Bike falls over, I get note

I work in the CBD and have been riding my BMW R1100GS to work. I left
it out the front of work- near a laneway. on the footpath (legal in
Melb), next to a no standing area..
I get back to find a note on teh bike say "Your bike fell onto my car-
you pay etc etc"
The bike was on a centre stand.
There was not a mark on the bike- anywhere.
There were savage marks on the ground around where the centre stand
sits.

So I ring the guy and ask how my bike came to fall on his car. He
claims he was wating for a car to move out of a carp park (where the no
standing sign ends) and the bike "just fell" onto his car. He says it
has extensively damaged his car. I'm flummoxed as there is not a mark
on it, and anyway how the hell did it fall off the centrestand on flat
ground.

I think he hit it while cutting the corner while coming out of the side
lane and it toppled onto his car that way. Or it didn't fall at all. I
have no idea. I have comprehensive, but bugger paying the excess etc
when I have NO IDEA WTF really happened.

I have received a solicitors letter demanding I admit liability- yet no
amount is proffered at this point. In the bin that went.

So folks:
- Can i be held responsible for a car being hit while illegally parked?
- In the absence of any evidence (ie scratches on the bike, witness
other than teh claimant) what shall I do?

I am more than tempted to ignore this all the way and respond only when
they want to go to court with a "you hit my bike". I won't be suing as
there is NO DAMAGE to the bike. Either the Beemer is a tank or someone
is bullshitting me....

 

Contact your insurance company, give them the letter and tell them the
story ... their lawyers will handle it - and they won't pay unless they
REALLY have to.

 

Not your problem , hand it to your insurance company who will most
likely say"up your " to this goose .

 

Given how easily bikes are damaged in minor falls, I think you're being
bullshitted. well and truly.

I' must say though, even if he hit the bike, why no marks? Bizarre.

Did you ask him how he got it back onto the centrestand (as using a
centrestand is completely beyond most non motorcyclists and even many
riders!)?

Ask for photos. Go to your insurers and deny, deny, deny. Let the solicitors
squabble.

Tony F
fell off a centrestand on a firm flat surface? BULLSHIT!

 

Sounds like a pretty obvious scam to me. What the others said about
insurance company,
this isn't your problem. Me, I'd be approaching my insurance company
with "I think
someone is trying to commit insurance fraud here", just to get them in
the right frame
of mind from the outset!

You *could* post the guy's contact details on here so we can, er, ring
him up and ask
him what happened!

GB

 

Puts hand up for a call.

 

Bad advice, your insurance company will not act in your best interests,
it will act in the way that minimises their effort, they will come to a
settlement in preference to fighting if they smell a possibility of
having to wear part of the costs.

JL

 

Bad advice, your insurance company will not act in your best interests,

Then they need to understand that they'll have a fight on their hands
too
if they start making noises about excesses, payouts, policies ending,
etc.

Just as food for thought, I wonder if the cops would give a stuff from
a
fraud point of view. I had a situation a month or so a go when some
nutty woman went whinging to the cops claiming that I had hit
her car whilst overtaking her. The whole thing was pretty obviously
dodgy for a whole bunch of reasons, and the first thing the copper
asked me was "is there any damage to your bike".

Aside from all the other stuff, since this clown is making all the
"your
bike hit my car" claims, he gets to prove it before *anyone* gives him
time of day, otherwise, he gets to **** right off! Chances are he's a
bit of a mouthbreather who has chosen not to take his lawyers
"snowball's
chance in hell mate" advice, and insisted on a nastygram being sent
out anyway. Call bluff. "Prove it".

GB, fack I hate gmail.

 

Binning the solicitor's letter is stupidity, go pull it back out of the bin.

Write the solicitor a letter stating that you believe his claim is
groundless and that you in no way shape or form accept any
responsibility or liability. Don't explain why. Just stick with pure
denial initially. His reply will then request an explanation as to why
you think it's groundless, you reply with words to the effect that until
they provide some proof of your culpability you have no idea what he's
talking about.

Don't forget, you're burning his money via solicitor's bills, it costs
you nothing and him a lot to keep corresponding.

He'll need to commence legal action to break out of the loop. When he
does, then you hand it over to the insurance company, don't do it sooner
than that.

 

counter claim for knocking yr bike over.

Him claiming that your parked bike ran out and fell on his car is akin to
claiming that this tree just leapt out from nowhere and collided with the
car.

Someone's telling fibs and it aint an immobile tree.

 

- Can i be held responsible for a car being hit while illegally parked?

You were in Qld that week werent you? Nowhere near where this
happened.

And how can there be ANY damage to a car and 0 to a bike?

BOVINE FAECES.

 

Sounds fishy to me.

Al

 

Ah, these lawyers, they're bottom-feeders. He's hoping you'll take the
bait, but I'd say his story has whiskers on it ...

-----sharks (full of carp)

 

Hopefully for you it will all amount to nothing. However,
it does appear as though something has happened: "There were savage marks on
the ground around where the centre stand sits".

It might be in your best interest a.s.a.p. to get some sort of photographic
evidence of the site indicating:
- the damage to the footpath
- that it was on a footpath - what was a car doing on a footpath?
- some sort of verified condition of your bike; would be a bit of a bummer
if this drags on and something else might happen to it during the process -
might lead tosome confusion.
Rockit

 

everyone assumes because you ride a bmw you have more money than sense
and you have plenty of money and your insured...

 

Send him a letter back demanding he pays the extensive damages to your bike,
Claim in the letter that you suspect that he has actually hit your bike
causing the accident. and since he HIT A STATIONARY OBJECT under the roads
and traffic legislation he is at fault.

if he continues with the silly buggery after that, demand that you observe
the damage, and have qoates from 3 different repairers. Then tell him to go
to small claims court. He has admitted in the letter that you were not at
fault, that another vehicle was at fault, so you have no liability at all.
Small claims court can sort things out, rep your self, take a day off work,
might be fun - worst case if you loose, hand it to your insurance company..
if you win, claim costs, lost wages etc..

9/10 times solicitors dont know what they are doing at all, seriously they
are really really dumb and follow routine things that somebody else told
them to do, which is in this case, write you a letter of demand, and by the
sounds of it a poor one that doesnt actually demand anything, and by what
you say the letter also contains information which exhonerates you at fault.

in anycase it doesnt make sence

if you were parked on the footpath, and a car is infront of you has hit your
bike, how the hell could it have fallen onto his car, and not the car that
hit you!!! how did the other car actually get on the footpath to hit your
bike to begin with.

In anycase, see if ya can track down some witness's to the so called
incident, take some photographs of the scene, perhaps park your bike their
again, take photos graphs to prove that their is no damage to your bike what
so ever. Was your bike even upright?

Its all a game, bit like pac man - eat the shit until you eat a big enough
one to eat the ghosts..

Mad

 

'Tis my experience too. They take the path of least cost to them, and
that normally means it gets chalked down to you and you pay the excess
and your rating suffers.

---
Cheers

PeterC [aka MildThing]
'81 Suzuki GS450-s (gone on to better and brighter things - I hope)
'87 BMW K100RT (write-off)
'81 Yamaha Virago (XV) 750H (work in progress)
'01 Yamaha FJR1300

www.dmcsc.org.au
http://eladesom.com.au/ulysses/
# 37181

 

Which isn't entirely dumb, if you're getting paid to do it.

But I reckon JL is right ...

-----sharks

 

Tell him to get fucked.

 

Or offer him $3.50 in damages.