Driving without due care...or not?

[argggh]

i was in my car, waiting at a busy junction. I'm about to pull out of the junction and into the road but I cannot go anywhere as yet because there is a car in front of me blocking my entrance to the road that i am turning right into. Behind the car blocking me, to my right, is a van. The car in front of my moves forward to clear my path and the van driver flashes to let me out. I edge out carefully and nod to say thankyou to the van driver but at this second a cyclist comes from beside the white van and into my car as i'm pulling out of the sideroad. The cyclist rolled on to my bonnet and off, but not all the way up the bonnet. I've obviously stopped the car and gotten out, tried to help her as best i can with everyone else having stopped and helped her to the side of the road. The white van man moves his van and he advises me to move my car. I move my car to the nearest side road and come back to the scene, where the woman is now sitting on the pavement and an ambulance has been called. I give her my shawl and some other people give her towels and wrap her up to get her warm. She is sitting and talking and there appears to be no serious injury. Police advise me that it may be a case of driving without due care and attention because I was the one pulling out of the side road and so i should have been giving way, even though the white van signalled me out and neither of us saw her. However, the police then said to me that he'd seen the womans bike and that she didn't have any back brakes, which would most probably result in a case of no charges being applied as it may stand to reason that she may not have been able to stop even if she had seen me pulling out of the sideroad. I guess my question would be that, if the police officer advised me that it was probably that there would be no charges and that i'd probably get a letter to that effect, how likely would it be that i'd get a charge of driving without due care?

[voltr4m4x]

Firstly, if the Police, at the time, did not give you verbal warning, then you are required to receive a written Notice of Intended Prosecution within 14 days of the incident. In that event, if no written notice is received you cannot be successfully prosecuted for the offence (if indeed there is one in these circumstances). Obviously, I don't know when the incident occurred, but you need to calculate the 14 days and take it from there.

[Twenty20]

A brief look on the web would seem to indicate that you wouldnt be charged and that the cyclist couldn't claim compensation either as its illegal to ride without a brake on each wheel and riding without would be considered contributory negligence.

Doesnt sound entirely fair as you should be at least partly to blame for not seeing the cyclist.

[argggh]

Yeh, I feel responsible for not seeing her, I do feel terrible about it and I told her to call me if she wants to get my details from the police and told the police that this is ok if she wants them. I told her the very least i could do would be to replace her bike. I don't even mind at the end of the day if i were to get some points or anything, as long as she is ok. I just wondered what a likelyhood would be.

Thank you.

[R1Geezer]

You'll be ok, the old Bill love to scare you with the old Due care game. The main fly in the ointment is that you should never take any notice of people "letting you go" flashing etc. You need to make up your own mind. In this case I'd say if they go with it plead not guilty and they'll go and find someone else to annoy.

[argggh]

Yeh, well, I had a car accident a few years ago and so i always try to drive carefully now and I didn't see her comming at all because the road bends around and so i didn't see her behind the van and the guy in the van didn't see her either. It was one of those split second things. I had my son in my car at the time. I guess at least he's learnt just how careful he needs to be on the roads if nothing else from all this.

[tigwig]

I don't know the answer to your question but it sounds to me like the cyclist was at fault and not you in any way. Surely she should have stopped at the side of the van instead of whizzing past all the stationary traffic?

[argggh]

I have no idea, I think sometimes cyclists think they own the road and the more i've thought about it this past week the more i realise it wasn't really my fault and it probably wasn't really hers either, it was just unfortunate. The police haven't bothered to contact me and no one has told me anything and so i'm guessing she is ok and that there'll be nothing to come from it but it annoys the hell out of me because as the person who hit her i've been worrying about it all week with not so much as a phone call.