/3/14 4:42 PM |
quote:
That's a pretty big insurance, 1.7 million. Even a typical auto liability insurance may not have such a high limit.
I don't think you're right there. When I go to the web site of our local consumer organisation and and look at their comparison of car insurance policies, there isn't a single policy they looked at that has a public liability limit under $20 million, and some of the policies have a limit of $30 million or more.
The policy that has been negotiated here by the cycling organisations, both touring and racing, has a $20 million limit, and covers you whenever and wherever you're cycling, except if you're competing in a non-sanctioned event:
http://www.cycling.org.au/Portals/10/Insurance/CA%20MB%20Australia_insuance.pdf
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April
Joined: 13 Dec 2003
Posts: 6593
Location: Westchester/NYC11/3/14 8:17 PM |
That's a Aussie thing, Nick. I was thinking of US. Most of typical auto policy limits are quite a bit lower.
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dddd
Joined: 11 Jan 2004
Posts: 3345
Location: NorCal11/5/14 9:25 PM |
I think the judge made a leap in assessing complete blame on the defendant.
Visibility while riding at night is intermittent when car traffic passes in both directions, so how to say that the defendant should have spotted the 2x2 laying on the shoulder, much less identified it as something with a substantial height/thickness which would cause loss of control if crossed over?
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