Injured whilst cycling

Under S.72 Highways Act 1835, it is an offence to drive or ride any carriage on footpaths and especially alongside pedestrians. Since then, the Local Government Act 1888 has declared that bicycles also fall into this category and so it is illegal to cycle on unmarked pavements in England and Wales.  Those guilty of breaking this law can be penalised with a fixed penalty of £50 issued by the police or a larger fine of £500 imposed by the courts (both figures as of Jan 2022). Statistics have shown that cycling on pavements poses little danger to pedestrians and accidents involving cyclists and pedestrians on pavements are occasional.

 

Despite the apparent safety of riding on pavements, it remains illegal, although police tend to use their discretion in the case of children. If you do find yourself being injured by another party whilst riding on the pavement, you may still be able to take legal action but may not be able to claim full compensation as you were also negligent by breaking the law. However, this is a complicated issue and can depend on factors such as the severity of the injuries sustained, who else was involved in the accident and their injuries.

 

As a cyclist, you’re one of the most vulnerable to injury on the road. Sometimes no amount of safety precautions can protect you from a reckless driver causing an accident. The most common causes of collisions are when a motorist fails to spot a cyclist, drives at excessive speed and doesn't leave a safe distance when overtaking.

 

Other injuries can be a result of poor road junction design or inadequate road surface maintenance. In these cases, you may be able to take legal action against local or highway authorities, we would suggest you check out a website called “Fix My Street” to see if the fault had previously been reported.

 

Following an accident, it is vital to take the correct steps to ensure your personal safety. You have the same rights as other road users in road traffic accidents. As previously covered, you must report the accident and exchange basic information with everyone involved. To receive any compensation after such an accident, you must prove the one responsible for the injuries was driving below the acceptable standard. If the cause of the accident was the road surface and not another driver, it must be proven that road maintenance standards fell below the required levels under the law. A claimant cyclist must prove, on the balance of probabilities that they were abiding by the law and were injured due to negligence or breach of duty by the fault party.

 

You should also consider that if you were not wearing protective equipment that there could be an argument that the severity of the juries was down to your negligence in protecting yourself, we would always suggest riding whilst wearing full safety equipment, and ideally a highly visible jacket.

 

How we can help

One of the issues with such injuries is proving fault, sometimes this is obvious, sometimes it is simply an accident (cycling into a lamppost because you not holding onto the handlebars, were going too fast for the conditions etc). The criteria for a claim depends on proving an element of negligence by the council. You would need to take photographic evidence of the cause (if a hole, pothole, raised edge on paving slab etc please place a bank card / coin beside the cause and photograph, this will give your caseworker something of scale).

 

To gain our assistance you need to open a case, this is done by taking advantage of our free consultation service, activated by the link at the top of the page, should you wish to start a case the caseworker will send you the suitable payment link. Your legal team will then then examine the situation and make suitable recommendations, if they feel the case has merits then they will suggest appointing a medical consultant to assess your situation, they are privately contracted by us (and therefore their cost would be classed as a disbursement). To quantify the potential claim in regard to mental trauma we would suggest an additional report from our psychological team.

 

The claim will consider two types of damages:

• General damages- this compensates the victim for the pain and suffering endured, and for the loss of enjoyment of life as a result of the negligent act.
• Special damages- this compensates the victim for any personal costs incurred as a result of the negligent act. It can also cover any additional costs required in the future such as remedial surgery to remedy the mistake, mental suffering and so on.

 

Please note your caseworker can only give generic advice, their role is to prepare your details for handling by our legal team and medical consultant and to act as your point of contact, they will also issue you with your Password and PIN, these will be needed to log onto your client dashboard. From your dashboard you will be able to manage and view every aspect of your case, upload documents, images, files etc.