Taxi Driver Online

In September 2013 I was involved in a non fault accident.

A guy at 1.00 a.m who was more content on feeding his face and looking at his takeaway as he walked across the road, walked straight into the side of my moving cab. I was doing a right turn on green traffic lights, his pelican crossing was on red for him. He was not paying attention causing me to swerve quite violently in order to miss a head on collision. In fact if I had not taken the action that I did, then I would have taken out his two mates who were acting in a similar vein.

The consequence was that he walked into the side of my vehicle as I had no where else to go (I was practically on the other side of the road), he fell to the ground and was told to stay there by his mates, even though he said he thought he could get up. An ambulance was called taking 15/20 minutes to arrive, all of that time he laid on the road. The ambulance arrived and Lazarus raised himself from the road and walked to the ambulance who took him to hospital, at that stage he had a bloodied nose, so I guess it was to check him out.

The police attended; they breathalysed me (all clear), took a statement from me, and took statements from his mates who sort to lay the blame on me but strangely enough in their statement they said that I had not been speeding, of which I had not. The police were happy in the sense that they did not charge or caution me, and neither did I hear from them again.

I was shaken up by what had happened as it is all very much a flick of a light switch as to how your/my life could have changed. My thoughts were do I go home Or do I get back in the saddle! Anyway I decided to continue my shift, and to check at the hospital as to the condition of the pedestrian, upon finishing my shift. I made my way to the hospital to only find out that he had been discharged some hours ago (nothing really wrong, and eyes from the duty staff to say - someone trying it on).

My next port of call was to the insurance company to report the non fault accident!


This is a very very long story so I am not going to bore the pants off of everyone, so I will list points;

1) Insurance company no longer send you/I an accident report to fill in i.e draw a diagram etc.... they send an Investigator and an Engineer!

2) The Engineer arrives to find no damage to my vehicle or any new paint that covers up damage - all clear on that one.

3) THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.

The Investigator makes an appointment to come to my house. He is friendly, this is just crossing the T's and dotting the I's as it happens all of the time says he, (we are just covering ourselves against a fraudulent claim).

2) The Investigator. He is very friendly/jokey/ almost your mate! However he would like a statement just to get a picture of things! As stated I have done no wrong so I am happy to go along with it. It is very much question led by him, at the time thinking what has this question, or another, got to do with the situation - but going along with it.

His hand writing is appalling, so it is very much stop start on reading back the statement prior to signing, as such it did not flow. If it did flow then I would possibly have picked up on one or two things....and not signed it as I did.

The bottom line was they found what they thought was a flaw in my statement, that might make a partial claim possible by the pedestrian. They decided to put aside something like £5,600.00p against my policy even though they had not suffered any loss, and neither had a claim been submitted by myself or the other party. This lost me that years no claims bonus, plus a deduction of a further 3 years loss (I am gutted). With hindsight/in my opinion the Investigator had deliberately set out to entrap me within the statement in order to "create" a claim......yes...create a claim.

3) The insurance company would not hear my protestations and recommended the Ombudsman if I were not happy.

4) Do not ever believe that the Ombudsman is impartial, as I was in the first instance dismissed (they could see nothing wrong with the company penalising me - even though the company had suffered NO loss whatsoever. I eventually got them to look at the case again, to only find that no matter what evidence I put to them, or what questions they should ask the Insurance company - they on every occasion agreed with the Insurance company

My spat with the Ombudsman went on for around 10/11 months with them saying "Our decision is final - go away".

5) By now I was seething and notified the Insurance company that I was taking them to a small claims court to get my bonus reinstated and my increased ( £460) premium returned. Naturally enough they responded through their solicitor ( not a good feeling as being a taxi driver does not leave one very wealthy), anyway they will see me in court!

I have to submit evidence to the court along with an additional hearing fee + the same documentation to the Insurance company solicitor. In the meantime my insurance has come up for renewal for the second time since the incident leaving me in total £900 out of pocket (Grrrrrrrrr).

6) A happy ending. Around 4 weeks before we are due to go to court, a letter along with a cheque covering my increased premium and a reinstatement of my full no claims bonus arrives through the post......"They wish to settle without prejudice"

The bottom line

1) The Insurance company that you deal with is not your mate....they will turn you over.

2) The Insurance investigator is also NOT your mate.

3) The Ombudsman is not your mate, in my opinion the organisation is there to protect big business - they are there to wear you and I down in order to make you/I go away.

4) This is how an Ombudsman's office works. First of all (although you do not immediately realise it) you in reality are dealing with an "Adjudicator".....when you fail to agree with him many months down the line- then you are actually dealing with an Ombudsman. You then get a letter saying that due to disputed decisions (massive backlog) that it will be up to (wait for it).......... 12 months before you get a decision from the Ombudsman....who then backs up the Adjudicator. The bottom line being is that I was not waiting for that and commenced a legal process.....however they did answer some (I think 6/8 weeks later), by which time I had served the papers.........to say decision final.....My preemption saved me time.

Right here is the rub; In the British legal system....A judge can overrule another judge, a court can overrule another court, a European court can overrule a British court.....are you with me so far - The rub; An Ombudsman cannot overrule another Ombudsman, the bottom line being is there is no transparency, there is no accountability, there are possibly many miscarriages of injustice due to.........just not bothered.......what are you going to do about it from the Ombudsman office?...........They suck, so do not hang your coat or hat on them to help you.

Sorry it was so long winded but there was tons more.

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Common sense........is just not that Common.

Kin ell you were lucky one that one John, I hate insurance companies with a passion.

I stood to lose over 3K in increased premiums in order to get back to where I was.....none of it my fault.

It is my belief that many companies/company employees try to blag their way through a given situation 1) Using company money (not theirs) 2) Hoping that the small man is going to cave in through a solicitor costing too much.

To circumvent that problem as I do not have a bottomless pocket, I have during the past year used the Small Claims Court, and issued the papers on two occasions 1) Our L.A/Council Sol backed down 2) the Insurance company backed down, neither actually getting to the court room. One other in addition - a car company who attempted to renege on my warranty came around to my way of thinking once I made the same offer!! Having said that in all cases it was not willy nilly so to speak.......you do have to have real evidence to back up your case - or you will fall flat on your ar$e

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Common sense........is just not that Common.

Get a Dashboard Crash Cam Video Recorder about £30-40 with a memory card.
It might not show your guy as he was at the side of your vehicle but it would have shown crossing lights on green etc .
must have with all the idiots about.

My reservation on that is that I am not perfect - might it not be used to convict the user?

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Common sense........is just not that Common.

micro sd is easily swallowed in a sticky situation,

or if the camera is discrete just don't mention it

obviously both the above would be completely wrong things to do in the terms of morality and law but look after no 1.


out of interest who was the insurance co?

Cheers.

The company that I had my dispute with is.....QBE European Operations.

Insure Taxi who I do not have a dispute with are the company/brokers who basically create the introduction.

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Common sense........is just not that Common.

I'd like to hear the full story of this John, when you've got some time spare type it all up please.

It usually pays to challenge these things all the way, as people on Pepipoo are always pointing out.

a pal was taking his bus driving test last year, pulling away from a roundabout, a car drives into his hear side. the examiner said it was the car driver's fault as did several witnesses. 8 months down the line my pal's insurers are facing a claim of £23k for whiplash injuries from the car driver...from a sideways swipe caused by him. The car driver's witness says "the 45 seat lorry..." done something or the other. Do I smell cash for crash?

My money would be on that (excuse the pun)