In March of last year, John was cycling to work in Edinburgh.

He mapped out his route to utilise the Roseburn Cycle Path which allowed him to cycle across the city without coming into contact with vehicular traffic. However, access to the cycle path was from Russell Road. As John was travelling along Russell road, a car coming from the opposite direction cut the corner and right across John’s path. A collision couldn’t be avoided. The car hit John knocking him from his bicycle. John was wearing a helmet mounted camera and the entire incident was captured on film. 

John was taken by ambulance to hospital where he received treatment for a rather nasty shoulder injury. Later, he contacted Cycle Law Scotland to pursue a claim for damages as his bike was damaged, he was injured and yet he had done nothing wrong. The driver was clearly negligent and had failed to consider other road users. Cutting the corner had grave consequences for John.

We immediately intimated a claim on John’s behalf and within 3 weeks the driver’s insurance company admitted liability. An early interim payment was requested and released so that John could carry out the necessary repairs to his bicycle and get back on the road.

After John had made a reasonable recovery, we instructed a medical expert to review medical records and x-rays and examine John in order to report on the extent of the injury and the likely recovery period.Following discussion with John, the report was then sent to the driver’s insurance company together with a full schedule of damages.

Settlement negotiations then commenced but initially resulted in a disappointingly low offer of £8,000. Following further robust negotiations, we secured a fair offer of £11,000.

John was delighted with the level of compensation he received and said

“Thank you again for helping me in the past year; you've been a great help to me and my family.”

Liability was never in dispute as far as the driver’s insurers were concerned but perhaps knowing the incident had been captured on film led them to admit liability at an early stage. Helmet or bicycle mounted cameras capture invaluable footage that not only assist in any claim but can also be used to highlight to drivers the vulnerability of cyclists and the fact that in any collision a cyclist will come of worse.