Safe Speed Forums

I recently had a motorcycle accident on the M25 whilst iltering and am experiencing difficulty in getting the third party insurers to accept liability for the accident depite me having a witness and the police prosecuting the driver of the car for "driving with undue care and attention".

I have since been able to obtain a copy of an article entitled "Bikes Free To Filter Without Fear" - Court overturns ruling on crash blame. I have the two page article on my computer in a PDF format which I am more than happy to email on should anyone find it useful. mark@altitudemarketing.co.uk and mark.joules@ferrero.com

I would also be grateful if anyone else has any suggestions that might help me with my issue. I have included below my account of the accident for your information:-

The weather conditions were clear, dry with good visibility. Traffic on the M25 southbound (anti-clockwise) between Junctions 16 & 15 was relatively heavy and moving slowly at around 10mph. I was filtering on my motorcycle between lanes 2 & 3. I am currently awaiting my Institute of Advanced Motorcyclists (IAM) test and was filtering in accordance with the IAM guidelines at approximately 10mph above that of the surrounding traffic. My headlight of my motorcycle was on dipped main beam and I was wearing a reflective “H Belt” harness to further increase my visibility.

The driver of the Ford Mondeo gave no prior indication and appeared to commence the manoeuvre without looking. The driver made a very rapid and sharp left turn, accelerating from the third lane into the second lane. My motorcycle was level with the rear of the Mondeo at the moment the Mondeo pulled over to the left. The Mondeo impacted the front right side of my motorcycle at which time it felt that I did not have control over the motorcycle (as though it was in some way attached to the car) and I fought to gain control of the motorcycle, stopping it from falling to the ground under the side of the car. The motorcycle then seemed to come away from the car, falling rapidly to the left. I managed to recover the motorcycle but as a result was thrown to the right impacting with the Mondeo’s front passenger door. This impact threw the motorcycle to the left again and this time I was unable to recover, resulting in myself and the left side of my motorcycle hitting the road, coming to rest in the middle of the second lane on the M25. The M25 was at a stand-still after the accident until the police attended and cleared the carriageway.

The Police carried out a breath test on both myself and the driver of the Mondeo, both of us testing negative. I was attended to by the supporting ambulance, checking my left leg, right foot, neck and blood pressure which was extremely high. In the meantime the police questioned the driver of the Mondeo and the independent witness who was driving the car behind the Mondeo. The policeman informed me that my version of events exactly matched that of the witness and therefore the police would be prosecuting the driver of the Mondeo with the charge of “Driving without due care and attention”.

The Mondeo was driven away by the driver. My motorcycle and I were recovered from the motorway by a recovery/rescue van arranged by the police.

Here's hoping that one day there is some justice for safe bikers!

Many thanks

Mark

Hi Mark &

Commiserations on your accident.

I was had off my bike by a car deciding to turn right across me as I was passing on the o/s. The 3rd party insurer denied responsibility at first, but in the end, admitted 100% liability.

My advice to you would be to get a (decent) lawyer on the case and pursue it. It doesn't really matter whether the 3rd party insurer accepts liability or not. Fact is, if the police are prosecuting and you have a witness, then sue them. Use a firm that does CFA (conditional fee - no-win, no-fee) cases.

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

I went through this last year; I was knocked off by in very similar circumstances on the M3. There were two witnesses who gave their details, both supported the fact that the other driver gave no indication but one claimed it was still my fault as I "shouldn't have been there"

The other driver accepted liability at the scene but his insurance comapny would not accept full liability, my own insurance company wanted to accept 50/50, I refused and took a private action against the other driver for "unrecovered costs" in my case that was the cost of a jacket and my excess, totalk value £500.

All the way through the other party would not accept full liability until it went to small claims court, where they offered no defence I was awarded full costs, at that point my insurance company also pursued their costs and in the end it was all sorted no fault to me.

The key point is though that you have to drive the action, your insurance company will not support you, bear in mind that most of them also insure the car drivers so they do not want us to have automatic no fault.

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Former Military Police Officer and accident investigator

I think we may have discussed your off and mine on the VFR forums Patch?

Indeed we have here's a link to thread if that will help others understand the process I had to go through

http://www.bikersoracle.com/vfr/forum/s ... tering+law

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Former Military Police Officer and accident investigator

Aye, not good fun!

It rang a bell when you mentioned that one of the witnesses thought you were breaking the law by filtering. Forum deja vu!

Glad it came down your way though! I'm still waiting to hear if I am gonna get blamed for the dozy bint taking me off my bike last winter just because, after trying desperately to avoid her and stay on in the slippery conditions, when contact finally was made it was on the rear of her car! I would have had no trouble 'winning' if I had just let her plough into the side of me as she joined the slip-road; arguing might have been a problem for me past the ventilator tube though!

Legal or not, filtering up the inside of moving traffic is stupid enough, but 10mph faster? Dear me!

In a hurry,were we?

Why thanks for your contribution Oscar.

For your personal information the guidlines on filtering from the IAM, ROSPA and the police (via Bikesafe) is pretty clear; Filtering is legal as long as it is approached in a safe and controlled manner the general rule of thumb is that you should never filter at more than 15-20 mph than the traffic sis flowing and never when the traffic is moving at greater than 40 mph.


