Stationary and squeezed by a Tfl bus

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Tue 30 Jul 2013 18:01
Stationary and squeezed by a Tfl bus - Iloveforums

I am having a hotted conversation with my insurance and I would like to have, well, an honest opinion. I am trying to be as objective as possible. There is no witness.

I was driving up to a T-Junction where a Transport-for-London bus, ahead of me, was stationary waiting for the incoming right traffic to stop. There was no dedicated left or right turning lane at this point and the bus was positioned straight, slightly over an imaginary line dividing this left-hand side of the road, but not enough for a car to not to be able to drive pass the back of the bus, yet it was fairly tight. I drove up to behind the driver's cabin, on the left and stayed stationary for a good 10 seconds. The bus then moved forward and turned left to my surprise and squeezed my car which was still stationary.

None of us admits responsibility. The driver says that it had indicated his intentions, which I dispute firmly, so it is here a case of my words his words. More central to the accident, I was stationary and the bus driver has not offered any reason as to why he did not check or failed to spot me in his left mirror and my insurance seems to acknowledge that I was stationary.

The bus company has provided an on-board CCTV footage, which surprisingly stopped just moments before the accident. It shows my car passing the back of the bus on the left and the third-party argues that I was making it difficult for the bus to turn left subsequently. From the CCTV it cannot be concluded whether the driver had indicated his intentions or not.

The claim handler of my insurance says that as the bus was already positioned, as one cannot say whether the bus was indicating or not as I drove pass, and as it was tight for a large vehicle and a car to face the T-Junction side by side based on google-earth, he advises me to accept a 50%/50% responsibility even though I was stationary.

However I have queried on the phone as to why the footage was cut and did not include the accident proper, but I was told that this is what the bus company sent to their insurance. I feel that the full footage would show the exact cause of the accident, my stationary position and most likely the fact that the bus had not indicated (as the driver only then turned on his hazard lights). I was also told – not by my insurance company - that modern bus carry a black-box for recording the time when indicators are used. I also have a picure of a car and a bus side-by-side, and pictures of busses turning left leaving no space (20cm) on their left side.

Could anyone confirm the black-box and could I demand my insurance to request both these recordings and the missing cut of the footage. Would that help my case to fight the 50%/50% split if it shows that the bus had not indicated, or would the points brought forwards by the claim handler supersede this?

I welcome any advice, views, and possible outcome as I am completely newbie to that field. Many thanks

PS: also puzzling is that my claim handler said repeatedly in the morning that the CCTV show that the indicator was on, only to retract in the afternoon, after watching it again and conclude that the CCTV did not show either way.

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Tue 30 Jul 2013 20:13
Stationary and squeezed by a Tfl bus - vmturbo

Depending on where this happened there might be other CCTV, off lamp-posts etc. Of course those are all owned by TFL as far as I know so you might find that the critical evidence has been "accidentally erased"

50-50 seems a bit of a bum deal if you were not even moving and no doubt TFL will already have an army of repair-people on their staff ready to fix any "dings" on their buses. Pity that your car wasn't a Morris Minor with the protruding door hinges as allegedly these can rip-open a furniture van just like filleting a fish!

I do wish you the best of luck but it is par-for-the-course for big companies to stone-wall.

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Wed 31 Jul 2013 15:22
Stationary and squeezed by a Tfl bus - happy polo

Hmm. Whilst I can accpet your argument that you were stationary, and there is clearly a suggestion that the driver failed to correctly observe that you had positioned yourself alonsgide his vehicle, I would have to say that your driving sounds to have been of a rather poor standard.

A large vehicle is waiting at a junction, because there is traffic passing. You were aware that he was waiting for the traffic, as you have told us which way it was approaching. There was no suggestion he had stopped for any other reason, and the reasonable assumption would be that he would be moving off very shortly. You claim that you do not know which way he was intending to turn. There was only a single lane of traffic on the approach to the junction. Why on earth did you feel it sensible then to wedge yourself into the tiny gap left along one side of the bus? You had no idea which way he was going, so what did you expect to achieve other than putting yourself into a position of conflict when he moved off?! Do you feel it reasonable that other drivers, having already positioned their vehicles, should then have to take evasive action when moving off because you have decided to try and run them off the road in the meantime? Again, what exactly where you expecting to happen when the bus moved? Let's be honest, you didn't want to wait your turn, you were trying your luck, and it didn't work. How much quicker your journey would have been if you had simply sat in line and waited until the road was clear!

The driver should have checked his mirrors prior to pulling out, however a sensible view would also be that he shouldn't have to expect somebody to have impatiently squeezed their vehicle into the gap down his nearside for absolutely no reason. Large vehicles need space, and it is the poorly educated motorists who think that even the tiniest space is fair game who end up coming a cropper in exactly the way that you have. And people then wonder why bus and lorry drivers 'throw their weight around' - precisely because of the poor level of driving demonstrated by others who are totally incapable of reading the road around large vehicles!

As for a 'black box', no their won't be. Just the CCTV cameras and drivers' testimony. I would accept 50/50 and learn to give big vehicles the space they command.

Edited by happy polo on 31/07/2013 at 15:28

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Wed 31 Jul 2013 18:59
Stationary and squeezed by a Tfl bus - Bartizan

There was a single lane marked, you attempted to make two. The bus was not indicating either way. The slightly-right positioning could have been to enable a tight left turn without clipping the corner. The lack of a dedicated lane could have caused him to hit you with his rear if he was turning right. The bus driver did not see you as he did not realise someone may position themself there, and was looking at the road ahead.

I've been in a similar position to the bus, where I was in a clearly marked single lane, waiting to turn left but not signalling (in this case due to very slow traffic). Being in a car I saw the person who squeezed up my inside and waited for him to get out of the way. Not exactly the same as it was a multi-lane road, and the other driver was more clearly at fault than you.

However I have to agree that you share some of the blame for this - you came to an incorrect conclusion based on no indication - had he been indicating right, that would have been a different matter. By all means ask the insurer for the missing footage. Your pictures are not relevant to the insurers as with a single lane, the bus would be able to position himself wherever he felt appropriate.

I'm likely going to have 100% liability imposed for an accident that is in my opinion 100% someone else's fault, details not relevant here, but I appreciate your sense of injustice. However given my recent experience, I'd say 50/50 seems pretty fair to me as you have described it.

Just my views and thoughts...

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