I wasn’t doing anything crazy, and it was a dry day. Thankfully I did not get hit by the car coming from the opposite direction and the police and ambulance turned up super quick and were awesome. It appeared to be just a crazy, freak accident.
However, when my dad and brother picked up my bike from the recovery yard and loaded it onto our trailer, they noticed a weird puncture hole through the exhaust box (on the Tracer, it sits under the engine). Could something have flicked up off the road, got stuck in the exhaust and flipped me off?
The hole wasn’t there a couple of days before the accident, because I gave it a full clean. I even videoed it for my YouTube channel. I even have the accident on video as I had an Insta360 fitted. The possible explanation seems so random.
Even if that is what happened, I don’t see how that helps me bring a claim for my broken arm and being off work.
What say you?
Answer
Bizarrely, I had a chap who fell off in very similar circumstances. You may be able to bring a claim against the Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB). Every time we pay for insurance, some of the money goes into a big pot, which the MIB uses to pay for claims involving untraced and uninsured drivers.
If you can prove on the balance of probabilities that the hole was caused by something from a vehicle that should be insured to drive in the UK, and that in turn caused you to fall off, you may be able to bring a claim under the Untraced Driver’s Agreement.
In the case I dealt with years ago, his dad returned to the scene and found a bit of metal that fitted the hole perfectly through his exhaust. We then instructed a specialist accident reconstruction expert who was able to prove the offending metal object was a piece of leaf spring from a truck, that had caused him to fall off after getting stuck in his exhaust pipe. In that case, we won the case against the MIB for our injured biker client.
My advice is to get back to the scene and see if you can find anything that could have caused the hole and go from there. If you find anything, video everything and then get specialist legal advice with a view to claiming against the MIB.
Andrew Prendergast
Motorcycle Sport & Leisure – October 2025
