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This article was published on April 7th, 2020
Coronavirus may mean that our team won’t be able to get out and meet you all at events for a while, however, we’ll back out around the country as soon as it’s safe to do so, and we can’t wait, in the meantime we’re here to share our insights into motorcycle accidents and safety.
We’re staying positive and hope that you are all staying safe and we want to reassure you that once our travels resume, we would love it if you came to say hello and pick up some of our giveaways at the events we’ll be exhibiting at, (our Thermos Mugs may now be a thing of legend).
Make sure you check out our Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles for details of upcoming activities and don’t forget, we’re still very much available and open for business and here to support you if you need any legal assistance.
In the meantime, we’ve put together this blog post to act as a guide to assist you if you’re involved in a motorcycle accident.
No one likes to think that they will be involved in an accident while they are out and about enjoying their bike. However, accidents do happen. While your first thought must always be your safety and wellbeing it might also be useful to know what evidence would help if you were thinking of bringing a claim against the other driver.
If you are involved in an accident you firstly need to think about casualties and your own welfare. Do you need an ambulance? Don’t put on a brave face if you believe you have sustained an injury.
Once you have established the situation in relation to injuries, if you can, you need to try and gather the following:
It is really useful if you can take pictures of the defendant’s car and registration and even better if you can take a short video of the accident scene and the damage to the vehicles. If possible also get pictures of the vehicle as they end up after the collision. You might want to make a recording on your phone, say what you see! Do not put yourself in any danger while gathering this evidence and look out for other traffic.
You should also call the police to report the incident. If it transpires that the claim has to proceed via the motor insurers bureau (a topic covered here (link to MIB post), or if there is a dispute you will need to demonstrate that you have reported the matter to the police and it is better to do this sooner rather than later.
Should the police attend the scene of the accident, they will speak to you and the other party and any witnesses.
We would recommend that you still gather your own evidence as described above.
If the police do attend it’s also worth taking the officers name, and details of the station that they are from.
You should also get in touch with our team as soon as possible following your accident. We will be able to assess your claim and also inform your insurers of the accident.
By reporting your accident to our team as soon as possible you are ensuring your claim is dealt with by a specialist motorbike solicitor.
We understand that that may be a lot to take in, however, we’ve developed a tool to help you do everything we’ve mentioned so far from your phone at the scene of the accident or afterwards.
Thorneycroft’s have developed a free app which you can download onto your phone. This will guide you through the evidence gathering steps you need to take immediately after a collision and it provides a facility to take pictures and gather the necessary evidence. The app is called Motorcycle Assist and can be downloaded from the Apple App Store or Google Play store.
Motorcycle accident claims require special consideration. Bikers are quite often blamed by other road users for an accident and you need to be assured that you have a solicitor in your corner who will appreciate the nuances involved in a motorbike accident claim.
Following the accident you will need to start thinking about preserving evidence to support your losses. Here are some of the things that you can do to help with the smooth running of your claim:
As you can see a lot of evidence needs to be preserved after an accident. It is not the end of the world if you are unable to do the above and you may practically not be able to do it in any event if you sustain a serious injury following a motorcycle injury.
Hopefully the above gives you some insight into the sort of information that your solicitor will need from you to pursue a claim. The list is not exhaustive and the best advice is that if you are unsure if something is relevant, keep it and have a chat with our team to whether they need it.
If you have any questions or would like to discuss a claim with our team please contact us for free today on 0800 1979 345 or complete our online enquiry form by clicking here.
