Cyclist loses claim after bike crash
- 16.11.2015
- JeremySmith
- Personal-injury, Opinion, Personal-injury, Opinion, Personal-injury, Opinion, Personal-injury, Opinion
As a regular cyclist I was sad to read of the case of Mr Joseph Love, a young man who suffered terrible injuries when the tube connecting the front wheel forks to the handlebars of his bike fractured, causing him to lose control of the bike and crash. He landed on his face striking a sharp metal stanchion and suffered very serious head and facial injuries including the loss of one of his eyes.
He had bought the bike new from Halfords nine months previously, and had taken it there for a service six months before the accident. He sued Halfords on the basis that the bike must have been defective when he bought it.
Mr Love denied having been involved in any previous accident on the bike and denied having attempted to carry out any repairs on the bike himself.
The case turned on expert evidence and the crucial evidence came from an expert in metal fractures, who examined the tube with the help of an electron microscope. From carefully studying bulges in the tube he concluded that there had indeed been a prior event in the course of which the tube was damaged by being bent and further damaged by being subjected to a crude and amateur attempt at repair by re-straightening.
Mr Love could do little to challenge this evidence. The judge went on to conclude that Mr Love had probably been riding too fast in an effort to catch his friend who was 100 yards or so ahead, and momentarily lost concentration and hit one of a row of fixed metal stanchions he was riding past. This impact probably caused the tube to fracture and so caused Mr Love’s injuries.
The judge expressed great regret in coming to this conclusion, because of the severity of Mr Love’s injuries.