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Cyclists sued boater


Steve Manc

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Giving a priority does not mean people have to observe it. It may be old news, but it is no nearer a solution until enforcement is made mandatory. The CRT need to employ people with SIA badges, they themselves have not the skills to deal with the rogue cyclist. 

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11 hours ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

Since any claim from a cyclist is likely to be coming from a Civil Court (I cannot think of any Criminal Offences that can be linked to knocking a mooring pin into the canalside) you would be better off making a counter claim for damage to your mooring pin. The reasonable defence for a boater would be that the pin was not knocked into the towpath but knocked into the grass alongside the canal so why was the cyclist riding on the grass and not on the path? (hopefully no-one is dumb enough to bang their pins actually into the towpath, are they?:unsure:).

 

Taking legal advice before contesting a claim may well be worthwhile since, before a Civil Court, if you lose your case you pay both sides costs, but on the other hand the level of proof is merely 'on the balance of probabilities' rather than the criminal level of proof of, 'beyond all reasonable doubt' that you would need for criminal offences. You will also find that most offences (RTA Sections 28 or 29 relating to dangerous cycling) need to be on a road, whereas Section 35 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1961 (Furious Driving of a carriage) needs to have caused injury. There is no offence of reckless cycling and there is also no offence of reckless driving as it was superceded by Dangerous Driving under the RTA 1991 since recklessness is notoriously difficult to prove.

 

 

I used the term "reckless cycling" in a general non legal sense, I reckon it would be difficult to to find an offence, is there a cycling equivalent of driving without due care and attention?. In the recent case of cyclist vs mobile user the cyclist was awarded damages even though the accident was a 50:50 thing, and this happened.

because the phone user did not counter-sue.

 

After the recent NABO article I checked my insurance and it is not clear exactly what cover I would have, but the insurers will not support any legal battle if they judge less than a 50% chance of success.

 

............Dave

13 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

I mark mine by tying a narrowboat to them with thick ropes.  It really helps to draw attention to the small bits of metal if you have a colourful boat, with obvious decoration on it, left near the path in the wet bit ...

But on a serious note, surely this is a reasonable defence, any reasonable person walking or cycling on a canal towpath and passing close to a boat should reasonably expect to encounter ropes, rings, bollards or pins, and also make allowance for a side hatch suddenly opening etc etc.

 

...............Dave

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I have just spent a few days in the Hebden bridge area (without boat) and walked my dog along the towpath every morning. Some of the bridge approaches are at very sharp angles from both sides and it is not possible to see if any cyclist is coming until you meet them. Mostly the cyclists are on big mountain style bikes without any audible warning, or none they use, and somehow they expect you to let them through the bridge hole because they are bigger than you, hard luck in my case being a grumpy old man. Most of the locals take the same approach and are fed up with being expected to jump in the stinging nettles to let the hooligans by so stand their ground. 

Not all the cyclists were this bad though and some slowed right down and said thank you.

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1 hour ago, Dav and Pen said:

I have just spent a few days in the Hebden bridge area (without boat) and walked my dog along the towpath every morning. Some of the bridge approaches are at very sharp angles from both sides and it is not possible to see if any cyclist is coming until you meet them. Mostly the cyclists are on big mountain style bikes without any audible warning, or none they use, and somehow they expect you to let them through the bridge hole because they are bigger than you, hard luck in my case being a grumpy old man. Most of the locals take the same approach and are fed up with being expected to jump in the stinging nettles to let the hooligans by so stand their ground. 

Not all the cyclists were this bad though and some slowed right down and said thank you.

I found the Rochdale cyclists generally a bit less aggressive than elsewhere, probably  because many are doing it for pleasure, its the commuters who are the really aggressive ones. However its best to avoid any Rochdale towpath walking on a Sunday as its full of mountain bikers in full body armour doing the Sunday cycle. The roads are pretty bad too.

 

................Dave

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Slightly off topic, but nearly got taken out by two quad bikes whilst walking underneath the low bridge at the Middlewich Junction a few days ago.  Two guys each with a kid perched on the front and needless to say - no helmets.  Does anyone know the legallity of that?

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1 hour ago, Eldog said:

Slightly off topic, but nearly got taken out by two quad bikes whilst walking underneath the low bridge at the Middlewich Junction a few days ago.  Two guys each with a kid perched on the front and needless to say - no helmets.  Does anyone know the legallity of that?

OH saw them, they came from beyond Kings Lock on the T&M, spoke to another boater about them yesterday, he said he believed they came from the 'Travellers' site by Rumps Lock. The towpath isn't brilliant along there, and they weren't going that slowly, like they were having a race. It's stupid putting their kid's safety at risk.