I get a feeling you don't ride a bike, if you did you would appreciate that filtering at less than 10 mph differencial in moving traffic increases the exposure to danger.

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Former Military Police Officer and accident investigator

Thats a pretty ignorant comment there mate. Are you fully appraised of just how slow 10mph is? At a wild guess, your speedo will not even register it (the gucci VFR VTEC digital speedo will of course ).

Personally, 40mph traffic is a bit rich for my filtering tastes, but perfectly feasible in stop-start conditions. One of my less comfortable moments was filtering through virtually stationary traffic on the M40, when all of a sudden I came out of the 'plug' and found myself between two vehicles accelerating past about 60mph, desperately trying to pull in!

As far as filtering up the 'inside' of traffic is distasteful to Oscar, where exactly would you have bikes filter?

Accepted best practice is to filter between the two rightmost lanes. Filtering at the extremities (left or right) of roads is not wise, due to the lack of expectancy of other road users to vehicles being there, and less favorable surface conditions.

Perhaps you're of the mind that bikers should wait in the 'queue' with everybody else, great British tradition that queuing is! This clearly involves a bike needlessly taking up the space of a car, and negates any benefits it has on congestion reduction for everyone else in the jam.

In conclusion, filtering is not stupid, it is both valid and legal. The 'stupid' ones are the cage drivers who do not realise the validity and legality of filtering and choose to make it a difficult experience for bikers through some misplaced sense of 'queuing justice'. These are the drivers likely to find themselves in court on a dangerous driving charge becuase they pulled out to obstruct (read 'knock off' for bikers) a filterer because they 'shouldn't have been there guv'.

Personally I'd rather filter than be stuck at the back of a line of traffic, ripe for a squashing by the first idiot who doesn't know what the middle pedal does

I don't care for filtering in moving traffic much - if the traffic flow's much above about 15 - 20mph I'd rather be in the queue. Its rare that I ride on the motorway anyway and I've never been on a long m/way trip alone either. Besides that...noisy pipes and all that...

Oscar. We take enough risks riding a bike as it is. Its cold, wet and bloody hard work sometimes. Let us enjoy the benifites as well eh?

Mark. Welcome to the forum. Stick with it and fight your corner. There is NO excuse for not checking mirrors and signalling before making a menoeuver. Best of luck mate.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

I rode in my younger days!
NOTHING would get me on two wheels nowadays, owing to some of the numskulls who are or aren't allowed on the roads.
I've seen 'em all in my 3000000+miles.

I stand by my previous post, i.e. legal or not, in my opinion, filtering is stupid. Just another word, and an excuse, for 'undertaking'!

Stupid or not, it IS legal to filter if its done safely and with care (which it sounds like in this case it was).

That sentiment taken to its logical conclusion would see us all branded as stupid for venturing out on two wheels at all - I recon in this case Mark would have come a cropper if he'd just happened to be in the lane next to Mr. Plank when he decided to change lanes without checking properly.

We take our lives in our hands every time we get on a bike. The roads are full of Mr. Planks who can't look where they're going. The ability to filter is one of the perks of riding.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

MarkJoules, you need to get a lawyer and you need to make sure your insurers do not settle 50/50 or anything not 100% in your favour.

Your costs will be paid from the other party, the hard part will be finding a solicitor who knows what he is doing in road traffic cases.

I don't yet motorbike but do cycle.

Is it not safer to filter / overtake where one wouldn't normally / dodge round stationary or slow cars than be exposed to carbon monoxide and other fumes for long periods?

I also don't like smelling of petrol after cycling.

One of the problems that I notice, a lot of modern bikes are almost as wide as a small car, so why can't Micras, etc., filter too?
Surely, when filtering was deemed legal, it was surmised that the bikes' 'footprints' would be fairly narrow?

If you're talking about Goldwings, they're hardly 'modern', they're based on a 50's Electroglide.

Don't be rediculous.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Dude, are you on drugs?

Mark

I too had a similar incident when filtering up towards the M4 from Windsor. Daft berk saw a gap and went for it without indicating. At the time I had two witnesses who both supplied information and I got 100% non-fault payout. One witness was totally impressed by my ability to control the bike and stay on two wheels whilst rapidly approaching a ditch on wet grass after mounting the kerb and when he asked me how the hell I managed to stay on I said "You tell me, you saw everything!"

Main thing as you have already been advised is to ensure that you get a motorbiking knowledgeable solicitor which your insurance company should provide.

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Prepare to be Judged

No. Are you?

Merely a tongue in cheek posting of my observations.

I'm not getting at anyone. If someone wants to travel between two lines of moving traffic on two wheels, then they should not complain if they end up getting sideswiped or squashed. Vis a vis MarkJoules situation. Drivers aren't perfect.

I would certainly not even consider such a move!

not filtering defeats the object of having a bike.

If the car driver had not looked in their mirrors they would have hit what ever was there be it bike or car.

How could you/we avoid this sort of crash?

You're real lucky you didn't end up under something very heavy and can still fight the court case.