After a witness helped me up (another biker!) we found that I had hit a ‘keep out’ sign that had blown off the building site fence and landed face down on the road. It was just my luck that the back of the sign was grey and blended in with the road making it virtually invisible.

Having checked the other signs we found they had only been tucked into the wire fence and not tied on. All that ‘Bob the Builder’ managed to fix on this occasion was me clattering off. Am I stuffed or can I bring a claim? I have a witness who saw everything and loads of photos on my phone.

Answer

This is pretty random and scary. Potentially you have a claim against the builder/contractor etc. who was responsible for the building site and the signs to be installed securely i.e. so they didn’t fall off into the road.

However, as the claimant you are going to have to prove on the balance of probabilities that someone has done something wrong i.e. the signs were not installed properly etc.

If you can’t do that you are going to struggle. Practically, your witness will be very important and I strongly advise make sure you keep a spare copy of the photos in case you lose your phone.

Andrew ‘Chef’ Prendergast

Motorcycle Monthly October 2015