Edited by Jennifer McM
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When the traveller lad went for a terminal bath in Stourport for trying to go over a narrow lock bridge on his bike, CRT were forced to put up support barriers on lock bridges almost everywhere.  [Typical knee jerk reaction]  Funny they haven't in Brum yet and there will be a splash there sooner or later. With any luck complete with bike [after all, you are "locked" into the pedals if you have the correct gear on.

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I've seen some pretty vicious looking things used as pins before, random tubes with sharp ends that would impale anyone who tripped. Sensible solution is something like a plastic bottle over the end, hi viz if possible.

If someone trips and falls on a pin that is obviously unsuitable there's going to be some liability there.

 

Not sure how claiming for damage caused to a steel peg would hold up against personal injury.

 

Also, I've seen plenty of pins knocked into the towpath.

 

Probably just some sense required all around.

 

When light can normally see pins in the grass, ropes can be a bit harder but worst case is they're a bit taut, and you get a bit of a bump as you ride over them.

 

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3 hours ago, Eldog said:

Slightly off topic, but nearly got taken out by two quad bikes whilst walking underneath the low bridge at the Middlewich Junction a few days ago.  Two guys each with a kid perched on the front and needless to say - no helmets.  Does anyone know the legallity of that?

 

Well unless they have permission, it is a breach of the Byelaws:

 

Towing Paths

Improper use of towing paths

31. (1) No person, unless authorised by the Board or otherwise legally entitled so to do shall:

(a) Ride or drive any animal or vehicle over any towing path

 

But the £5 maximum penalty on conviction is not exactly much of a deterrent!

 

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6 minutes ago, David Mack said:

But the £5 maximum penalty on conviction is not exactly much of a deterrent!

 

We should remember that that By-Law also covers a boater lock-wheeling, a mother with a push-chair and someone riding a disability buggy,

 

The fines have been updated several times over the years.

 

Any person who contravenes the foregoing or any of the Board’s
General Canal Bye-laws or any of the bye-laws for the regulation
of the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal and River Severn
Navigation and the bye-laws for prohibiting or controlling water
skiing shall be liable on summary conviction to a penalty not
exceeding one hundred pounds for each offence and in any byelaw
prescribing penalties the words “one hundred” shall be
substituted for “twenty-five”.

The application hereto of the )
Common Seal of the BRITISH )
WATERWAYS BOARD is )
authenticated by )
T T LUCKCUCK
Secretary
On the seventeenth day of November 1976.
Confirmed by the Secretary of State
for the Environment on the fifth day of May
1977.
R J GREEN
An Assistant Secretary in the
Department of the Environment

 

 

 

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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6 hours ago, Ex Brummie said:

The biggest, of course, is that your boat has a name and number, is easily identifiable and cannot run away at speed. The same cannot be said for cyclists.

I was astounded during a recent to Birmingham, to see the number of cyclists trying to weave their way through throngs ( and I use the word in its literal sense) of pedestrians, many pushchairs and prams, mobility scooters and the canalside tables and chairs. The Sustrans map clearly shows that cyclists should walk through this area.

The Lycra Louts are first to moan when they are threatened by bigger vehicles, but have no cogniscence of their effect on less vulnerable people.

As you may tell from previous posts i am a keen cyclist, but I am sick to death of some towpath riders behaviour. We were moored at gas street last year and the behaviour was intimidating and dangerous. Indeed it requests you walk and rightly so, we did a round the loops ride from gas street and it was very quiet. But gas street itself is so dangerous and used as a cut through.

i think a few idiots need to end up in the cut.

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2 hours ago, roland elsdon said:

As you may tell from previous posts i am a keen cyclist, but I am sick to death of some towpath riders behaviour. We were moored at gas street last year and the behaviour was intimidating and dangerous. Indeed it requests you walk and rightly so, we did a round the loops ride from gas street and it was very quiet. But gas street itself is so dangerous and used as a cut through.

i think a few idiots need to end up in the cut.

You take your life in your hands working Farmers Bridge locks - the way the bikers (couriers) whizz about.

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23 hours ago, dmr said:

In the recent case of cyclist vs mobile user the cyclist was awarded damages even though the accident was a 50:50 thing, and this happened.

because the phone user did not counter-sue.

Could you please provide a source for this because if what you say is true then there have been some significant changes to this case from when it was last discussed on this forum. 

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39 minutes ago, Tumshie said:

Could you please provide a source for this because if what you say is true then there have been some significant changes to this case from when it was last discussed on this forum. 

