However, I got held up and by the time I was wandering home the sun had long disappeared. I was two turns from home when someone stumbled out of the local pub and into the road. Unfortunately I didn’t see him and knocked him over. Thankfully, he was okay but the impact smashed my fairing.
The police decided not to take any action but said they could have done me for driving without due care and attention for riding with a black tinted visor at night. The cheek of it! If the local yokel hadn’t been drunk I wouldn’t have hit him. Can I make a claim?
Answer
You could bring a claim but you will not win 100% on liability because first and foremost you were riding at night with a black tinted visor only meant for the track.
The court will likely find you were partially to blame as you couldn’t see as well as you could have done with a clear and legal visor. In addition, the court may well find that you, as a rider, should have anticipated that drunken people may be stumbling out of the local pub and you should have been on the lookout.
That may sound harsh but there is a bucket-load of case law on the point and pedestrians often get something with regards to liability even if they appear to have done something stupid.
As an aside, riding with a black tinted visor at night could amount to driving without due care and attention in my view. I say this because your riding did fall ‘below what would be expected of a competent and careful’ rider.
Andrew ‘Chef’ Prendergast
Motorcycle Monthly September 2018
