Hi all.
Had a rather unfortunate incident on the way home from the train station yesterday. Was just making my way around the roundabout on my bike and a car pulled out in front of me. Luckily I wasn't going very fast anyway, neither was he, so I somehow managed to half fall, half hop off the left-hand side of my bike whilst his car proceeded to crush the front wheel of my bike. I wasn't hurt, but my front wheel and the front of my bike is pretty bad. The wheel is bent up into a u shape from where the car ran over it.
The guy was really apologetic and gave me his contact details for repairs. Unfortunately I was a bit shaken up and forgot to note down his registration number. As I wasn't injured or anything I figured it best to just exchange details and not get the police involved. Anyway we left things amicably, and hopefully the details he gave me are correct
What I want to know is, what is the course of action with my bike now?
If it is repairable, do I just send him the bill? If it isn't repairable, which I suspect may be the case, what happens then? Thankfully it was 'only' my 'Bahnhofvelo' but still, I would still be riding it today if he hadn't ploughed into me.
Contact him and ask how he'd like to proceed?
Regarding the state of the bike. You mentioned the front is damaged. Where exactly? just the forks? or the handle bars or the frame itself?
If it is just the forks then it might be worth replacing them rather than the whole bike.
As far as I can recall, the handle bars are fine. My front wheel took the hit, but I don't think the forks were majorly affected, unlike my wheel which is now shaped like a 'u'
I'm going to pick it up later, as I was forced to leave it at the station yesterday. Hope to take it to a repair shop tomorrow.
Thinking about it, I just realised I locked it at the station- it'd be bloody difficult to steal it the state it's in
I had a bike accident in May, with the other man at fault. If the guy agree's he's at fault then he should forward you his personal insurance #/contact and then you'll deal with someone from one of the insurance bureaus. They will ask what was damaged and how much it may cost. Once you have your receipts, send a registered letter to them asking for compensation (you should have an incident # by this time) and bank details and hopefully they'll send you back the amount indicated by the receipts.
At least that was the case for me.
Thanks for the great advice. When you say 'incident number', do you mean one allocated by the police? I don't have one because I didn't contact the police as I wasn't injured. Plus the guy basically admitted it was his fault. My poor bike took the brunt of it...
If he admits responsibility as he seems to have done, he may want to deal without insurance. So speak to HIM and ask HIM what HE supports doing to put you back into the position you were in before he wrecked your bike.
He might just ask what repair/replacement costs and give you the money. So do some research on Ricardo and other sites to see what repair might cost (sounds like a new wheel?) and what replacement would cost (similar bike)
Great, thanks. I'll have to contact him and gauge the situation as you say. And he did say to contact him regarding repair costs. I just wasn't sure if I ought to go down the official insurance route or not. Probably easier if we can resolve it amicably without heaps of paperwork
I can imagine he won't want to involve insurance. Give him the chance to be good, sounds like he's reasonable.
Phone the guy ask him how he wants to do this. If orivate Go to bike shop ask them for a quote, give him the quote and tell him you want the cash