Yes - I seem to remember it was the other way around because :

 

The Pedestrian was all ready in the road so had 'priority' and the Cyclist should be prepared for people to walk out in front of them.

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2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

The Pedestrian was all ready in the road so had 'priority' and the Cyclist should be prepared for people to walk out in front of them.

Yes the pedestrian, who was engrossed in her phone walked out into oncoming traffic but the judge felt obliged to spread the responsibility  even though the mobile user was at fault because all oncoming traffic is usually responsible for stopping in such curcumstanses, even though it is safer for a cyclist to swerve out of the way rather than slam their brakes on. The woman who walked out into oncoming traffic then sued the cyclist but at that point the cyclist had not made a counter claim. I don't know if you can counter claim after the fact ??? just as well she was hit by a cyclist and not an artic lorry or she might not be here to make any claims, and I bet she doesn't check he instagram while stepping out in front of traffic anymore ?

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37 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Yes - I seem to remember it was the other way around because :

 

The Pedestrian was all ready in the road so had 'priority' and the Cyclist should be prepared for people to walk out in front of them.

This is correct and why the judge favoured the pedestrians claim. Drivers and cyclists alike do not respect the priority gained by someone being in the road bedore their arrival. This belligerence is often encountered when passing parked cars, you often get a driver on the clear side trying to force through, wrongly believing they have priority because their side was clear, even though you are 3/4's through. 

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On ‎09‎/‎08‎/‎2019 at 10:11, dmr said:

In the recent case of cyclist vs mobile user the cyclist was awarded damages even though the accident was a 50:50 thing, and this happened.

because the phone user did not counter-sue.

 

1 hour ago, Tumshie said:

Could you please provide a source for this because if what you say is true then there have been some significant changes to this case from when it was last discussed on this forum. 

 

8 minutes ago, BWM said:

This is correct and why the judge favoured the pedestrians claim. Drivers and cyclists alike do not respect the priority gained by someone being in the road bedore their arrival. This belligerence is often encountered when passing parked cars, you often get a driver on the clear side trying to force through, wrongly believing they have priority because their side was clear, even though you are 3/4's through. 

 

Memory is a strange thing, we sometimes remember things as we would wish them to be, rather than how they really were.

 

Here it is :

 

A CYCLIST who crashed into a yoga teacher after she stepped into the road while staring at her phone has today been ordered to pay up to £100,000 in compensation and court costs.

Gemma Brushett, 28, was knocked unconscious after she was hit by Robert Hazeldean on a busy crossing as he rode home through central London in 2015.

Ms Brushett sued the keen biker and was awarded a payout, despite Judge Shanti Mauger finding that she was equally to blame for the accident, and could have been sued herself by the cyclist.

At Central London County Court today, Judge Mauger awarded her £4,161.79 in damages after saying the 8mm scar she suffered to her lip did not wreck her "very attractive" appearance.

 

The judge also ordered Mr Hazeldean to pay her legal bills, thought to be in the region of £100k, because he was not insured at the time of the crash.

The landscape designer, who has since moved to Côte d’Azur in France to start a new life, said he was "deeply disappointed" by the decision and could be left "bankrupt".

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/4393452/cyclist-forced-to-pay-up-to-100000-to-yoga-teacher-he-mowed-down-while-she-was-on-her-phone/

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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17 minutes ago, BWM said:

Drivers and cyclists alike do not respect the priority gained by someone being in the road bedore their arrival.

As is normally the case and if a driver hits a pedestrian they are usually deemed to be 100% responsible but be cause this mobile phone using pedestrian didn't have the right of way and walked out into oncoming traffic the judge deemed her at fault but because oncoming traffic must bear some of the blame she stated the reasonability must be shared 50/50. 

 

This is the original thread that the zombi phone user is mentioned on

  

Edited by Tumshie
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A bit of light amusement occurred a few years ago travelling through brum.  There was as always, a few cyclists head down tearing up the tow path to work, they peddled really hard up the side of one of the hump back bridges over a closed arm entrance, we could see a cyclist coming the other way, but they could not. As we passed the bridge there were 3 guys picking themselves up,  whist untangling 3 bikes. They were obviously not seriously hurt, but their pride had definitely had a bad day.

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https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/news-and-views/our-campaigns/share-the-space-our-towpath-code

 

CRT safe use of the towpath link. It would seem their towpath policy is everyone gives way to slowest person or animal. I personally don't have an issue with it. 

 

Anyone know of guidance for mooring a narrowboat on CRT website? .i.e  using mooring pins

 

 

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