Hit a Pedestrian

Question:

At Approx x I was traveling down x. At approx. 300M away from the set of lights outside x the lights where red, as I was filtering through traffic towards the lights I decreased my speed to around 20Mph. When approx. 100m away from the lights they changed to flashing amber, at this point the crossing looked clear and a van at the front of the queue of traffic appeared to start moving forwards, therefore I decided to maintain my speed.

When I was parallel to the back of the van a woman stepped out from a concealed view point in front of my vehicle only 1 metre away. I had no time to react, and she therefore caused a collision, she fell backwards and sustained a cut to her head. I was thrown from my bike, and landed next to it standing on my feet I was more or less unharmed however I was in obviously in shock and my bike was damaged and on its side in the middle of the road.

The driver of the Van then got out and proceeded to hurl all sorts of abuse my way, also saying that the lights had been red, probably to cover himself, which they had definitely not been for at least 4 seconds. I then walked up to the woman, to see if she was OK, at this point the man from the van blocked me out of her way and told me to leave her alone.

Then a nurse who saw the events unfolding came over to treat the woman in the road. I then decided to try and move my bike to a safe position away from the rush hour traffic. It wouldn’t move, this is when a passenger from the van came and helped me put the bike into neutral and pushed it to a safe position on the pavement outside Superdrug.

As I completed this, the ambulance arrived. Still shaken and not knowing what to do I decided to sit on a seat on the pavement outside a cafe. The ambulance crew started to take care of her. A couple of minutes later the police started to show up.

They taped off the road and started measuring skid marks, talked to a witness and noted the camera’s location etc. They were talking to the ambulance crew, however I sat there expecting them to approach me after they had made sure she was stable and safe. However about 20 – 30 mins after the police had arrived they had still not spoken to me sitting on the pavement with my broken motorbike, so I decided to approach them if anything just to see that she was OK.

The officer I approached PC Peirce then said to me rather surprised. “Oh, are you the motorcyclist involved, the witness told me that you had left the scene. Why didn’t you approach us sooner?” to which I replied “Because I presumed you knew it was me (sitting next to the incident with a broken motorbike) and you were making sure she was stable and safe before talking to me.”

Then he advised me to leave all of my property on the pavement next to my bike, during rush hour with the sidewalk full of pedestrians, commuters, and cyclists, and join him in the police car, regardless that I was still in shock and aching after just being involved in a road traffic accident he cautioned me with two offences of driving without due care and attention and overtaking at a pelican crossing.

He then said that he had to take a statement from me and that anything that I didn’t mention wouldn’t be reliable in court, I was under the impression because of the officer’s intimidating attitude, that if I didn’t give a statement I would be arrested.

I then went back to stand by my bike and see if my possessions had not been stolen when my mother called me and she advised me to get a copy of the statement, as she was on the phone the officer approached me again and said that he had forgotten to ask me to sign his notebook with the statement inside so I asked him for a copy which he refused me and said it was just his notebook.

He was rushing me and he was stressed as his car had broken down because he left the computer on without the engine running and was prioritising getting it sorted out as all the other police were leaving the scene and he had to wait with his car for the recovery vehicle to come, he appeared very stressed.

I was left on my own in shock and with my bike unusable trying to arrange a recovery for my bike.

 Emma Says:

This could be nasty.

You will probably get summonsed to court for contravening a red traffic light and driving without due care and attention.

You need to be aware that going through an amber light is as much of an offence as going through on red – unless you can prove that it was not safe to stop. Not many people know that. I take it you may well have admitted going through on amber to the police officer?

The officer is not obliged to provide you with a copy of his notes at the scene of the alleged offence. You do not get to see the evidence against you until you get to court.

Are you a new driver? Have you got any points already? If so, how many? I am assuming that you were driving a motor vehicle from what you have said.

You could be at risk of a discretionary driving ban for this matter as the facts will be taken seriously by the magistrates court.