legal aid needed after raod accident

hi,
just had a nasty road accident where i collided with a 4x4 on a
single-track road and smashed my knee up.

don't have any personal accident insurance - Any advise on who i could
approach - what process to use, who you'd recommend to help a cyclist
take legal action. ??

TIA
C

Carlos Fandango scribed with passion and wit:

hi,
just had a nasty road accident where i collided with a 4x4 on a
single-track road and smashed my knee up.

don't have any personal accident insurance - Any advise on who i could
approach - what process to use, who you'd recommend to help a cyclist
take legal action. ??

TIA
C

You might want to check your home insurance, it may provide legal help in a
case like this, good luck with the knee.

--
Ian

http://www.catrike.co.uk

"Carlos Fandango" wrote in message
...
hi,
just had a nasty road accident where i collided with a 4x4 on a
single-track road and smashed my knee up.

don't have any personal accident insurance - Any advise on who i could
approach - what process to use, who you'd recommend to help a cyclist
take legal action. ??


First things first - the mere fact of having suffered an injury doesn't
automatically mean there's any compensation to be got out of it. You have
to have an argument to say that the other side was negligent and it was
their fault. It's not enough simply to have been driving a 4x4 to make it
'their fault' (although some might think so!) unless perhaps it was
somewhere it shouldn't have been. It helps if there are independant
witnesses who can confirm the accident happened in the way and for the
reasons you say it did.

If you can think of reasons why they were in the wrong then the best place
to start looking for legal help is probably through cycling organisation
membership, if you belong to a cycling organisation. If you don't, the next
thing to try is any insurance policies you hold - home insurance often
provides legal expenses cover as someone else suggested, a motor policy
might also. If you don't have that, you're probably going to be looking at
litigation on a contingency fee basis. Mostly that is deprecated on urc
since it involves your solicitors taking a cut of your winnings as a success
fee, _but_ if you have no other legal expenses cover _and_ you smashed your
knee up so badly that it your claim is likely to exceed the personal injury
small claims limit of £1,000 then there is probably not going to be any
other source of legal help available to you unless you want to pay upfront
for legal services.

One organisation that seemed interesting to me - had an exhibit at the
Cycleshow - was cycleaid: www.cycleaid.co.uk - I don't know anything about
them other than the info you can read on the web site but they do, as the
name suggests, specialise in accidents involving cyclists. Their web site
also has a useful page on the compensation process to give you more idea of
what's involved.

HTH

Rich

"Carlos Fandango" wrote in message
...
hi,
just had a nasty road accident where i collided with a 4x4 on a
single-track road and smashed my knee up.

don't have any personal accident insurance - Any advise on who i could
approach - what process to use, who you'd recommend to help a cyclist
take legal action. ??

The real thing to learn from this is to make sure you're a member of the
CTC, their legal department is second to none, and I speak from some
experience.

Of course, the really clever people join the day before they have the
collision, but for the rest of us it's the boring old annual subscription.

TIA
C

"Richard Burton" wrote in message ...
"Carlos Fandango" wrote in message
...
don't have any personal accident insurance - Any advise on who i could
approach - what process to use, who you'd recommend to help a cyclist
take legal action. ??

I've just been knocked off my bike by a car that ran into the back of
me and have contacted a solicitor who advised me that legal aid is not
available for personal injury claims and hasn't been since 1990
something.

If you don't have insurance your best bet is a conditional fee action
(no win no fee) although most firms will only take the case on if they
think you have a good chance of winning.

You will probably be asked to pay an insurance premium that covers you
for the other side's costs if you lose (about £400). You may also
have to pay for medical reports and stuff...

Good luck,

Al

"Al" wrote in message
om...

If you don't have insurance your best bet is a conditional fee action
(no win no fee) although most firms will only take the case on if they
think you have a good chance of winning.

You will probably be asked to pay an insurance premium that covers you
for the other side's costs if you lose (about £400). You may also
have to pay for medical reports and stuff...

I used no win no fee about 3 years ago and the medical reports were recovered from
the drivers insurance, as well as *most* of the insurance premium. The thing to
watch out for is interest as this was about 15%APR (about £200) and got deducted
from my compensation award as it's not recoverable.

On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 23:16:16 -0000, "DG" wrote:

[SNIPED here and there]

My own advice is being careful. There are a lot of companies out there that
have no real concern for their clients, placing their own profits has of
paramount importance.

DG

I'm curious. There are several ambulance chasing firms currently
advertizing on television who imply that the injured will have to pay
in no way, shape, form or other chiché.

How on Earth do these people make their money if not from taking a cut
of their client's (presumed) compensation?

James

--
"Sorry mate, I didn't see you" is not a satisfactory excuse.

James Hodson wrote:

How on Earth do these people make their money if not from taking a cut
of their client's (presumed) compensation?


http://money.guardian.co.uk/howtocom...758339,00.html

Salutory information if you are thinking of using one.

Tony

In article ,
lid (James Hodson) wrote:

How on Earth do these people make their money if not from taking a cut
of their client's (presumed) compensation?

This is how I think it works and should say I have no direct experience.

Claims'r'us threatens the company with carefully statistics-based
amounts optimised for maximum return though not necessarily for the
client. Whether or not it goes to court the company pays the injured
client and pays Claims'r'us in two separate transactions. This is how
they claim the money does not come out of the compensation.

It would be nice if the TV ads went more like this after a truth serum
injection.

"When I fell off a ladder and scratched my arm on a Friday afternoon
because I was ****ed from the pub, Claims'r'us stepped in and in no time
I was awarded £200 and it didn't cost me a penny !

The Claims'r'us solicitor who pointed out that my employer had forgotten
to clean my desk that morning made £5000. After all it is just about
possible I wasn't really drunk and had caught something from the desk in
which case a judge could have awarded a much higher amount."

Jon

In article ,
lid says...

How on Earth do these people make their money if not from taking a cut
of their client's (presumed) compensation?

Perhaps it is usual to award costs as well as the compensation in
these cases?

Juliette
--
nowt