MCN COLUMNIST

JOHN McGUINNESS

● ‘All the older lads had a Yamaha LC’

‘Factors include the speed of the traffic on the road’

Was I half to blame for the accident?

QI have received a liability offer in my compensation claim which resulted from a filtering accident. The offer is 50% in my favour, meaning I am 50% to blame. My solicitor thinks I should accept it but how do I know what is right as I think it was mainly the car driver’s fault. I was doing no more than 20mph on a 30mph road when he pulled out on me.

Bruno, New Malden

AWithout seeing the papers in your case I cannot be specific. But, factors in determining the basis of a liability split in filtering accidents include the speed of the filtering motorcycle, the speed of the traffic being filtered past, whether the filtering is being done on the off-side or nearside of the line of traffic, the presence of a junction in the road, whether anything could have indicated to the motorcyclist that it was not safe to be filtering (for example a gap in the line of traffic suggesting a car had been flashed to pull into it), knowledge of the road layout and the direction from which they could expect vehicles to be coming and whether the other vehicle involved had seen the motorcycle prior to the collision taking place.

This is not an exhaustive list and other factors may come into play. Each case must be decided on its own facts so your lawyer should be able to apply these criteria (and any others) to your case and decide on the correct course of action in terms of accepting or rejecting any offer of liability.