However, when I got the bike back I was not happy with the repairs. I told them as much, and also found one of the front brake discs was warped. The bus driver’s insurance company sent down its engineer to examine the disc; he reached the conclusion that this was nothing to do with the bike being knocked over.
We were still arguing about this issue, but as I needed to get to work I brought an old Kawasaki GPZ750. My intention was to get the company to pay for the disc to be sorted. In the meantime, I pushed my R6 to my mate’s garage as I needed to keep the GPZ750 in mine. However, a week later the garage was broken into and my R6 got nicked.
I want the bus driver’s insurer to pay for my R6 as it wouldn’t have been in my mate’s garage if he hadn’t knocked it over and it hadn’t kicked off about the disc. Can I claim? A local solicitor said they would run the case but want £1000 to start off with.
Answer
I am afraid you have no claim. While unfortunate, a court will not find the bus driver’s insurer liable to pay for the theft of your R6. The reason being is that it was not ‘foreseeable’ that post-accident your mate’s garage would be broken into and your bike stolen. In these circumstances, the third-party insurer was only ever liable to pay for the damage caused by the bike being knocked over.
As for your local solicitor, they don’t have a clue. Under no circumstances pay any solicitor to run this case for you; it would be a waste of your hard-earned cash.
Andrew ‘Chef’ Prendergast
