A Motorbike Compensation Claim Story

I was sitting behind a friend, who is quite a good rider. On the few occasions that there is an empty road ahead of us, he tends to pick up speed, but it's always well within his control. We just got the green signal, and being the first at the signal, there was a wide road lying empty. So my friend races away, and a car parked somewhere up front decides this would be a great time to take a full fledged U-turn, right in the middle of the road. My friend swerves to avoid hitting the car, looses balance and the bike falls, gets dragged along a few meters and drags us with it. My friend and I are both wearing jeans, however mine gets torn all the way. Both of us have severe bruising and scratching on our right arms. It was a mercy that there weren’t any large vehicles behind us.

Thankfully, the driver of the other car admitted that he didn't see us coming before he took the turn. This proved to be the most important piece of evidence in our case and my friend said that it would be precious to help us win a claim. I wasn't really thinking of filing a claim or compensation or anything on those lines – it was my first accident, and I was completely freaked. However, my friend insisted that it would make a lot of sense later on, when we would have to pay our medical bills, bike repair charges and for the new helmets.

My friend ensured that the driver maintained his statement even on the police record, and he took the reference number from the officer and also asked to see the driver's license and jotted down his contact details. A few days later, when both of us were in better shape, we went to meet with a solicitor (again, at my friend's insistence). That's when I found out that he had taken all the details previously mentioned. The solicitor told us that we had a good case, and actually praised the fact that my friend had the presence of mind to take the reference number and the driver's contact details. I was worried about having to pay the lawyer, since I hardly had much cash. My friend, however, told me that we could fund the claim through legal aid, now known as the Conditional Fee Agreement or the no win no fee clause.

Inside of four months, we received the claim money and it was enough to reimburse for the medical bills; put my friend's bike through a garage and also buy us new helmets! I was quite surprised and pleased with my friend – I would have never thought of filing for a claim, and would have just gone around with a sullen face after the accident.

The things that really helped us out were the fact that we had a good lawyer, and my friend could furnish him with a lot of evidence. Most importantly he started work on the claim immediately after the accident – that too helped a lot.